THE GRAVITY RECOVERY AND INTERIOR LABORATORY

Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of one of her closest friends, Joseph de Ca'th Lon. 

Joseph loves Science and they have talked about The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL), the American lunar science mission in NASA's Discovery Program, whose first probe entered orbit on a day like today in 2011.

The Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) was an American lunar science mission in NASA's Discovery Program which used high-quality gravitational field mapping of the Moon to determine its interior structure.

The two small spacecraft GRAIL A (Ebb) and GRAIL B (Flow) were launched on 10 September 2011 aboard a single launch vehicle: the most-powerful configuration of a Delta II, the 7920H-10.

GRAIL A separated from the rocket about nine minutes after launch, GRAIL B followed about eight minutes later. They arrived at their orbits around the Moon 25 hours apart. The first probe entered orbit on 31 December 2011 and the second followed on 1 January 2012. The two spacecraft impacted the Lunar surface on December 17, 2012.

Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was GRAIL's principal investigator. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory managed the project. NASA budgeted US$496 million for the program to include spacecraft and instrument development, launch, mission operations, and science support.

Upon launch the spacecraft were named GRAIL A and GRAIL B and a contest was opened to school children to select names. Nearly 900 classrooms from 45 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, participated in the contest. The winning names, Ebb and Flow, were suggested by 4th grade students at Emily Dickinson Elementary School in Bozeman, Montana.

More information: Jet Propulsion Laboratory-NASA

Each spacecraft transmitted and received telemetry from the other spacecraft and Earth-based facilities. By measuring the change in distance between the two spacecraft, the gravity field and geological structure of the Moon was obtained. The two spacecraft were able to detect very small changes in the distance between one another. Changes in distance as small as one micrometre were detectable and measurable. The gravitational field of the Moon was mapped in unprecedented detail.

The objectives were:

-Map the structure of the lunar crust and lithosphere

-Understand the asymmetric thermal evolution of the Moon

-Determine the subsurface structure of impact basins and the origin of lunar mascons

-Ascertain the temporal evolution of crustal brecciation and magmatism

-Constrain the deep interior structure of the Moon

-Place limits on the size of the Moon's inner core

The data collection phase of the mission lasted from 7 March 2012 to 29 May 2012, for a total of 88 days. A second phase, at a lower altitude, of data collection began 31 August 2012, and was followed by 12 months of data analysis.

On 5 December 2012, NASA released a gravity map of the Moon made from GRAIL data. The knowledge acquired will aid understanding of the evolutionary history of the terrestrial planets and computations of lunar orbits.

At the end of the science phase and a mission extension, the spacecraft were powered down and decommissioned over a five-day period. The spacecraft impacted the lunar surface on December 17, 2012. Both spacecraft impacted an unnamed lunar mountain between Philolaus and Mouchez at 75.62°N 26.63°W. Ebb, the lead spacecraft in formation, impacted first. Flow impacted moments later. Each spacecraft was traveling at 1.68 km/s.

A final experiment was conducted during the final days of the mission. Main engines aboard the spacecraft were fired, depleting remaining fuel. Data from that effort will be used by mission planners to validate fuel consumption computer models to improve predictions of fuel needs for future missions.

NASA has announced that the crash site will be named after GRAIL collaborator and first American woman in space, Sally Ride.

More information: NASA

Gravity passes through matter. In addition to surface mass, a high-resolution gravity field gives a blurred, but useful, look below the surface. Analyses of the GRAIL data have produced a series of scientific results for the Moon.

The resolution of the gravity field has improved by a large amount over pre-GRAIL results. Early analyses gave the Gravitation of the Moon with fields of degree and order 420 and 660. Subsequent analyses have resulted in higher degree and order fields. Maps of the gravity field were made.

-The crustal density and porosity were determined. The crust was fragmented by large ancient impacts.

-Long narrow linear features were found that are interpreted to be ancient tabular intrusions or dikes formed by magma.

-Combining gravity and Lunar Laser Ranging data gives the 3 principal moments of inertia. The moments indicate that a dense core is small.

-Combining gravity and lunar Topography, 74 circular impact basins were identified. Strong increases in gravity that are associated with circular impact basins are mascons discovered by Muller and Sjogren. The strongest gravity anomalies are from basins filled with dense mare material, but the strong gravity also requires that the boundary between the crust and denser mantle be warped upward. Where the crust is thicker, there may be no mare fill but the crust-mantle boundary is still warped upward.

-The radius, density, and rigidity of interior layers is inferred.

-The Orientale basin is the youngest and best-preserved impact basin on the Moon. The gravity field of this 3-ring basin was mapped at high resolution.

More information: NASA

 Modern science says:
'The sun is the past, the earth is the present,
the moon is the future.'
From an incandescent mass we have originated,
and into a frozen mass we shall turn.
Merciless is the law of nature,
and rapidly and irresistibly we are drawn to our doom.

Nikola Tesla

JOSEPHINE E. BUTLER, THE WOMEN'S EDUCATION RIGHTS

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Josephine Butler, the English feminist and social reformer.

Josephine Elizabeth Butler (née Grey; 13 April 1828-30 December 1906) was an English feminist and social reformer in the Victorian era.

She campaigned for women's suffrage, the right of women to better education, the end of coverture in British law, the abolition of child prostitution, and an end to human trafficking of young women and children into European prostitution.

Josephine Grey was born on 13 April 1828 at Milfield, Northumberland. 

Grey grew up in a well-to-do and politically connected progressive family which helped develop in her a strong social conscience and firmly held religious ideals.

She married George Butler, an Anglican divine and schoolmaster, and the couple had four children, the last of whom, Eva, died falling from a banister. The death was a turning point for Butler, and she focused her feelings on helping others, starting with the inhabitants of a local workhouse. She began to campaign for women's rights in British law.

In 1869 she became involved in the campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts, legislation that attempted to control the spread of venereal diseases -particularly in the British Army and Royal Navy- through the forced medical examination of alleged prostitutes, a process she described as surgical or steel rape. The campaign achieved its final success in 1886 with the repeal of the Acts.

