Mantis

The mantises or Mantodea are an order of insects that contains over 2,400 species and about 430 genera in 15 families, by far the largest family being the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. They have triangular heads with bulging eyes supported on flexible necks. Their elongated bodies may or may not have wings, but all have fore legs that are greatly enlarged and adapted for catching and gripping prey; their upright posture, while remaining stationary with fore arms folded, has led to the name praying mantises.

They are mostly ambush predators, but a few ground-dwelling species actively pursue their prey. They normally live for about a year; in cooler climates, the adults lay eggs in autumn, and die. The eggs overwinter, protected by their hard capsule, and hatch in the spring. Females sometimes practice sexual cannibalism, eating their mates after copulation, or occasionally decapitating the males just before or during mating.

Mystery!

Mystery! (also written MYSTERY!) is a television anthology series produced by WGBH Boston for PBS in the United States. The series was created as a police/crime drama spin-off to the already established PBS show Masterpiece Theater. From 1980-2006, Mystery! aired mostly British crime series purchased from or co-produced with the BBC or ITV and adapted from British mystery fiction. In 2002, due to pressure to include more American material, a series based on the novels of US mystery writer Tony Hillerman was produced, but the vast majority of Mystery! programming has always been and continues to be British literary adaptations co-produced with UK-based production companies.

In 2008 PBS combined Mystery! with its predecessor Masterpiece Theater under the umbrella title Masterpiece, which includes the sub-brands Masterpiece Classic, Masterpiece Mystery!, and Masterpiece Contemporary.

Edward Gorey, Derek Lamb, and the Mystery! opening sequence

Mystery! is noted for its animated opening and closing title sequences with original drawings created by cartoonist Edward Gorey and animated by Eugene Federenko, Derek Lamb, and Janet Perlman, with music by Normand Roger. A PBS veteran, animator Lamb had also created programming for series like Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and The American Dream Machine.

It's a Mystery (CITV)

It's a Mystery was a networked Children's ITV programme which ran for five series from 1996–2002. It was produced by The Media Merchants Television Company Ltd and Meridian Broadcasting Ltd. In Series five, the show was retitled as Mystery.

Format

It was a programme that educated children by challenging them to solve a mystery. Usually this would involve people telling stories of mysterious occurrences that have happened to them, such as a Man in a Van driving up to a roundabout and seeing his exact duplicate across the roundabout, driving the same vehicle. Other times, the presenter would show unexplained phenomena such as ghosts in the Tower of London or the Loch Ness Monster. The presenter would then offer up possible explanations as to what might have been behind the mystery or if there is even an explanation to give. After each story, it would be given a solved or unsolved designation. At the end of each episode, a riddle would be asked for the audience to solve until the next episode (where the answer would be given).

List of Pee-wee's Playhouse episodes

This is the complete episode list for Pee-wee's Playhouse. A total of 45 half-hour episodes including 1 primetime special were recorded for CBS from 1986 until 1990. Season 3 only had two episodes, plus the primetime Christmas special, due to production being halted by the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike and also by the production of Big Top Pee-wee.

Series overview

Episodes

Season 1 (1986)

Season 2 (1987)

Season 3 (1988)

Season 4 (1989)

Season 5 (1990)

References

External links

Mantis (disambiguation)

Mantis is the common name of any insect in the order Mantodea, also commonly known as praying mantises. The word itself means "prophet" in Latin and Greek (μάντις). This may also refer to:

In biology:

In comics:

In computing:

In games:

Shades of green

Varieties of the color green may differ in hue, chroma (also called saturation or intensity) or lightness (or value, tone, or brightness), or in two or three of these qualities. Variations in value are also called tints and shades, a tint being a green or other hue mixed with white, a shade being mixed with black. A large selection of these various colors is shown below.

Green in nature

Green is common in nature, especially in plants. Many plants are green mainly because of a complex chemical known as chlorophyll which is involved in photosynthesis. Many shades of green have been named after plants or are related to plants. Due to varying ratios of chlorophylls (and different amounts as well as other plant pigments being present), the plant kingdom exhibits many shades of green in both hue (true color) and value (lightness/darkness). The chlorophylls in living plants have distinctive green colors, while dried or cooked portions of plants are different shades of green due to the chlorophyll molecules losing their inner magnesium ion.

K. W. Jeter

Kevin Wayne Jeter (born March 26, 1950), known both personally and professionally as K.W. Jeter, is an American science fiction and horror author known for his literary writing style, dark themes, and paranoid, unsympathetic characters. He has written novels set in the Star Trek and Star Wars universes, and has written three (to date) sequels to Blade Runner.

Biography

Jeter attended college at California State University, Fullerton where he became friends with James P. Blaylock and Tim Powers, and through them, Philip K. Dick. Jeter was actually the inspiration for the character named Kevin in Dick's novel, Valis. Many of Jeter's books focus on the subjective nature of reality in a way that is reminiscent of works by Dick.

Jeter wrote an early Cyberpunk novel, Dr. Adder, which was enthusiastically recommended by Philip K. Dick. Due to its violent and sexually-provocative content, it took Jeter approximately ten years to find a publisher for it. Jeter is also the first to coin the term "Steampunk," in a letter to Locus magazine in April 1987, to describe the retro-technology, alternate-history works that he published along with his friends, Blaylock and Powers. Jeter's Steampunk novels were Morlock Night, Infernal Devices and its sequel Fiendish Schemes (2013).