9 Things I Know Nothing About

Neurosurgery is the surgery discipline focused on treating the central nervous system, peripheral nervous systems and spinal column diseases amenable to surgical intervention.

Neurosurgery generally has the longest training period of all the medical specialties; the neurosurgeon (at least in America) must complete the eight years of pre-medical and medical education, a one year-long surgical internship (where this is not a part of the residency), and five to seven years of neurosurgery residency. Many neurosurgeons pursue an additional one to three years of training in a subspecialty fellowship (like pediatric neurosurgery, epilepsy, tremor, or stroke ("functional") neurosurgery, microneurosurgery, endovascular or open vascular neurosurgery, or neuro-oncological surgery).

A hedge fund is an investment fund open to a limited range of investors that undertakes a wider range of investment and trading activities than long-only investment funds, and that, in general, pays a performance fee to its investment manager. Every hedge fund has its own investment strategy that determines the type of investments and the methods of investment it undertakes. Hedge funds, as a class, invest in a broad range of investments including shares, debt and commodities.

As the name implies, hedge funds often seek to hedge some of the risks inherent in their investments using a variety of methods, most notably short selling and derivatives. However, the term "hedge fund" has also come to be applied to certain funds that do not hedge their investments, and in particular to funds using short selling and other "hedging" methods to increase rather than reduce risk, with the expectation of increasing the return on their investment.

Hedge funds are typically open only to a limited range of professional or wealthy investors. This provides them with an exemption in many jurisdictions from regulations governing short selling, derivatives, leverage, fee structures and the liquidity of interests in the fund. This, along with the performance fee and the fund's open-ended structure, differentiates a hedge fund from an ordinary investment fund.

The net asset value of a hedge fund can run into many billions of dollars, and the gross assets of the fund will usually be higher still due to leverage. Hedge funds dominate certain specialty markets such as trading within derivatives with high-yield ratings and distressed debt.Durbin Hunter

Category: File - :GiottoArezzo.jpg|right|thumb|200px|Saint Francis exorcised demons in Arezzo, in a depiction on a fresco by Giotto.

Exorcism (from Late Latin exorcismus, from Greek exorkizein - to abjure) is the practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed. The practice is quite ancient and part of the belief system of many cultures.

In Christian practice the person performing the exorcism, known as an exorcist, is often a member of the church, or an individual thought to be graced with special powers or skills. The exorcist may use prayers, and religious material, such as set formulas, gestures, symbols, icons, amulets, etc. The exorcist often invokes God, Jesus and/or several different angels and archangels to intervene with the exorcism. Exorcism is primarily associated with the Catholic Church, although non-Catholic Christians also claim to perform exorcisms.

In general, possessed persons are not regarded as evil in themselves, nor wholly responsible for their actions. Therefore, practitioners regard exorcism as more of a cure than a punishment. The mainstream rituals usually take this into account, making sure that there is no violence to the possessed, only that they be tied down if there is potential for violence.Malachi M. (1976) Hostage to the Devil: the possession and exorcism of five living Americans. San Francisco, Harpercollins p.462 ISBN 0-06-065337-X

Brickwork masonry is produced when a bricklayer uses bricks and mortar to build up structures such as walls, bridges and chimneys. Brickwork is also used to finish openings such as doors or windows in buildings made of other materials. Where the bricks are to remain fully visible, as opposed to being covered up by plaster or stucco, this is known as face-work.

An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders (marginalia) and miniature illustrations. In the strictest definition of the term, an illuminated manuscript only refers to manuscripts decorated with gold or silver, but in both common usage and modern scholarship, the term is now used to refer to any decorated or illustrated manuscript from the Western traditions. Comparable Far Eastern works are always described as painted, as are Mesoamerican works. Islamic manuscripts are usually referred to as illuminated but can also be classified as painted.

The earliest surviving substantive illuminated manuscripts are from the period AD 400 to 600 (also in the gothic period), primarily produced in Ireland, Constantinople and Italy. The significance of these works lies not only in their inherent art history value, but in the maintenance of a link of literacy offered by non-illuminated texts as well. Had it not been for the monastic scribes of Late Antiquity, the entire literature of Greece and Rome would have perished; as it was, the patterns of textual survivals were shaped by their usefulness to the severely constricted literate group of Christians. The very existence of illuminated manuscripts as a way of giving stature and commemoration to ancient documents may have been largely responsible for their preservation in an era when barbarian hordes had overrun continental Europe and ruling classes were no longer literate.

The majority of surviving manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many illuminated manuscripts survive from the 15th century Renaissance, along with a very limited number from Late Antiquity. The majority of these manuscripts are of a religious nature. However, especially from the 13th century onward, an increasing number of secular texts were illuminated. Most illuminated manuscripts were created as codices, which had superseded scrolls; some isolated single sheets survive. A very few illuminated manuscript fragments survive on papyrus. Most medieval manuscripts, illuminated or not, were written on parchment (most commonly of calf, sheep, or goat skin), but most manuscripts important enough to illuminate were written on the best quality of parchment, called vellum, traditionally made of unsplit calfskin, though high quality parchment from other skins was also called parchment.

