CupBand

Cone

2005-03-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

In neurology, light-sensitive neuron with a conical projection in the retina of the vertebrate eye, associated with colour vision and perception of fine detail. Shorter and far fewer than the eye's rods (light-sensitive cells), cones are less sensitive to low illumination levels and are mediators of photopic rather than scotopic (Greek skotos, “dark”) vision. Cones are

Denakil Plain

2005-03-16T10:05:00.000-08:00

Also spelled Danakil, also called Dankali, arid lowland of northern Ethiopia and southeastern Eritrea, bordering Djibouti. It lies at the northern extreme of the Great Rift Valley and the Awash River. Live volcanoes (often called the Denakil Alps) separate it from the Red Sea. Any water that comes into the plain evaporates there; no streams flow out from it. The Kobar Sink, a huge basin in the northern part of the

Daedalic Sculpture

2005-03-14T23:26:00.000-08:00

Type of sculpture attributed to a legendary Greek artist, Daedalus, who is connected in legend both to Bronze Age Crete and to the earliest period of Archaic sculpture in post-Bronze Age Greece. The legends about Daedalus recognize him both as a man and as a mythical embodiment. The writer Pausanias thought that wooden images were referred to as daidala even before

Earth, The Earth's gravitational field

2005-03-13T02:32:00.000-08:00

Texts include Michele Caputo, The Gravity Field of the Earth, from Classical and Modern Methods (1967); W.A. Heiskanen and F.A. Vening Meinesz, The Earth and Its Gravity Field (1958); and W.M. Telford et al., Applied Geophysics (1976). The Journal of Geophysical Research contains much recent work, including the following articles: LeRoy M. Dorman and Brian T.R. Lewis, “Experimental Isostasy, 1: Theory of the Determination of the Earth's Isostatic Response to a Concentrated Load,” 75(17):3357–65 (June 10, 1970), “Experimental Isostasy, 2: An Isostatic Model for the U.S.A. Derived from Gravity and Topographic Data,” 75(17):3367–86 (June 10, 1970), and “Experimental Isostasy, 3: Inversion of the Isostatic Green Function and Lateral Density Changes,” 77(17):3068–77 (June 10, 1972); G.D. Karner and A.B. Watts, “Gravity Anomalies and Flexure of the Lithosphere at Mountain Ranges,” 88(B12):10,449–10,477 (Dec. 10, 1983); and Marcia McNutt, “Implications of Regional Gravity for State of Stress in the Earth's Crust and Upper Mantle,” 85(B11):6377–96 (Nov. 10, 1980).

Heinrich Julius

2005-03-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

A gifted scholar, theologian,

Interior Design, Floors

2005-03-09T04:25:00.000-08:00

Basically, there are two kinds of floors for interiors: those that are an integral part of the structure and those that are applied after the structure is completed. Interior designers working together with architects have the opportunity to specify flooring such as slate, terrazzo, stone, brick, concrete, or wood, but in most interiors the flooring is designed at

Kantianism, Psychological Neo-Kantianism

2005-03-07T18:07:00.000-08:00

An initial attempt to interpret Kantian transcendentalism in psychological terms was made by the Friesian Empiricist Jürgen Bona Meyer in his Kants Psychologie (1870). Later, a more important contribution in this field was made by the Göttingen philosopher of ethics and law Leonard Nelson and published in the Abhandlungen der Fries'schen Schule (1904 ff; “Acts of the Friesian

Haber, Fritz

2005-03-04T09:28:00.000-08:00

In 1911, at the age of 42, he was appointed director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry in Berlin, a new research establishment that was to become even more famous than the school he had built up in Karlsruhe. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he immediately placed himself and his laboratory at the service of the government, his first concern being to organize

Sachs, Nelly

2005-03-03T13:10:00.000-08:00

In full Nelly Leonie Sachs German poet and dramatist who was transformed by the Nazi experience from a dilettante into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of her fellow Jews. When, with Shmuel Yosef Agnon, she was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize for Literature, she observed that Agnon represented Israel whereas “I represent the tragedy of the Jewish

