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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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Vilma Núñez

... that the discrimination Vilma Núñez (pictured) experienced as a child born out of wedlock motivated her career as a Nicaraguan lawyer and human-rights activist?
... that Eli Wallach agreed to play the role of Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly immediately after watching the main title sequence of For a Few Dollars More?
... that Anna Feldhusen was for a long time the only female German artist to acquire a business license?
... that the First World War Zanzibar Volunteer Defence Force included practically every able-bodied British man residing in the protectorate?
... that a memorandum written by Douglass Cater convinced Lyndon B. Johnson to focus on education policy during his administration?
... that when Joe Brown and George Band made the first successful ascent of Kangchenjunga in 1955, they deliberately turned back a few feet below the summit?
... that the freighter John V. Moran and her sister ship were both sunk by ice on Lake Michigan, ten years apart?
... that the manga anthology Nanohana was inspired by efforts in Chernobyl and Fukushima to use plants to absorb radioactive material?

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.
1565 – The Deccan sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire at the Battle of Talikota in present-day Karnataka, ending the last great Hindu kingdom in southern India.
1915 – Rebels led by John Chilembwe (pictured) attacked local plantation owners, beginning an uprising regarded as a key moment in the history of Malawi.
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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