More information: Josephine Butler

Butler also formed the International Abolitionist Federation, a Europe-wide organisation to combat similar systems on the continent.

While investigating the effect of the Acts, Butler had been appalled that some of the prostitutes were as young as 12, and that there was a slave trade of young women and children from England to the continent for the purpose of prostitution.

A campaign to combat the trafficking led to the removal from office of the head of the Belgian Police des Mœurs, and the trial and imprisonment of his deputy and 12 brothel owners, who were all involved in the trade.

Butler fought child prostitution with help from the campaigning editor of The Pall Mall Gazette, William Thomas Stead, who purchased a 13-year-old girl from her mother for £5. The subsequent outcry led to the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 which raised the age of consent from 13 to 16 and brought in measures to stop children becoming prostitutes. Her final campaign was in the late-1890s, against the Contagious Diseases Acts which continued to be implemented in the British Raj.

Butler wrote more than 90 books and pamphlets over the course of her career, most of which were in support of her campaigning, although she also produced biographies of her father, her husband and Catherine of Siena.

Butler's Christian feminism is celebrated by the Church of England with a Lesser Festival, and by representations of her in the stained glass windows of Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral and St Olave's Church in the City of London. 

Her name appears on the Reformers Memorial in Kensal Green Cemetery, London, and Durham University named one of their colleges after her. Her campaign strategies changed the way feminist and suffragists conducted future struggles, and her work brought into the political milieu groups of people that had never been active before. After her death in 1906 the feminist leader Millicent Fawcett hailed her as the most distinguished Englishwoman of the nineteenth century.

On 30 December 1906 she died at home and was buried in the nearby village of Kirknewton.

More information: English Heritage

We read of strong men bowed down with woe,
weeping as women weep,
turning homewards in the hear-sickness of unavailing search,
or with a certainty worse than suspense.

Josephine Butler

GOODBYE TO EDSON ARANTES DO NASCIMENTO, PELÉ

Today, The Grandma has received sad news from Brazil. Edson Arantes do Nascimento, known as Pelé, one of the greatest football players of all time, has passed away.

Edson Arantes do Nascimento (23 October 1940-29 December 2022), known mononymously as Pelé, was a Brazilian professional footballer who played as a forward.

Regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and labelled the greatest by FIFA, he was among the most successful and popular sports figures of the 20th century.

In 1999, he was named Athlete of the Century by the International Olympic Committee and was included in the Time list of the 100 most important people of the 20th century.

In 2000, Pelé was voted World Player of the Century by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) and was one of the two joint winners of the FIFA Player of the Century. His 1,279 goals in 1,363 games, which includes friendlies, is recognised as a Guinness World Record.

Pelé began playing for Santos at age 15 and the Brazil national team at 16. During his international career, he won three FIFA World Cups: 1958, 1962 and 1970, the only player to do so.

He was nicknamed O Rei (The King) following the 1958 tournament. Pelé is the joint-top goalscorer for Brazil with 77 goals in 92 games.

At the club level, he was Santos' all-time top goalscorer with 643 goals in 659 games. In a golden era for Santos, he led the club to the 1962 and 1963 Copa Libertadores, and to the 1962 and 1963 Intercontinental Cup.

Credited with connecting the phrase The Beautiful Game with football, Pelé's electrifying play and penchant for spectacular goals made him a star around the world, and his teams toured internationally to take full advantage of his popularity.

During his playing days, Pelé was for a period the best-paid athlete in the world. After retiring in 1977, Pelé was a worldwide ambassador for football and made many acting and commercial ventures.

In 2010, he was named the honorary president of the New York Cosmos.

Averaging almost a goal per game throughout his career, Pelé was adept at striking the ball with either foot in addition to anticipating his opponents' movements on the field. While predominantly a striker, he could also drop deep and take on a playmaking role, providing assists with his vision and passing ability, and he would also use his dribbling skills to go past opponents.

In Brazil, he was hailed as a national hero for his accomplishments in football and for his outspoken support of policies that improve the social conditions of the poor. His emergence at the 1958 World Cup, where he became the first black global sporting star, was a source of inspiration. Throughout his career and in his retirement, Pelé received numerous individual and team awards for his performance in the field, his record-breaking achievements, and his legacy in the sport.

More information: Football History

Pelé was born Edson Arantes do Nascimento on 23 October 1940 in Três Corações, Minas Gerais, the son of Fluminense footballer Dondinho (born João Ramos do Nascimento) and Celeste Arantes.

In 1956, de Brito took Pelé to Santos, an industrial and port city located near São Paulo, to try out for professional club Santos FC, telling the directors at Santos that the 15-year-old would be the greatest football player in the world.

Pelé impressed Santos coach Lula during his trial at the Estádio Vila Belmiro, and he signed a professional contract with the club in June 1956.

Pelé was highly promoted in the local media as a future superstar. He made his senior team debut on 7 September 1956 at the age of 15 against Corinthians de Santo André and had an impressive performance in a 7-1 victory, scoring the first goal in his prolific career during the match.

When the 1957 season started, Pelé was given a starting place in the first team and, at the age of 16, became the top scorer in the league. Ten months after signing professionally, the teenager was called up to the Brazil national team.

Pelé's first international match was a 2-1 defeat against Argentina on 7 July 1957 at the Maracanã. In that match, he scored his first goal for Brazil aged 16 years and nine months, and he remains the youngest goalscorer for his country.

Pelé has also been known for connecting the phrase The Beautiful Game with football. A prolific goalscorer, he was known for his ability to anticipate opponents in the area and finish off chances with an accurate and powerful shot with either foot.

Pelé was also a hard-working team player, and a complete forward, with exceptional vision and intelligence, who was recognised for his precise passing and ability to link up with teammates and provide them with assists.

In his early career, he played in a variety of attacking positions. Although he usually operated inside the penalty area as a main striker or centre forward, his wide range of skills also allowed him to play in a more withdrawn role, as an inside forward or second striker, or out wide.

Among the most successful and popular sports figures of the 20th century, Pelé is one of the most lauded players in the history of football and has been frequently ranked the best player ever. Following his emergence at the 1958 World Cup he was nicknamed O Rei (The King).