Leninism

2005-02-28T11:27:00.000-08:00

In the Communist

Hyaenodon

2005-02-27T15:02:00.000-08:00

Extinct genus of early, primitive mammalian carnivores that first appears in the fossil record in late Eocene time and persists through the Oligocene (the Oligocene Epoch, which followed the Eocene, began 36.6 million years ago and lasted 12.9 million years). Hyaenodon, a creodont (see Creodonta), was a large and efficient predator. Its skull was long and narrow, with teeth that

Uitlander

2005-02-25T05:07:00.000-08:00

(Afrikaans: “outlander”), any British or other non-Afrikaner immigrant in the Transvaal region in the 1880s and '90s. The prospect of gold lured large numbers of newcomers to Johannesburg, where they became a majority of the citizenry and were led by an aristocracy of wealthy mine owners. The Transvaal's long-established rural population of Boers (Afrikaners), afraid of being

Pacific Islands, Agriculture and natural resources

2005-02-22T18:27:00.000-08:00

Coconut products, including copra, from which oil is extracted, form the principal export from most islands. Agricultural production depends as much on native family enterprise as it does on plantation systems, which predominate in the larger islands. Perishable fruits, such as pineapples, bananas, and citrus fruits, require markets close at hand unless they are

Zappa, Frank

2005-02-20T09:13:00.000-08:00

Zappa was, in no apparent order, a first-rate cultural gadfly dedicated to upsetting American suburban complacency and puncturing the hypocrisy and pretensions of both the U.S. political establishment and the counterculture that opposed it; a contemporary orchestral

League

2005-02-18T15:10:00.000-08:00

Any of several European units of measurement ranging from 2.4 to 4.6 statute miles (3.9 to 7.4 km). In English-speaking countries the land league is generally accepted as 3 statute miles (4.83 km), although varying lengths from 7,500 feet to 15,000 feet (2.29 to 4.57 km) were sometimes employed. An ancient unit derived from the Gauls and introduced into England by the Normans, the league was estimated by the Romans

Arabia, History Of, The Ayyubids and Rasulids

2005-02-17T16:30:00.000-08:00

The Ayyubids of Egypt, when they invaded Yemen in 1173, found it parceled out among several dynasties. Ayyubid objectives were probably part political, to find themselves a haven and destroy the Isma'ilites, and part economic, to control the India trade route. They remained in power until about 1229, generally controlling Aden, Hadhramaut, the Tihamah, and the districts south of San

Straits Question

2005-02-15T01:56:00.000-08:00

The straits were in Turkish territory, but when Russia gained control of the north shore of the

Avesta

2005-02-13T21:42:00.000-08:00

Also called Zend-avesta, sacred book of Zoroastrianism containing its cosmogony, law, and liturgy, the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster (Zarathushtra). The extant Avesta is all that remains of a much larger body of scripture, apparently Zoroaster's transformation of a very ancient tradition. The voluminous manuscripts of the original are said to have been destroyed when Alexander the

Conservatory

2005-02-11T17:31:00.000-08:00

The conservatory was a direct descendant

Cermak, Anton J.

2005-02-08T17:36:00.000-08:00

Cermak was born about 50 miles (80 km) from Prague but celebrated his first birthday on Ellis Island in New York harbour. His parents settled in Braidwood, Ill., where,

Yurt

2005-02-06T10:39:00.000-08:00

Also spelled yurta , Mongol ger tentlike Central Asian nomad's dwelling, erected on wooden poles and covered with skin, felt, or handwoven textiles in bright colours. The interior is simply furnished with brightly coloured rugs (red often predominating) decorated with geometric or stylized animal patterns. The knotted pile rug, first known from a nomad burial at the foot of the Altai Mountains

