From today's featured article

[[File:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Common%20Octopus.jpg?width=220|left|140px|The common octopus ([https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Common_Octopus.jpg source])]] The '''[[Octopus|octopus]]''' is a soft-bodied, eight-limbed mollusc of the order ''Octopoda''. Around 300 species are known, and they occupy every ocean, from tidal shallows to the abyssal plain. An octopus has no internal or external skeleton, which allows it to squeeze through any gap larger than its beak, the only hard part of its body. Two thirds of its neurons sit not in the brain but in its arms, so each arm can taste, touch and act with a striking degree of independence. Octopuses change colour and skin texture in a fraction of a second using pigment sacs called chromatophores, despite being, as far as anyone can tell, colour-blind. They are among the most capable invertebrate problem-solvers: captive animals open jars, navigate mazes and recognise individual keepers. Most species live only one to two years, dying shortly after they reproduce. ('''[[Octopus|Full article...]]''')

Did you know...

* ...that an '''[[Octopus|octopus]]''' has three hearts, and the one that serves its body stops beating whenever it swims? * ...that '''[[Ada Lovelace]]''' published what is generally regarded as the first computer program in 1843, a century before a machine existed that could run it? * ...that the '''[[Library of Alexandria]]''' probably never burned down in a single dramatic fire, but declined slowly over centuries of neglect? * ...that '''[[Jupiter]]''' is more than twice as massive as every other planet in the Solar System combined? * ...that the word '''[[Wiki|wiki]]''' comes from ''wiki wiki'', Hawaiian for "quick"? * ...that '''[[Coffee|coffee]]''' was banned in Mecca in 1511, and by an English proclamation in 1675, on the grounds that coffeehouses bred sedition?

Anniversaries

* '''1440''' – Around this year [[Printing press|Johannes Gutenberg]] began assembling the movable-type press that would put books within reach of ordinary readers. * '''1843''' – [[Ada Lovelace]]'s translation of Menabrea's paper on the Analytical Engine, with her far longer notes, appeared in ''Scientific Memoirs''. * '''1936''' – [[Alan Turing]] submitted "On Computable Numbers", which defined the machine model underlying every [[Computer|computer]] since. * '''1953''' – Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of [[Mount Everest]] on 29 May. * '''1989''' – Tim Berners-Lee circulated the proposal that became the [[World Wide Web]]. * '''1995''' – Ward Cunningham opened WikiWikiWeb, the first [[Wiki|wiki]], on 25 March.

Featured picture

[[File:https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Jupiter%20and%20its%20shrunken%20Great%20Red%20Spot.jpg?width=240|center|240px|Jupiter, showing its banded cloud tops and the Great Red Spot, a storm wider than the Earth that has been observed for at least 190 years. ([https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jupiter_and_its_shrunken_Great_Red_Spot.jpg source])]]

Other areas of OpenWiki

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