Khat or qat (Catha edulis, qat from Arabic: القات‎) is a flowering plant native to the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Khat contains the alkaloid cathinone, an amphetamine-like stimulant, which is said to cause excitement, loss of appetite, and euphoria. Among communities from the areas where the plant is native, khat chewing has a history as a social custom dating back thousands of years analogous to the use of coca leaves in South America and betel nut in Asia. The World Health Organization (WHO) classified it in 1980 as a drug of abuse that can produce psychological dependence, although...

A dark horse is a little-known person or thing that emerges to prominence, especially in a competition of some sort, or a contestant that seems unlikely to succeed. == Origin == The term began as horse racing parlance for a race horse that is unknown to gamblers and thus difficult to place betting odds on. The first known mention of the concept is in Benjamin Disraeli's novel The Young Duke (1831). Disraeli's protagonist, the Duke of St. James, attends a horse race with a surprise finish: "A dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in...