Pelé died on 29 December 2022, at the age of 82.

More information: The New York Times

If I pass away one day,
I am happy because I tried to do my best.
My sport allowed me to do so much
because it's the biggest sport in the world.

Pelé

DENZEL H. WASHINGTON, BLACK POWER IN HOLLYWOOD

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Denzel Washington, the American actor and filmmaker, who was born on a day like today in 1954.

Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. (born December 28, 1954) is an American actor and filmmaker.

He has been described as an actor who reconfigured the concept of classic movie stardom. Throughout his career spanning over four decades, Washington has received numerous accolades, including a Tony Award, two Academy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards and two Silver Bears.

In 2016, he received the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 2020, The New York Times named him the greatest actor of the 21st century.

In 2022, Washington received the Presidential Medal of Freedom bestowed upon him by President Joe Biden.

Washington started his acting career in theatre, acting in performances off-Broadway, including William Shakespeare's Coriolanus in 1979.

He first came to prominence in the medical drama St. Elsewhere (1982–1988). Washington's early film roles included Norman Jewison's A Soldier's Story (1984) and Richard Attenborough's Cry Freedom (1987). For his role as Private Silas Trip in the Civil War drama Glory (1989), he won his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Throughout the 1990s, he established himself as a leading man in such varied films as Spike Lee's biographical film epic Malcolm X (1992), Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare adaptation Much Ado About Nothing (1993), Alan J. Pakula's legal thriller The Pelican Brief (1993), Jonathan Demme's drama Philadelphia (1993), and Norman Jewison's legal drama The Hurricane (1999).

Washington won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as corrupt detective Alonzo Harris in the crime thriller Training Day (2001). Washington has continued acting in diverse roles, such as football coach Herman Boone in Remember the Titans (2000), poet and educator Melvin B. Tolson in The Great Debaters (2007), drug kingpin Frank Lucas in American Gangster (2007) and an airline pilot with an addiction in Flight (2012).

He won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his role in the Broadway revival of the August Wilson play Fences in 2010. Washington later directed, produced, and starred in the film adaptation in 2016, which was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Washington. He also produced the film adaptation of Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020).

His stage credits include appearances in Broadway revivals of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun in 2014, and Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh in 2018. Washington is one of only five male actors to be nominated for an Academy Award in five different decades, alongside Sir Laurence Olivier, Paul Newman, Sir Michael Caine, and Jack Nicholson.

More information: Oprah

Denzel Hayes Washington Jr. was born in Mount Vernon, New York, on December 28, 1954. His mother, Lennis "Lynne", was a beauty parlor owner and operator born in Georgia and partly raised in Harlem, New York. His father, Denzel Hayes Washington Sr., a native of Buckingham County, Virginia, was an ordained Pentecostal minister, who was also an employee of the New York City Water Department, and worked at a local S. Klein department store.

Washington spent the summer of 1976 in St. Mary's City, Maryland, in summer stock theater performing Wings of the Morning, the Maryland State play, which was written for him by incorporating an African-American character/narrator based loosely on the historical figure from early colonial Maryland, Mathias Da Sousa.

Shortly after graduating from Fordham, Washington made his screen acting debut in the 1977 made-for-television film Wilma which was a docudrama about sprinter Wilma Rudolph, and made his first Hollywood appearance in the 1981 film Carbon Copy.

He shared a 1982 Distinguished Ensemble Performance Obie Award for playing Private First Class Melvin Peterson in the Off-Broadway Negro Ensemble Company production A Soldier's Play which premiered November 20, 1981.

On July 1, 2022, the White House announced that Washington would be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

More information: NPR

Where I think the most work needs to be done
 is behind the camera, not in front of it.

Denzel Washington

MARLENE DIETRICH, THE BLUE GERMAN-AMERICAN ANGEL

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Marlene Dietrich, the German and American actress and singer, who was born on a day like today in 1901.

Marie Magdalene "Marlene" Dietrich (27 December 1901-6 May 1992) was a German-American actress and singer whose career spanned from the 1910s to the 1980s.

In 1920s Berlin, Dietrich performed on the stage and in silent films. Her performance as Lola-Lola in Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930) brought her international acclaim and a contract with Paramount Pictures. She starred in many Hollywood films, including six iconic roles directed by Sternberg: Morocco (1930) (her only Academy Award nomination), Dishonored (1931), Shanghai Express and Blonde Venus (both 1932), The Scarlet Empress (1934) and The Devil Is a Woman (1935), Desire (1936) and Destry Rides Again (1939).

She successfully traded on her glamorous persona and exotic looks, and became one of the era's highest-paid actresses. Throughout World War II she was a high-profile entertainer in the United States.

Although she delivered notable performances in several post-war films, including Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair (1948), Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (1950), Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Orson Welles's Touch of Evil (1958) and Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), she spent most of the 1950s to the 1970s touring the world as a marquee live-show performer.

Dietrich was known for her humanitarian efforts during World War II, housing German and French exiles, providing financial support and even advocating their American citizenship. For her work on improving morale on the front lines during the war, she received several honors from the United States, France, Belgium and Israel.

In 1999, the American Film Institute named Dietrich the ninth greatest female screen legend of classic Hollywood cinema.

More information: National Women's History Museum

She was born Marie Magdalene Dietrich, at Leberstraße 65 in the neighborhood of Rote Insel in Schöneberg, now a district of Berlin. Her mother, Wilhelmina Elisabeth Josefine (née Felsing), was from an affluent Berlin family who owned a jewelry and clock-making firm. Her father, Louis Erich Otto Dietrich, was a police lieutenant.

Dietrich had one sibling, Elisabeth, who was one year older. Dietrich's father died in 1907. His best friend, Eduard von Losch, an aristocratic first lieutenant in the Grenadiers, courted Wilhelmina and married her in 1914, but he died in July 1916 from injuries sustained during the First World War. Von Losch never officially adopted the Dietrich sisters, so Dietrich's surname was never von Losch, as has sometimes been claimed.

Dietrich's film debut was a small part in the film The Little Napoleon (1923). She met her future husband, Rudolf Sieber, on the set of Tragedy of Love in 1923. Dietrich and Sieber were married in a civil ceremony in Berlin on 17 May 1923. Her only child, daughter Maria Elisabeth Sieber, was born on 13 December 1924.

