Faryl Smith

Faryl Smith.
Faryl Smith (born 1995) is a British soprano who rose to fame after competing on the second series of the ITV television show Britain's Got Talent in 2008. Although she was a favourite to win after the second round, and received praise throughout the competition, she finished outside the top three in the live final. Smith signed a contract with Universal Classics and Jazz for a £2.3 million advance in December 2008, the largest ever granted to a schoolgirl. Her debut album, Faryl, was released in March 2009 and became the fastest-selling solo classical album in British chart history, selling 29,200 copies in the first week. Thanks to the album's success, Smith was nominated for two Classical BRIT awards, becoming the youngest ever double nominee. Her second album, and last with Universal, was Wonderland, which was released in November 2009. Since the end of her contract with Universal, Smith has continued to perform and record music.

Interstate 94 in Michigan

Interstate 94 in Michigan.
Interstate 94 (I-94) in Michigan is a part of the U.S. Interstate Highway System that runs east from the Indiana state line near Lake Michigan through the southern Lower Peninsula to Detroit, then northeast to Port Huron. I-94 extends west to Billings, Montana. In Michigan, it is a state trunkline highway serving Benton Harbor, St. Joseph, Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Jackson, Ann Arbor, and The Thumb, terminating on the Blue Water Bridge at the Canadian border. By 1960, I-94 was completed from New Buffalo to Detroit, and most of the rest of the route was completed in the 1960s. The highway has one auxiliary route in Michigan, I-194 in Battle Creek, and eight business routes. In 1987, a plane crashed on the freeway during take-off from the airport in Detroit. The routing of I-94 contains the first full freeway-to-freeway interchange in the United States, and comprises the first complete border-to-border toll-free freeway in a U.S. state.

Jules Massenet

Jules Massenet.
Jules Massenet (12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic era best known for his operas. The two most frequently staged are Manon (1884) and Werther (1892). After winning the country's top prize in music, the Prix de Rome, in 1863, he composed prolifically in many genres. He wrote more than 40 stage works in a wide variety of styles, from opéra-comique to grand-scale depictions of classical myths, romantic comedies, and lyric dramas. He also composed oratorios, ballets, cantatas, orchestral works, incidental music, piano pieces, and songs. Massenet had a good sense of the theatre and of what would succeed with the Parisian public, and he became the most popular composer of opera in France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although critics do not rank him among operatic geniuses such as Mozart, Verdi and Wagner, his operas are now widely accepted as well-crafted and intelligent products of the Belle Époque.

Paranthodon

Paranthodon.
Paranthodon was a stegosaurian dinosaur that lived in present-day South Africa between 139 and 131 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous. Discovered in 1845, it was one of the first stegosaurians found. The only remains of the genus, a partial skull, isolated teeth, and fragments of vertebrae, were found in the Kirkwood Formation. British paleontologist Richard Owen initially identified the fragments as those of the pareiasaur Anthodon. After remaining untouched for years in the British Museum of Natural History, the partial skull was identified by South African paleontologist Robert Broom as belonging to a different genus; he named the specimen Palaeoscincus africanus. Several years later, Hungarian paleontologist Franz Nopcsa, unaware of Broom's new name, similarly concluded that it represented a new taxon, and named it Paranthodon owenii. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek para (near) with the genus name Anthodon, to represent the initial referral of the remains.

Star Trek: Voyager

Star Trek: Voyager.
"Faces" is an episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek: Voyager. First broadcast by UPN in May 1995, it was developed from a story by Jonathan Glassner and Kenneth Biller. Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet and Maquis crew of the starship USS Voyager after they are stranded in the Delta Quadrant, far from the rest of the Federation. In this episode, a Vidiian scientist named Sulan (Brian Markinson) captures and performs medical experiments on the half-Klingon, half-human B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson). He creates two clones, human Torres and Klingon Torres, to serve as test subjects; these were treated as two separate characters during the development and filming of the episode. The episode was developed as a character study to further explore Torres' internal struggle with her identity. Dawson (pictured) said that it deepened her understanding of the character and strengthened her acting.

Maine Centennial half dollar

Maine Centennial half dollar.
The Maine Centennial half dollar is a commemorative coin struck in 1920 by the United States Bureau of the Mint. It was sculpted by Anthony de Francisci, following sketches by an unknown artist from the U.S. state of Maine. Officials in Maine wanted a commemorative half dollar to circulate as an advertisement for the centennial of the state's admission to the Union, and of the planned celebrations. Congress passed authorizing legislation without opposition. The Commission of Fine Arts urged changes in the design, but Maine officials insisted. The state decided to sell the coins at $1, double face value. Fifty thousand pieces, half the authorized mintage, were struck for release to the public, though they were issued too late to be sold at the centennial celebrations in Portland. The coins sold out, but this took at least until 1929. They list for hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on condition.

Myst III: Exile

Myst III: Exile.
Myst III: Exile is the third title in the Myst series of graphic adventure puzzle video games, after Myst and Riven. Exile was developed by Presto Studios and published by Ubi Soft. The game was released on four compact discs for both Mac OS and Microsoft Windows on May 8, 2001; versions for the Xbox and PlayStation 2 were released in late 2002. As in previous games, the player assumes the role of a friend of Atrus, a member of the D'ni race. Atrus can create links to other worlds, called Ages, by writing descriptive books. In Exile, Atrus has created a link for the D'ni to rebuild their civilization. When the book is stolen, the player pursues the thief to reclaim it. Presto Studios sought to develop a diverse and logical approach to puzzles and Ages, and worked to make the villain sympathetically multifaceted. Despite selling more than one million copies in the first year of release, Exile fared less well commercially than Myst and Riven, which had sold more than 10 million copies combined.