Mesopotamia, History Of, The classical and medieval views of Mesopotamia; its rediscovery in modern times

2005-02-05T23:55:00.000-08:00

Before the first excavations in Mesopotamia, about 1840, nearly 2,000 years had passed during which knowledge of the ancient Middle East was derived from three sources only: the Bible, Greek and Roman authors, and the excerpts from the writings of Berosus, a Babylonian who wrote in Greek. In 1800 very little more was known than in AD 800, although these sources had served to stir the imagination

Hokan Languages

2005-02-02T21:05:00.000-08:00

Major group, or phylum, of American Indian languages; it includes three families of Meso-American Indian languages and 14 families of North American Indian languages. The Meso-American groups are Tequistlatec (two languages in Oaxaca, Mex.), Tlapanecan (one living language in Guerrero, Mex., and an extinct one in Nicaragua), and Jicaque (spoken in Honduras). The North American

Africa, Languages

2005-01-31T08:24:00.000-08:00

The knowledge of most of the individual languages of Africa is still very incomplete, but there are known to be in excess of 1,500 distinct languages. Many attempts to classify them have been inadequate because of the great complexity of the languages and because of a confusion relating language, “race,” and economy; for example, there was once a spurious view of pastoralism

Saint-pierre And Miquelon

2005-01-29T21:35:00.000-08:00

Officially Territorial Collectivity of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon , French Collectivité Territoriale de Saint-Pierre et Miquelon archipelago about 15 miles (25 km) off the southern coast of the island of Newfoundland, Canada, a collectivité of France since 1985. The area of the main islands is 93 square miles (242 square km), 83 square miles (215 square km) of which are in the Miquelons (Miquelon and Langlade, sometimes known as Great and Little Miquelon, connected by the slim, sandy Isthmus of Langlade). But the island of Saint-Pierre,

Philip Iii

2005-01-27T15:50:00.000-08:00

Philip, the second son of Louis IX of France (Saint Louis), became heir to the throne on the death of his elder brother Louis (1260). Accompanying his father's crusade against

Koch, Marita

2005-01-26T04:53:00.000-08:00

An injury forced Koch to withdraw from the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, where she had been a favoured competitor. She set the first of her indoor records the

Valencia, Lake

2005-01-24T14:56:00.000-08:00

Spanish Lago De Valencia, lake in Carabobo and Aragua states, central Venezuela. Lying in a basin in the Cordillera de la Costa (Maritime Andes) of the central highlands at an elevation of 1,362 ft (415 m) above sea level, Lake Valencia measures approximately 18 mi (29 km) from east to west and 10 mi from north to south. Its total area of 141 sq mi (364 sq km) makes it the second largest natural lake of Venezuela, after Lake Maracaibo.

Babbler

2005-01-22T11:44:00.000-08:00

Also called Chatterer, any of more than 250 Old World songbirds of the family Timaliidae (order Passeriformes); they are treated by many authorities as a subfamily of the Muscicapidae (q.v.). Noted for their continual and rapid vocalizations, babblers are sometimes called babbling thrushes or chatterers. The name babbler is often used in compound form suggesting habitat, appearance, or behaviour:

Popish Plot

2005-01-19T22:28:00.000-08:00

(1678), in English history, a totally fictitious but widely believed plot in which it was alleged that Jesuits were planning the assassination of King Charles II in order to bring his Roman Catholic brother, the Duke of York (afterward King James II), to the throne. The allegations were fabricated by Titus Oates (q.v.), a renegade Anglican clergyman who had feigned conversion

Xia Gui

2005-01-17T13:53:00.000-08:00

Xia's birth and death dates are unknown. According to most Chinese sources, however, he served in the Imperial Academy (Yuhuayuan) under the emperor Ning Zong (reigned 1194/95–1224/25), eventually attaining the rank of daizhao, or “painter in attendance,” and being awarded the highest honour a court painter could receive, the Golden Belt. The earliest source of information on him, however,