In 1929, Dietrich landed her breakthrough role of Lola Lola, a cabaret singer who caused the downfall of a hitherto respectable schoolmaster (played by Emil Jannings), in the UFA production of The Blue Angel (1930), shot at Babelsberg film studios. Josef von Sternberg directed the film and thereafter took credit for having discovered Dietrich. The film introduced Dietrich's signature song Falling in Love Again, which she recorded for Electrola. She made further recordings in the 1930s for Polydor and Decca Records.

On 6 May 1992, Dietrich died of kidney failure at her flat in Paris at age 90. Her funeral was a requiem mass conducted at the Roman Catholic church of La Madeleine in Paris on 14 May 1992.

More information: The German Way & More

When you're dead, you're dead. That's it.

Marlene Dietrich

CANNELLONI, SAINT STEPHEN'S DAY IN CATALAN CUISINE

Today, The Grandma has been cooking a typical Catalan dish on Saint Stephen's Day, cannelloni.

Cannelloni (Italian for large reeds)  are a cylindrical type of lasagna generally served baked with a filling and covered by a sauce in Italian cuisine. Popular stuffings include spinach and ricotta or minced beef. The shells are then typically covered with tomato sauce.

Cannelloni are also a typical dish of the Catalan cuisine, where they are called canelons and traditionally consumed on Saint Stephen's Day.

Early references to macheroni ripieni (stuffed pasta) can be traced back to 1770, but the word cannelloni seems to have appeared at the turn of the 20th century.

Manicotti are the American version of cannelloni, though the term may often refer to the actual baked dish. The original difference may be that cannelloni consists of pasta sheets wrapped around the filling, and manicotti is machine-extruded cylinders filled from one end.

More information: TUMN

Catalan cuisine is the cuisine from Catalonia. It may also refer to the shared cuisine of Northern Catalonia and Andorra, the second of which has a similar cuisine to that of the neighbouring Alt Urgell and Cerdanya comarques and which is often referred to as Catalan mountain cuisine. It is considered a part of western Mediterranean cuisine.

There are several Catalan language cookbooks from the Middle Ages that are known to modern scholars. The Llibre de Coch  (1520) was one of the most influential cookbooks of Renaissance.

It includes several sauce recipes made with ingredients such as ginger, mace powder (flor de macis), cinnamon, saffron, cloves (clauells de girofle), wine and honey.

Salsa de pagó took its name from the peacock, in Catalan el paó, that it was intended to be served with, but could accompany any type of poultry, and was part of the medieval Christmas meal.

Salsa mirraust (or mirausto alla catalana as it's called in the Cuoco Napoletano) was half-roasted (mi-raust) poultry that was finished in a salsa thickened with egg yolks, toasted almonds and breadcrumbs. In the version of the recipe from the 14th-century Llibre de Sent Soví, the sauce is thickened with mashed poultry liver instead of egg yolks.

Hippocras (pimentes de clareya) was spiced wine made with cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, honey and wine pressed through a manega, a pastry bag shaped cloth that was originally designed by Hippocrates to filter water.

Catalan cuisine relies heavily on ingredients popular along the Mediterranean coast, including fresh vegetables (especially tomato, garlic, eggplant (aubergine), capsicum, and artichoke), wheat products (bread, pasta), Arbequina olive oils, wines, legumes (beans, chickpeas), mushrooms (particularly wild mushrooms), nuts (pine nuts, hazelnuts and almonds), all sorts of pork preparations (sausage from Vic, ham), sheep and goats' cheese, poultry, lamb, many types of fish like sardine, anchovy, tuna, and cod  and other seafood like prawns, squid, sea snails and sea urchins.

Traditional Catalan cuisine is quite diverse, ranging from pork-intensive dishes cooked in the inland part of the region (Catalonia is one of the main producers of swine products in Europe) to fish-based recipes along the coast.

These meat and seafood elements are frequently fused together in the Catalan version of surf and turf, known as mar i muntanya. Examples include chicken with lobster (pollastre amb llagosta), chicken with crayfish (pollastre amb escarmalans), rice with meat and seafood (arròs mar i muntanya) and cuttlefish with meatballs (sipia amb mandonguilles).

More information: The Culture Trip

The cuisine includes many preparations that mix sweet and savoury and stews with sauces based upon botifarra (pork sausage) and the characteristic picada (ground almonds, hazelnuts, and pine nuts sometimes with garlic, herbs, biscuits).

Some of the most popular dishes are:

-Catalan-style cod (with raisins and pine nuts).

-Escalivada (various grilled vegetables).

-Escudella (a stew, it may be served as soup with pasta and minced meats and vegetables, or as the soup first and then the rest).

-Fricandó.

-Ollada (meat and vegetable stew).

-Esqueixada (salted cod salad with tomato and onion).

-Mongetes amb botifarra (beans and pork sausage).

-Pa amb tomàquet (bread smeared with tomato and oil, and sometimes garlic).

-Tonyina en escabetx (tuna escabeche).

-Suquet (a seafood casserole).

-Savoury coca.

-Mar i muntanya (Sea and Mountain) dishes, which combine meat and seafood.

-Embotits, a generic name for different kinds of cured pork meat, including fuet (a characteristic type of dried sausage), llonganissa (salami) and different kinds of cold cut botifarra.

-Calçot (specially cultivated onion, grilled and served as a Calçotada).

-Caragols a la llauna (cooked snails).

-Sonsos (Gymnammodytes cicerelus, also known as Mediterranean sand eel, sonso in Catalan, and barrinaire or enfú in Menorca, is a fish in the family Ammodytidae. It is the only species of this family in the Mediterranean Sea.

-Allioli, a thick sauce made of garlic and olive oil, used with grilled meats or vegetables, and some dishes. Allioli means garlic (all) and (i) oil (oli) in Catalan.

-Samfaina, also called tomacat or pebrots amb tomàquet. It is a variety of Occitan ratatouille or Spanish pisto.

