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From today's featured article

Gigantorhynchus ortizi

Gigantorhynchus is a genus of thorny-headed worms that parasitize marsupials, anteaters, and possibly baboons by attaching themselves to the intestines using their hook-covered proboscis. The life cycle includes a larval stage in an intermediate host such as termites. In addition to the proboscis, the body is characterized by pseudosegmentation, filiform lemnisci, and ellipsoid testes. The largest known specimen is a female G. ortizi (example pictured) with a length of around 240 millimetres (9.4 in) and a width of 2 millimetres (0.08 in). Genetic analysis on one species of Gigantorhynchus places it with the related Mediorhynchus genus in the Giganthorhynchidae family. There are six species in this genus distributed across Central and South America and possibly Zimbabwe. Infestation by a Gigantorhynchus species can cause potentially fatal partial obstructions of the intestines or severe lesions of the intestinal wall. (Full article...)

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DC-XA Clipper Graham

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... that U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan proposed an expansion of New York Penn Station as a homage to the original station, where he had once shined shoes?
... that the two participants in a yaoi relationship are referred to as seme ('top') and uke ('bottom'), terms derived from martial arts that were later appropriated as Japanese LGBT slang?
... that the defeat of the consul Gaius Porcius Cato by a Celtic tribe in 114 BC led to the last human sacrifices in ancient Rome?
... that during the trial of Francis Gary Powers, Kansas radio station KBTO presented summaries of Radio Moscow broadcasts alongside other international reports?
... that members of the Nyasaland Volunteer Reserve fought in the first naval action of the First World War?
... that Doug Grimston insisted on a smoking ban at Queen's Park Arena and took financial responsibility for lost attendance?

In the news

COVID-19 pandemic: Disease; Virus; By location; Impact; Vaccines; Portal

Hank Aaron in 1974

American baseball player Hank Aaron (pictured) dies at the age of 86.
Faustin-Archange Touadéra is elected for a second term as President of the Central African Republic.
LauncherOne becomes the first liquid-fueled aircraft-launched rocket to reach orbit.
Yoweri Museveni is re-elected as President of Uganda.

On this day

January 23

John Chilembwe on a 2,000-kwacha banknote

1264 – King Louis IX of France issued the Mise of Amiens, a settlement between King Henry III of England and barons led by Simon de Montfort heavily favouring the former, which later led to the Second Barons' War.
1915 – Rebels led by John Chilembwe (pictured) attacked local plantation owners, beginning an uprising regarded as a key moment in the history of Malawi.
1967 – The English new town of Milton Keynes was formed in Buckinghamshire, incorporating three towns and fifteen villages as well as planned new developments on intervening farmland.
2001 – Five people attempted to set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, an act that many later claimed to have been staged by the Chinese Communist Party to frame Falun Gong and thus escalate their persecution.

John Croke (d. 1620)
Ernst Abbe (b. 1840)
Mykola Leontovych (d. 1921)

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Today's featured picture

The Vision of the Blessed Hermann Joseph is a 1629–1630 oil-on-canvas painting by the Flemish Baroque painter Anthony van Dyck. Hermann Joseph was a 12th- and 13th-century German canon regular and mystic whose status as a saint of the Catholic Church was formally recognized by Pope Pius XII in 1958. Legend relates that he had several visions of the Virgin Mary; this painting shows one such vision, in which he is joined in a mystic marriage to Mary, receiving the name Joseph after her spouse Saint Joseph. Produced for a chapel in Saint Ignatius Church in Antwerp, the painting now hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Painting credit: Anthony van Dyck

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