Tag: Canine guard crossword clue

Bill’s time: 9m 49s

Bill’s errors: 0

Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies

Across

15A Pho soup garnishes : SPROUTS

Pho (pronounced “fuh”) is a noodle soup from Vietnam that is a popular street food, and the nation’s unofficial national dish. It is often ordered with a side of hanh dam, pickled white onions.

16A Conduit of neural signals : AXON

A nerve cell is more correctly called a neuron. The long nerve fiber that conducts signals away from the neuron is known as the axon. The axon is surrounded by a myelin sheath, which acts as an electrical insulator and which increases the rate the impulses pass along the axon.

19A Relative of a gull : TERN

Terns are a family of seabirds. They are similar to gulls, but are more slender and more lightly built. Many species of tern are known for their long-distance migrations, with the Arctic tern migrating so far that it is believed to see more daylight in a year than any other animal.

28A Supermodel Banks : TYRA

Tyra Banks is a tremendously successful model and businesswoman. Banks created and hosted the hit show “America’s Next Top Model“, and also had her own talk show. She was also the first African-American woman to make the cover of the “Sports Illustrated” swimsuit issue.

36A Mononymous Irish singer : BONO

Irish singer Bono is a Dubliner who was born Paul David Hewson. As a youth, Hewson was given the nickname “Bono Vox” by a friend, a Latin expression meaning “good voice”, and so the singer has been known as Bono since the late seventies. His band’s first name was “Feedback”, later changed to “The Hype”. The band members searched for yet another name and chose U2 from a list of six names suggested by a friend. They picked U2 because it was the name they disliked least …

37A Animated film that was the highest-grossing movie of 1992 : ALADDIN

The Disney animated feature “Aladdin” was released in 1992. It is one of the best movies to come out of the studio, in my opinion, largely due to the great performance by Robin Williams who voiced the Genie. “Aladdin” was the most successful film of 1992, earning over $500 million worldwide, an unusual feat for an animated movie.

43A Hibernation spots : DENS

When animals hibernate, they are minimally active, have low body temperatures, relatively slow breathing and a low metabolic rate overall. Hibernation can last days and even months, and is most closely associated with the winter season. The term “hibernation” comes from the Latin “hibernare” meaning “to pass the winter, occupy winter quarters”.

46A Things entered in a sudoku grid: Abbr. : NOS

Number puzzles similar to our modern-day Sudoku first appeared in French newspapers in the late 1800s. The format that we use today was created by Howard Garns, a 74-year-old freelance puzzle constructor from Connersville, Indiana, and first published in 1979. The format was introduced in Japan in 1984 and given the title of “Sūji wa dokushin ni kagiru”, which translates to “the digits are limited to one occurrence”. The rather elaborate Japanese title was eventually shortened to Sudoku. No doubt many of you are fans of Sudoku puzzles. I know I am …

57A Dishwasher cycle : RINSE

The first mechanical dishwasher to be described as practical and reliable was invented by Josephine Cochrane of Ohio. Cochrane didn’t wash dishes herself, as she had servants for that task, so the main purpose of her invention was not to save effort. Rather, she wanted a device that washed dishes without chipping them, something her household help was liable to do.

60A Actress Pinkett Smith of “Girls Trip” : JADA

Jada Pinkett Smith is an actress from Baltimore, Maryland. Pinkett Smith’s most famous role is the human rebel Niobe in “The Matrix” series of movies. Back in 1994, she auditioned for the TV show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”, to play the girlfriend of the character played by Will Smith. She didn’t get the role but did get Will Smith, as the couple were married in 1997.

62A Singer/songwriter Mitchell : JONI

Joni Mitchell is a Canadian singer and songwriter from Fort Macleod in Alberta. Mitchell is perhaps best known for her recordings “Big Yellow Taxi” and “Woodstock”.

63A Fruits named after a mythical drink : NECTARINES

A nectarine is a cultivar of peach. It is noted for its smooth skin, as opposed to the fuzzy skin of the traditional peach.

66A Noted cartoon dog : PLUTO

Pluto is Mickey Mouse’s pet dog, as well as a star in his own right. Pluto is an unusual Disney character in that he is portrayed basically as a dog as opposed to a “humanized” version of a dog, as are the other Disney characters.

67A Its first video, “Me at the zoo,” has over 400 million views : YOUTUBE

YouTube is a video-sharing website where users can watch, upload, and share videos. It was founded in February 2005 by three former PayPal employees: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. The first video on YouTube was uploaded by Karim and shows him watching elephants feeding at the San Diego Zoo. It is the second most popular website in the world. Google is the most popular …

68A State whose outline can be made by connecting seven particular squares in this puzzle : UTAH

When viewed on a map of the US, the state of Utah has six sides. It’s almost shaped like a rectangle, but there is a “bite” out of that rectangle in the northeast corner of the state.