-Romesco or Salvitxada (made from almonds, hazelnuts, garlic, bread, vinegar, tomatoes, olive oil and dried red peppers) from Valls.

-Xató, a variety of Salvitxada without tomatoes.

-Crema catalana, the famous yellow cream made with egg yolk, milk and sugar, whose denseness is between a crème pâtissière or natillas and a flan; used to stuff a great amount of pastries, or to make simple desserts with, for example, fruit, and that is also eaten in a small flat pottery plate, after covering the cream with white crystal sugar and burning it, in order to create a layer of solid sugar that has to be broken with a small spoon before reaching the cream.

-Mató de Pedralbes or mató de monja is another kind of Catalan cream, similar to crema catalana, originating in Barcelona.

-Menjablanc or menjar blanc, typical of Reus but eaten all over Catalonia, is a kind of white cream made with almonds, from which a sort of milk is first obtained, followed by a cream to be eaten with a small spoon.

-Peres de Lleida is a typical dessert originated in Lleida composed of peeled pears cooked in a kind of lighter crema catalana and served cold, covered by meringue and decorated with cherries.

-Xuixos are fried pastries created in Girona and stuffed with crema catalana.

-Mel i mató, a dessert of mató cheese with honey.

-Pastissets, or casquetes, de cabell d'àngel are sweet half-circle shaped pastries stuffed with cabell d'àngel (a sort of marrow jam) and covered with white crystal sugar which are eaten at coffee time.

-Carquinyolis are little crunchy almond biscuits often eaten at coffee time.

-Catànies are Catalan marcona almonds covered with white chocolate and powdered black chocolate to be eaten with coffee.

-Pets de monja are small nipple-shaped and -sized biscuits also eaten at coffee time. At first they were called pits de monja (nuns' nipples) but time has changed their name to the current pets de monja (nuns' farts).

-Sweet coques were at first eaten only on holidays. Catalans have at least one type of traditional coca for each holiday and feast day of the year.

-Orelletes are thin fried pastries covered with sugar and eaten during Carnival.

-Sweet bunyols as bunyols de vent, bunyols stuffed with crema catalana or bunyols de l'Empordà are typically done and eaten on Wednesdays and Fridays during Lent.

-Mona de Pasqua is a pastry richly covered with almonds, yolk jam, chocolate eggs (or, currently, large chocolate sculptures) and coloured decoration that the godfather and godmother give as a present every year to their godchildren on Easter (Pasqua). It is an ancient pre-Christian tradition which marked the passage from childhood to the adult world. At first, it has one egg for each year of the children's age, and continuing to add one egg each year until twelve, as at thirteen they are no longer considered children.

-Panellets are small pastries made of pine nuts, almonds and sugar with different shapes and flavors, eaten during la Castanyada, which Catalans celebrate on 1 November instead of Halloween. Their origin is Jewish, before the Middle Ages, but the tradition of castanyada is much older.

-Tortell, also called torta or roscó in Northern and Southern dialects. It is round, it can be made of puff pastry or a mixture similar to lioneses and palos, and stuffed with trufa (a mixture of cacao, chocolate and cream) or with crema catalana. It is typically bought and eaten after Sunday's lunch, in family or with friends. A common alternative is called the braç de gitano (Gypsy's arm), that in Catalonia is always covered with yolk jam. A specific tortell is in fact a special coca that Catalans only eat on the Day of the Three Kings (6 January) which is called tortell de reis (or galeta de reis in Northern Catalonia) a typical ring-shaped pastry stuffed with marzipan or Catalan cream (crema catalana) and topped with glazed fruit and nuts.

-Torró, a Christmas sweet made with almonds with DAO of Agramunt (Lleida).

-Neules are also eaten on Christmas in Catalonia. They are dipped in cava (Catalan champagne). They have the same origin as waffles and Belgian Goffres.

There are 11 Catalan wine-growing regions qualified by the INCAVI (The Catalan Institute of Wine): Priorat, Penedès, Catalunya, Costers del Segre, Conca de Barberà, Montsant, Alella, Tarragona, Empordà, Pla del Bages and Terra Alta.

The sparkling wine cava, made mainly in the Penedès and Anoia regions, is the Catalan equivalent to champagne. It is widely exported.

Moscatell (Empordà), is a sweet Catalan wine which have similar varieties in other countries such as France, Italy, Portugal, Albania, Slovenia, Greece, Romania and Turkey. However, Catalan moscatell is thicker than French muscat and is not drunk before the meal (aperitiu) but after it, either with or after dessert.

More information: Taste Atlas

The cuisine of a country is its landscape put in a pot.

 

Josep Pla

THE JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE IS LAUNCHED IN 2021

Today, The Grandma has received the wonderful visit of one of her closest friends, Joseph de Ca'th Lon. 

Joseph loves Science and Astronomy, and they have been talking about the James Webb Space Telescope, that was launched on a day like today in 2021.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope which conducts infrared astronomy. As the largest optical telescope in space, its high resolution and sensitivity allow it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope.

This will enable investigations across many fields of astronomy and cosmology, such as observation of the first stars, the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) led JWST's design and development and partnered with two main agencies: the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Maryland managed telescope development, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore on the Homewood Campus of Johns Hopkins University operates JWST, and the prime contractor was Northrop Grumman.

The telescope is named after James E. Webb, who was the administrator of NASA from 1961 to 1968 during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on 25 December 2021 on an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, and arrived at the Sun–Earth L2 Lagrange point in January 2022. The first JWST image was released to the public via a press conference on 11 July 2022.

More information: James Webb Space Telescope

JWST's primary mirror consists of 18 hexagonal mirror segments made of gold-plated beryllium, which combined create a 6.5-meter-diameter mirror, compared with Hubble's 2.4 m. This gives JWST a light-collecting area of about 25 square meters, about six times that of Hubble. Unlike Hubble, which observes in the near ultraviolet and visible (0.1 to 0.8 μm), and near infrared (0.8–2.5 μm) spectra, JWST observes in a lower frequency range, from long-wavelength visible light (red) through mid-infrared (0.6–28.3 μm).

