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From today's featured article

The Malagasy mountain mouse (Monticolomys koopmani) is a small mouse-like rodent of the family Nesomyidae. Found in the highlands of eastern Madagascar (map pictured), it is dark brown on the upperparts and dark gray below. It has small, rounded, densely haired ears and broad feet with well-developed pads. The long tail lacks a tuft at the tip. The skull is delicate and lacks crests and ridges on its roof. First collected in 1929, the Malagasy mountain mouse was not formally described until 1996, but it is now known to have a broad distribution. Active during the night in trees and on the ground, the species occurs in both montane forest and human-disturbed grasslands, and feeds on fruits and seeds. Although habitat destruction may pose a threat, it is classified as a species of least concern. Monticolomys means "mountain-dwelling mouse", and koopmani honors Karl Koopman for his contributions to mammalian systematics. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

Schlosstheater Schönbrunn in 2014

... that the palace theatre Schlosstheater Schönbrunn (hall pictured), commissioned by Maria Theresa, opened on 4 October 1747, her husband's name day?
... that Bob Lowes is a two-time winner of the Coach of the Year Award in the Canadian Hockey League?
... that the Furgate scandal in the late 1990s, described as one of the largest in South Korea, involved influence peddling through the giving of luxury items?
... that upon its completion in 2016 at SeaWorld Orlando, Mako became the tallest, longest, and fastest roller coaster in the Orlando area?
... that French poet René Ghil worked towards developing an ideal poetic language that would "subsume and supersede all the other arts" by establishing his own system of verbal instrumentation?
... that to create the fireball effect in episode 1094 of Casualty, the show's production team packed ten different explosions into one blast?
... that Almeda Eliza Hitchcock became the first female lawyer in the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1888?
... that one of the dogs belonging to Imran Khan, the Pakistan prime minister, accompanies him on his daily helicopter ride to the office and in official meetings at his home?

In the news

Donna Strickland

Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou and Donna Strickland (pictured) are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on laser science.
James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their work on cancer immunotherapy.
In golf, the Ryder Cup concludes with Europe defeating the United States.
In Australian rules football, West Coast Eagles defeat Collingwood to win the AFL Grand Final.
In cricket, the Asia Cup concludes with India defeating Bangladesh in the final.
A magnitude 7.5 earthquake and tsunami hits Sulawesi, Indonesia, killing at least 1,424 people.

On this day

October 4

Sputnik 1

1876 – Texas A&M University opened as the first public institution of higher education in the U.S. state of Texas.
1918 – An ammunition plant in Sayreville, New Jersey, U.S., exploded, killing around 100 people and destroying more than 300 buildings.
1957 – Soviet spacecraft Sputnik 1 (replica pictured), the first artificial satellite to orbit the Earth, was launched by an R-7 rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
1958 – The current Constitution of France was signed into law, establishing the French Fifth Republic.
2010 – The dam holding a waste reservoir in western Hungary collapsed, freeing one million m³ (1,300,000 yd³) of red mud, which flooded nearby communities and killed ten people.

John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll (d. 1743) · Jenny Twitchell Kempton (b. 1835) · Zinha Vaz (b. 1952)

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Today's featured picture

Four Times of the Day is a series of four paintings by the French landscape painter Claude Joseph Vernet (1714–1789). They were painted in 1757 in Paris, and are held by the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide. The paintings consist of four separate scenes depicting morning, midday, evening and night, a series which was created by several artists of the era including Vernet and Philip James de Loutherbourg.

The painting pictured is the Midday scene.

See the other times of day: Morning · Evening · Night

Painting: Claude Joseph Vernet

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