Down

4D General on a Chinese menu : TSO

“The Search for General Tso” is a 2014 documentary about the history of Chinese food in the US. Much of the film explores the life of Zuo Zongtang, the Chinese military leader who gave his name to the very American dish known as General Tso’s chicken.

6D Hester of “The Scarlet Letter” : PRYNNE

The main character in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel “The Scarlet Letter” is Hester Prynne. After the birth of her illegitimate daughter Pearl, she is convicted by her puritanical neighbors of the crime of adultery. Hester is forced to wear a scarlet “A” (for “adultery”) on her clothing for the rest of her life, hence the novel’s title “The Scarlet Letter”.

7D Grab-and-go breakfast option : POP-TART

Pop-Tart is the most successful single brand for the Kellogg company, as millions of the sugary treats are sold every year. The US Military bought quite a few in 2001, and dropped 2.4 million Pop-Tarts into Afghanistan during the invasion after 9/11.

8D Guitar relative : LUTE

The lute is a stringed instrument with a long neck and usually a pear-shaped body. It is held and played like a guitar, and was popular from the Middle Ages right through to the late Baroque era. A person who plays the lute can be referred to as a “lutenist”.

9D Gas brand seen in Edward Hopper’s “Portrait of Orleans” : ESSO

Edward Hopper was an artist from Nyack, New York. He was a celebrated realist painter best known for his works using oils.

12D Certain pickleball shot : FOREHAND

Pickleball is a sport invented in the 1960s that combines elements of tennis, table tennis and badminton. Originally marketed as a game for children to play in backyards, pickleball is now played on purpose-built courts by many, many adults, but mainly in North and South America.

13D Greenwich Village’s Stonewall, e.g. : INN

The police raided a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn on June 28th, 1969. That raid triggered a spate of violent demonstrations led by the LGBT community. Now known as the Stonewall riots, those demonstrations are viewed by many as a significant event leading to the modern-day fight for LGBT rights in the US. Since then, June has been chosen as LGBT Pride Month in recognition of the Stonewall riots.

23D Paper competing with the W.S.J. : NYT

“The New York Times” (NYT) has been published since 1851, and is sometimes referred to as “the Gray Lady”. These days a viable alternative to buying the paper is to read the news online. NYTimes.com is the most popular online newspaper website in the country.

25D Debugger? : RAID

Raid insecticide has been killing bugs since 1956.

30D Lowly worker : PEON

A peon is a lowly worker who has no real control over his/her working conditions. The word “peon” comes into English from Spanish, in which language it has the same meaning.

36D Small hound that doesn’t bark : BASENJI

The basenji breed of dog originated in Africa, where it was used for hunting. The basenji doesn’t really bark, and instead produces a yodel-like sound. For this reason, the breed is sometimes known as the African barkless dog.

42D What “Coco” is a nickname for, for tennis’s Coco Gauff : CORI

Coco Gauff is a professional tennis player from Atlanta whose career really got a boost when she beat Venus Williams in the opening round of Wimbledon in 2019. Ironically, Venus, and her sister Serena, were the players who inspired Gauff to take up tennis as a girl.

45D Military hairstyles : CREW CUTS

The term “crew cut” probably originated in Yale in the 1890s. The Yale football players were noted for wearing their hair relatively long, as it helped protect their heads inside the flimsy leather football helmets of the day. In contrast, the rowing team wore their hair relatively short, in a style that came to be known as the “crew cut”.

49D The Sphinx, for one : STATUE

The Great Sphinx of Giza is a huge limestone statue of a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a human. It is the largest monolithic statue in the world. Famously, the Great Sphinx is missing its nose and beard.

51D Classic comic strip that’s the source for nine Emmys and two Tonys : PEANUTS

The characters in the cartoon series “Peanuts” were largely drawn from Charles Schulz’s own life, with shy and withdrawn Charlie Brown representing Schulz himself.

56D Many Moroccans : ARABS

The country of Morocco is located in North Africa, but lies just 9 miles south of Spain. Spain and Morocco, and hence Europe and Africa, are separated by those 9 miles across the Mediterranean Sea known as the Straits of Gibraltar.

62D Profile pic format, in brief : JPG

The JPEG image file format (also “.jpg”) was created by the Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG), hence the name.

64D Dawn deity : EOS

In Greek mythology, Eos is the goddess of the dawn who lives at the edge of the ocean. Eos wakes each morning to welcome her brother Helios the Sun. The Roman equivalent of Eos is Aurora. Rather delightfully, Homer referred to Eos as “rosy-fingered dawn” in both “Iliad” and “Odyssey”.

65D In medias ___ : RES

“In medias res” is a Latin phrase that translates as “into the middle of things”. We use it to describe a literary technique in which a story starts at some point other than the beginning of the plot.