The telescope must be kept extremely cold, below 50 K (−223 °C; −370 °F), such that the infrared light emitted by the telescope itself does not interfere with the collected light. It is deployed in a solar orbit near the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, where its five-layer sunshield protects it from warming by the Sun, Earth, and Moon.

Initial designs for the telescope, then named the Next Generation Space Telescope, began in 1996. Two concept studies were commissioned in 1999, for a potential launch in 2007 and a US$1 billion budget.

The program was plagued with enormous cost overruns and delays; a major redesign in 2005 led to the current approach, with construction completed in 2016 at a total cost of US$10 billion. The high-stakes nature of the launch and the telescope's complexity were remarked upon by the media, scientists, and engineers.

The James Webb Space Telescope has a mass that is about half of Hubble Space Telescope's mass. The JWST has a 6.5-meter-diameter gold-coated beryllium primary mirror made up of 18 separate hexagonal mirrors.

The mirror has a polished area of 26.3 m2, of which 0.9 m2 is obscured by the secondary support struts, giving a total collecting area of 25.4 m2. This is over six times larger than the collecting area of Hubble's 2.4-meter diameter mirror, which has a collecting area of 4.0 m2. The mirror has a gold coating to provide infrared reflectivity and this is covered by a thin layer of glass for durability.

JWST is designed primarily for near-infrared astronomy, but can also see orange and red visible light, as well as the mid-infrared region, depending on the instrument.

More information: Webb Telescope

The design emphasizes the near to mid-infrared for several reasons:

-High-redshift (very early and distant) objects have their visible emissions shifted into the infrared, and therefore their light can be observed today only via infrared astronomy;

-Infrared light passes more easily through dust clouds than visible light;

-Colder objects such as debris disks and planets emit most strongly in the infrared;

-These infrared bands are difficult to study from the ground or by existing space telescopes such as Hubble.

NASA, ESA and CSA have collaborated on the telescope since 1996. ESA's participation in construction and launch was approved by its members in 2003 and an agreement was signed between ESA and NASA in 2007.

In exchange for full partnership, representation and access to the observatory for its astronomers, ESA is providing the NIRSpec instrument, the Optical Bench Assembly of the MIRI instrument, an Ariane 5 ECA launcher, and manpower to support operations.

The CSA provided the Fine Guidance Sensor and the Near-Infrared Imager Slitless Spectrograph and manpower to support operations.

Several thousand scientists, engineers, and technicians spanning 15 countries have contributed to the build, test and integration of the JWST.

A total of 258 companies, government agencies, and academic institutions participated in the pre-launch project; 142 from the United States, 104 from 12 European countries (including 21 from the U.K., 16 from France, 12 from Germany and 7 international), and 12 from Canada. Other countries as NASA partners, such as Australia, were involved in post-launch operation.

More information: NASA

The James Webb Space Telescope 

was specifically designed to see
the first stars and galaxies 

that were formed in the universe.

John M. Grunsfeld

1871, THE OPERA 'AIDA' PREMIERES IN CAIRO (EGYPT)

Today, The Grandma has been watching Aïda, the opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, that was premiered in Cairo, Egypt, on a day like today in 1871.

Aida or Aïda is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. 

Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini.

Today the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world; at New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, Aida has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886.

Ghislanzoni's scheme follows a scenario often attributed to the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, but Verdi biographer Mary Jane Phillips-Matz argues that the source is actually Temistocle Solera.

Isma'il Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, commissioned Verdi to write an opera to celebrate the opening of the Suez Canal, but Verdi declined. However, Auguste Mariette, a French Egyptologist, proposed to Khedive Pasha a plot for a celebratory opera set in ancient Egypt. Khedive Pasha referred Mariette to theatre manager Camille du Locle, who sent Mariette's story idea to Verdi. Eventually, Verdi agreed to compose an opera based on that story, for 150,000 francs.

Because the scenery and costumes were stuck in the French capital during the Siege of Paris (1870-71) of the ongoing Franco-Prussian War, the premiere was delayed and Verdi's Rigoletto was performed instead.  

The first opera performed at the Khedivial Opera House, Aida eventually premiered in Cairo on Christmas Eve of 1871.

Verdi originally chose to write a brief orchestral prelude instead of a full overture for the opera. He then composed an overture of the potpourri variety to replace the original prelude. However, in the end he decided not to have the overture performed because of its -his own words- pretentious silliness. This overture, never used today, was given a rare broadcast performance by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony Orchestra on 30 March 1940, but was never commercially issued.

More information: English National Opera

Aida met with great acclaim when it finally opened in Cairo on 24 December 1871. 

The costumes and accessories for the première were designed by Auguste Mariette, who also oversaw the design and construction of the sets, which were made in Paris by the Opéra's scene painters Auguste-Alfred Rubé and Philippe Chaperon (acts 1 and 4) and Édouard Desplechin and Jean-Baptiste Lavastre (acts 2 and 3), and shipped to Cairo.

Although Verdi did not attend the premiere in Cairo, he was most dissatisfied with the fact that the audience consisted of invited dignitaries, politicians and critics, but no members of the general public. He therefore considered the Italian (and European) première, held at La Scala, Milan on 8 February 1872, and a performance in which he was heavily involved at every stage, to be its real première.

Verdi had also written the role of Aida for the voice of Teresa Stolz, who sang it for the first time at the Milan première.

Verdi had asked her fiancé, Angelo Mariani, to conduct the Cairo première, but he declined, so Giovanni Bottesini filled the gap. The Milan Amneris, Maria Waldmann, was his favourite in the role and she repeated it a number of times at his request.

Aida was received with great enthusiasm at its Milan première. The opera was soon mounted at major opera houses throughout Italy, including the Teatro Regio di Parma (20 April 1872), the Teatro di San Carlo (30 March 1873), La Fenice (11 June 1873), the Teatro Regio di Torino (26 December 1874), the Teatro Comunale di Bologna (30 September 1877, with Giuseppina Pasqua as Amneris and Franco Novara as the King), and the Teatro Costanzi (8 October 1881, with Theresia Singer as Aida and Giulia Novelli as Amneris) among others.