Beginning in the late Middle Ages manuscripts began to be produced on paper.The untypically early 11th century Missal of Silos is from Spain, near to Muslim paper-mills in Al-Andaluz. Textual manuscripts on paper become increasingly common, but the more expensive parchment was mostly used for illuminated manuscripts until the end of the period. Very early printed books were sometimes produced with spaces left for rubrics and miniatures, or were given illuminated initials, or decorations in the margin, but the introduction of printing rapidly led to the decline of illumination. Illuminated manuscripts continued to be produced in the early 16th century, but in much smaller numbers, mostly for the very wealthy.

Category: Image - :Meister des Maréchal de Boucicaut 001.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The decoration of this page from a French Book of Hours, ca.1400, includes a miniature, initials and borders

Illuminated manuscripts are the most common item to survive from the Middle Ages. They are also the best surviving specimens of medieval painting, and the best preserved. Indeed, for many areas and time periods, they are the only surviving examples of painting.

Nikola Tesla (10 July 1856 ? 7 January 1943) was an inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer. He was one of the most important contributors to the birth of commercial electricity and is best known for his many revolutionary developments in the field of electromagnetism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Tesla's patents and theoretical work formed the basis of modern alternating current (AC) electric power systems, including the polyphase system of electrical distribution and the AC motor, with which he helped usher in the Second Industrial Revolution.

Born an ethnic Serb in the village of Smiljan, Croatian Military Frontier, Austrian Empire (today's Croatia). He was a subject of the Austrian Empire by birth and later became an American citizen. After his demonstration of wireless communication through radio in 1894 and after being the victor in the "War of Currents", he was widely respected as one of the greatest electrical engineers who worked in America. Much of his early work pioneered modern electrical engineering and many of his discoveries were of groundbreaking importance. During this period, in the United States, Tesla's fame rivaled that of any other inventor or scientist in history or popular culture, but due to his eccentric personality and his seemingly unbelievable and sometimes bizarre claims about possible scientific and technological developments, Tesla was ultimately ostracized and regarded as a mad scientist. Tesla never put much focus on his finances. It is said he died impoverished, at the age of 86.

The International System of Units unit measuring magnetic field B (also referred to as the magnetic flux density and magnetic induction), the tesla, was named in his honor (at the Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures, Paris, 1960), as well as the Tesla effect of wireless energy transfer to wirelessly power electronic devices which Tesla demonstrated on a low scale with incandescent light bulbs) as early as 1893 and aspired to use for the intercontinental transmission of industrial power levels in his unfinished Wardenclyffe Tower project.

Aside from his work on electromagnetism and electromechanical engineering, Tesla contributed in varying degrees to the establishment of robotics, remote control, radar and computer science, and to the expansion of ballistics, nuclear physics, and theoretical physics. In 1943, the Supreme Court of the United States credited him as being the inventor of the radio.U.S. Supreme Court, "Marconi Wireless Telegraph co. of America v. United States". 320 U.S. 1. Nos. 369, 373. Argued 9?12 April 1943. Decided 21 June 1943. A few of his achievements have been used, with some controversy, to support various pseudosciences, UFO theories, and early New Age occultism.

A truffle () is a fungal fruiting body that develops underground and relies on mycophagy for spore dispersal. Almost all truffles are ectomycorrhizal and are therefore usually found in close association with trees.

There are hundreds of species of truffles, but the fruiting body of some (mostly in the genus Tuber) are highly prized as a food. The 18th-century French gastronome Brillat-Savarin called these truffles "the diamond of the kitchen". Edible truffles are held in high esteem in French, Spanish, northern Italian and Croatian cooking, as well as in international haute cuisine.

Category: File - :gomboc2.jpg|thumb|The mono-monostatic Gömböc in the stable equilibrium position

A Gömböc (, simplified to Gomboc) is a convex three-dimensional homogeneous body which, when resting on a flat surface, has just one stable and one unstable point of equilibrium. Its existence was conjectured by Russian mathematician Vladimir Arnold in 1995 and proven in 2006 by Hungarian scientists Gábor Domokos and Péter Várkonyi. The Gömböc shape is not unique; it has countless varieties, most of which are very close to a sphere and all have very strict shape tolerance (about 0.1 mm per 10 cm). The most famous solution has a sharpened top and is shown on the right. Its shape helped to explain the body structure of some turtles in relation to their ability to return to equilibrium position after being placed upside down. Copies of Gömböc have been donated to institutions and museums, and the biggest one will be presented at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, China.The Gömböc at the Expo in ShanghaiGiant Gömböc 8