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The best of the week

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By Tony1 and Dabomb87
Featured picture Choice of the week: Wikipedian Diliff's panorama over the historic Czech city of Prague, shot in October from the Petřín Lookout Tower. The view stretches over about 180°, from north on the left to south on the right.
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Eleven articles were promoted to featured status:


Two white ducks
From the featured article Choice of the week: the prize-winning Aylesbury duck (front) and drake (rear), 1873
Choice of the week. The Signpost asked FA nominator and reviewer Ruhrfisch to select the best of this week's promotions and the four from last week (Petrified Forest National Park (nom), Robert Burnell (nom), Aylesbury duck (nom), and Dendrocollybia (nom)).

"Reading all 15 articles was a wonderful experience and showed the strengths and diversity of the encyclopedia. Trying to pick one as the best was a bit like asking a teacher or parent to pick their favorite student or child. There were four great military history articles: SMS Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand and Chilean battleship Almirante Latorre were both fascinating looks at two different early battleships, while Thomas C. Kinkaid was one of the commanders in the last engagement between battleships, and September 1964 South Vietnamese coup attempt was another in a great series on the history of Vietnam. In biographies, Robert Burnell was another in an interesting series on English bishops (and, in this case, a chancellor too), the story of Thomas Percy and his involvement in the Gunpowder Plot was engaging, and the life of Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia showed truth can be stranger than fiction. Venture Science Fiction had an interesting though short life, and Limbo is a video game I'd like to see played. Biology was another strong area, with the recently identified species of bat, Miniopterus aelleni, the beautiful European bird, Common Firecrest, and the unique mushroom Dendrocollybia.

My honorable mentions go to Petrified Forest National Park, which showed there is much more to the park than fossilized trees, and Ronnie Lee Gardner, a murderer executed by Utah whose article is a model of neutrality. My choice for best article is Aylesbury duck, which I had not heard of before. I really enjoyed the story of this breed, how its rise was linked to the coming of the railroads, and how its decline was tied to the introduction of the Pekin duck and the world wars. It was the article I kept thinking of most after I had read them all."


Two topics were promoted:


Cellular sponges in a work of art created by Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919), the eminent German biologist and naturalist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology. The file was uploaded by former Signpost editor-in-chief Ragesoss.
New featured picture, Actiniaria, a painting of sea anemones, created by Merculiano and restored by Citron
Ten images were promoted. Medium-sized images can be viewed by clicking on "nom":


Choice of the week. Wackywace, a regular reviewer and nominator at featured picture candidates, told The Signpost:

"One image that really impressed me this week was this panoramic image of Prague. There were some concerns during the nomination about the lighting, but I think the way the image moves from light to dark is incredibly striking. What I really appreciate about this image, though, is that you can spend ages looking at intricate details. From the bright orange tiles lining the tops of buildings, to the blue of the winding Vltava, it is the amazing things there are to see in this panorama. My regards to Diliff for taking such a beautiful and vibrant picture."


A new featured picture by Alchemist-hp: cadmium bar and 1 cm3 cube (purity 99.999%)
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