3 flutes (3rd also piccolo), 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, cimbasso, timpani, triangle, bass drum, cymbals, tam-tam, harp, strings; on-stage banda: 6 Egyptian trumpets ("Aida trumpets"), military band, harp.

The libretto does not specify a precise time period, so it is difficult to place the opera more specifically than the Old Kingdom. For the first production, Mariette went to great efforts to make the sets and costumes authentic.

Considering the consistent artistic styles throughout the 3000-year history of ancient Egypt, a given production does not particularly need to choose a specific time period within the larger frame of ancient Egyptian history.

More information: Opera Arias

Opera is the ultimate art form.
It has singing and music and drama 

and dance and emotion and story.

Diane Paulus

1955, VÄINÖ LINNA'S THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER PREMIERE

Today, The Grandma has been reading a masterpiece, The Unknown Soldier, written by the Finnish author Väinö Linna, whose first film adaptation was premiered on a day like today in 1955.

Väinö Linna (20 December 1920-21 April 1992) was a Finnish author. He gained literary fame with his third novel, Tuntematon sotilas (The Unknown Soldier, published in 1954), and consolidated his position with the trilogy Täällä Pohjantähden alla (Under the North Star, published in 1959-1963 and translated into English by Richard Impola).

Both have been adapted to a film format on several occasions; The Unknown Soldier was first adapted into a film in 1955 and Under the North Star in 1968 as Here, Beneath the North Star, both directed by Edvin Laine.

Väinö Linna was born in Urjala in the Pirkanmaa region. He was the seventh child of Viktor (Vihtori) Linna (1874-1928) and Johanna Maria (Maija) Linna (1888-1972).

In 1940, Linna was conscripted into the army. The Second World War had broken out, and for Linna's part it meant participation in the Continuation War (1941-44). He fought on the eastern front.

In addition to being a squad-leader, he wrote notes and observations about his and his unit's experiences. Already at this point Linna knew that writing would be his preferred occupation. However, failure to get the notes published led him to burn them. In spite of rejection, the idea of a novel, which would depict ordinary soldiers' views on war, would later lead him to write The Unknown Soldier.

After the war, Linna got married and started writing while working at the mills during the day. Throughout his time at Finlayson, Väinö Linna read avidly. Such authors as Schopenhauer, Dostoyevsky, and Nietzsche gained Linna's respect.

Linna later said that Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front had also had a great influence on him. However, Linna's first two novels Päämäärä and Musta rakkaus sold poorly; he also wrote poetry but did not enjoy success with that either. Not until the release of The Unknown Soldier (1954) did he rise to fame. It is evident that at the time there was a distinct social need for a novel that would deal with the war and ordinary people's role in it.

More information: Books from Finland

A decade after the peace treaty with the Soviet Union many Finns were ready to reminisce, some even in a critical manner. The Unknown Soldier satisfied that need completely, as its characters were unarguably more diverse, realistic yet heroic, than those of earlier Finnish war novels. The book soon became something of a best-seller, as it sold 175,000 copies in only six months -quite a lot for a Finnish novel in the 1950s.

Early on, the reception of the book was harsh. In Finland's biggest newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, the critic Toini Havu argued in her review that Linna did not present his characters in a grand historical and ethical context, which she thought was crucial. Also modernists treated The Unknown Soldier with contempt. At the time Tuomas Anhava referred to The Unknown Soldier as a boy's book because of its action-packed storyline. Acceptance by the general public was enough to counter the negative criticism in the end. The novel is now considered both a classic in Finnish literature and a part of the national legacy.

In the mid-1950s, he moved to Hämeenkyrö and began to cultivate crops. In 1959, the first part of Under the North Star was released. The book was a success and other parts were to follow. The second part was published in 1960 and the final part in 1963. The third part of the novel was honoured with the Nordic Council's Literature Prize.

In 1964, Linna sold the farm and moved back to Tampere. This time he did not return to Finlayson, as he now could dedicate his life entirely to literature due to the financial success his works had earned him. He was given the honorary title of Academician in 1980, despite the fact that he had no higher education.

In 1984, Väinö Linna had a stroke, which caused him to lose the ability to speak. After some time he contracted cancer, which tired him out, leading to his death on 21 April 1992.

More information: Alternative Finland

 The younger troops assumed their ranks.
There they stood, bumbling into lines
with a bit of difficulty: Mother Finland's
chosen sacrifice to world history.

Väinö Linna

RALPH NATHANIEL FIENNES, SHAKESPEARE INTERPRETER

Today, The Grandma has been reading about Ralph Fiennes, the English actor, film producer, and director, who was born on a day like today in 1962.

Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes (22 December 1962) is an English actor, film producer, and director.

A Shakespeare interpreter, he excelled onstage at the Royal National Theatre before having further success at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has received various accolades including a British Academy Film Award and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and an Emmy Award.

He made his film debut playing Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1992). His portrayal of Nazi war criminal Amon Göth in the Steven Spielberg drama Schindler's List (1993) earned him nominations for the Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, and he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. His performance as Count Almásy in The English Patient (1996) garnered him a second Academy Award nomination, this time for Best Actor, as well as BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations.

Fiennes has appeared in a number of other notable films, including Quiz Show (1994), The End of the Affair (1999), Maid in Manhattan (2002), The Constant Gardener (2005), In Bruges (2008), The Duchess (2008), The Reader (2008), The Hurt Locker (2009), Clash of the Titans (2010), Great Expectations (2012), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), A Bigger Splash (2015), Hail, Caesar! (2016), The King's Man (2021), and The Menu (2022).

He lent his voice to the films The Prince of Egypt (1998), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) and The Lego Batman Movie (2017). Fiennes starred in the Harry Potter film series (2005–2011) as the main antagonist Lord Voldemort.

In the James Bond series he has played Gareth Mallory/M, the head of MI6, in Skyfall (2012), Spectre (2015) and No Time to Die (2021).

In 2011, Fiennes made his directorial debut with his film adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy Coriolanus, in which he also played the titular character. He followed this with The Invisible Woman (2013) where he portrayed Charles Dickens.

In 1995, he won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for playing Prince Hamlet on Broadway. Since 1999, Fiennes has served as an ambassador for UNICEF UK. Fiennes is also an Honorary Associate of London Film School.

In 2018, he received the Special Achievement Award for Outstanding Artistic Contribution at the Tokyo International Film Festival for directing the film The White Crow. For his work behind the camera, in 2019 he received the Stanislavsky Award.

More information: The Talks

Fiennes was born in Ipswich, England on 22 December 1962. Fiennes is the eldest child of Mark Fiennes (1933-2004), a farmer and photographer, and Jennifer Lash (1938-1993), a writer. He has English, Irish and Scottish ancestry. His surname is of Norman origin.

The Fiennes family moved to Ireland in 1973, living in County Cork and County Kilkenny for some years. Fiennes was educated at St Kieran's College for one year, followed by Newtown School, a Quaker independent school in County Waterford. They moved to Salisbury in England, where Fiennes finished his schooling at Bishop Wordsworth's School. He went on to pursue painting at Chelsea College of Arts before deciding that acting was his true passion.

Fiennes trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art between 1983 and 1985. He began his career at the Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park, and also at the National Theatre before achieving prominence at the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC).

Fiennes first worked on screen in 1990 and made his film debut in 1992 as Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights opposite Juliette Binoche.

Fiennes is a UNICEF UK ambassador and has undertaken work in India, Kyrgyzstan, Uganda, and Romania.

Fiennes is also a member of the Canadian charity Artists Against Racism.

More information: The New York Times

As an actor, there's a bit of you
that's decided you want to be looked at and watched,
but there's a paradoxical bit
that wants to run away.

Ralph Fiennes

BEGUES, TAKING CARE OF ENVIRONMENT & PEOPLE

Today, The Grandma has finished her formation with Sara in Begues.

 

It has been a great pleasure meeting this wonderful woman, and learning a lot from her.

 

They have been talking about taking care and protecting nature, specially its flora and fauna.

Good luck, Sara, and see you soon!

The wild boar (Sus scrofa), also known as the wild swine, common wild pig, Eurasian wild pig, or simply wild pig, is a suid native to much of Eurasia and North Africa, and has been introduced to the Americas and Oceania.

The species is now one of the widest-ranging mammals in the world, as well as the most widespread suiform. It has been assessed as least concern on the IUCN Red List due to its wide range, high numbers, and adaptability to a diversity of habitats.

It has become an invasive species in part of its introduced range. Wild boars probably originated in Southeast Asia during the Early Pleistocene and outcompeted other suid species as they spread throughout the Old World.

As of 2005, up to 16 subspecies are recognized, which are divided into four regional groupings based on skull height and lacrimal bone length.

The species lives in matriarchal societies consisting of interrelated females and their young, both male and female. Fully grown males are usually solitary outside the breeding season. The wolf is the wild boar's main predator in most of its natural range except in the Far East and the Lesser Sunda Islands, where it is replaced by the tiger and Komodo dragon respectively.

The wild boar has a long history of association with humans, having been the ancestor of most domestic pig breeds and a big-game animal for millennia. Boars have also re-hybridized in recent decades with feral pigs; these boar-pig hybrids have become a serious pest wild animal in the Americas and Australia.

More information: AZ Animals

As true wild boars became extinct in Great Britain before the development of Modern English, the same terms are often used for both true wild boar and pigs, especially large or semi-wild ones. The English boar stems from the Old English bar, which is thought to be derived from the West Germanic bairaz, of unknown origin.

Boar is sometimes used specifically to refer to males, and may also be used to refer to male domesticated pigs, especially breeding males that have not been castrated.

Sow, the traditional name for a female, again comes from Old English and Germanic; it stems from Proto-Indo-European, and is related to the Latin: sus and Greek hus, and more closely to the New High German Sau. The young may be called piglets or boarlets.

The animals' specific name scrofa is Latin for sow.

With the exception of domestic pigs in Timor and Papua New Guinea, which appear to be of Sulawesi warty pig stock, the wild boar is the ancestor of most pig breeds.

Archaeological evidence suggests that pigs were domesticated from wild boar as early as 13,000-12,700 BCE in the Near East in the Tigris Basin, being managed in the wild in a way similar to the way they are managed by some modern New Guineans. 

Remains of pigs have been dated to earlier than 11,400 BCE in Cyprus. Those animals must have been introduced from the mainland, which suggests domestication in the adjacent mainland by then. There was also a separate domestication in China, which took place about 8,000 years ago.

DNA evidence from sub-fossil remains of teeth and jawbones of Neolithic pigs shows that the first domestic pigs in Europe had been brought from the Near East. This stimulated the domestication of local European wild boars, resulting in a third domestication event with the Near Eastern genes dying out in European pig stock. Modern domesticated pigs have involved complex exchanges, with European domesticated lines being exported in turn to the ancient Near East.

More information: Animalia

Historical records indicate that Asian pigs were introduced into Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Domestic pigs tend to have much more developed hindquarters than their wild boar ancestors, to the point where 70% of their body weight is concentrated in the posterior, which is the opposite of wild boar, where most of the muscles are concentrated on the head and shoulders.

The wild boar is a bulky, massively built suid with short and relatively thin legs. The trunk is short and robust, while the hindquarters are comparatively underdeveloped. The region behind the shoulder blades rises into a hump and the neck is short and thick to the point of being nearly immobile. The animal's head is very large, taking up to one-third of the body's entire length.

The wild boar produces a number of different sounds which are divided into three categories:

-Contact calls. Grunting noises which differ in intensity according to the situation. Adult males are usually silent, while females frequently grunt and piglets whine. When feeding, boars express their contentment through purring. Studies have shown that piglets imitate the sounds of their mother, thus different litters may have unique vocalisations.

-Alarm calls. Warning cries emitted in response to threats. When frightened, boars make loud huffing ukh! ukh! sounds or emit screeches transcribed as gu-gu-gu.

-Combat calls. High-pitched, piercing cries.

Its sense of smell is very well developed to the point that the animal is used for drug detection in Germany. Its hearing is also acute, though its eyesight is comparatively weak, lacking color vision and being unable to recognise a standing human 10–15 metres away.

More information: Animal Corner

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig.
You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

George Bernard Shaw