Yemen

2005-01-16T10:11:00.000-08:00

A republic of the southwestern Arabian Peninsula, Yemen has coastlines on the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Arabian Sea. Area: 555,000 sq km (214,300 sq mi), including the undemarcated area bordered by Saudi Arabia and claimed by Yemen. Pop. (1996 est.): 16.6 million. Cap.: San'a`. Monetary unit: Yemen Rial, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of YRls 100 to U.S. $1 (YRls 157.53 = £1 sterling). President in 1996, Maj. Gen. Ali Abdallah Salih; prime minister,

Uthai Thani

2005-01-14T03:06:00.000-08:00

Town and changwat (province) in the Northern region of Thailand, west of the Mae Nam (river) Chao Phraya. The provincial capital, Uthai Thani, is a market town in the eastern lowland part of the province. The province (area 2,598 sq mi [6,730 sq km]) includes a fertile lowland in the east and the Prathet Thai highlands in the west. Somewhat isolated from the country's main transportation

Romance Languages, The reduction of inflectional endings

2005-01-12T19:50:00.000-08:00

The inflectional endings have been lost most in nouns and adjectives. The Classical Latin five-case declensional system has everywhere been replaced (with a couple of doubtful exceptions) by a two-gender system, in which normally masculine gender is marked by survivors of the second (-us) declension endings of Latin (Italian cavallo, Portuguese cavalu, Romanian cal

Philip Iii

2005-01-07T20:09:00.000-08:00

Philip was the son of John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria. When he became duke of Burgundy at the age of 23, his first aim was to extricate himself as expeditiously

Europa

2005-01-05T21:41:00.000-08:00

Also called Jupiter II, fourth largest satellite of the planet Jupiter. One of the four Galilean satellites, it was discovered by the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1610 and was named by the German astronomer Simon Marius after a figure in Greek mythology. Europa has a diameter of 3,138 km (1,946 miles), and it orbits Jupiter at a distance of approximately 670,900 km (416,900 miles). The satellite has a density of 3.03 grams

Gyangu

2005-01-04T06:54:00.000-08:00

Also called Yakuza, Japanese gangster or mobster, a member of a boryokudan (q.v.), or gang of racketeers.

National Awakening Party

2005-01-01T13:33:00.000-08:00

The PKB was formed in 1998 by Abdurrahman Wahid—a Muslim cleric and head of the Council of Scholars (Nahdlatul-'Ulama), the country's largest Muslim organization— and his supporters. Its opposition to an Islamic government, however, led more conservative members to leave and establish other parties. In 1999 the PKB leader Wahid

Rousseau, Théodore

2004-12-30T20:50:00.000-08:00

Rousseau, the son of a tailor, began to paint at age 14. In the 1820s he began to paint out-of-doors directly from nature, a novel procedure at that time. Although

Constantia

2004-12-28T17:29:00.000-08:00

Residential area, Western Cape province, South Africa, near Cape Town. It is located in Constantia Valley, famous since the 18th century for wines produced on both government and private farms. The Groot Constantia homestead there was built about 1685 by Governor Simon van der Stel and named for his wife, Constance; a fine example of Cape Dutch architecture, it has been restored

Six, Les

2004-12-26T08:42:00.000-08:00

(French: “The Six”), group of early 20th-century French composers whose music represents a strong reaction against the heavy German Romanticism of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss, as well as against the lush Impressionism of Claude Debussy. Les Six were Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, Georges Auric, Louis Durey, and Germaine Tailleferre. The French

Nora

2004-12-25T04:13:00.000-08:00

Ancient site about 22 miles (35 km) southwest of Cagliari (Caralis) on the island of Sardinia. Although tradition ascribes its foundation to Iberians from Tartessus, the site, which lies on a triangular promontory ending in a steep cliff, is characteristically Phoenician. Apart from remains of a Sardinian nuraghe, or towerlike monument, the earliest antiquities discovered

Fukien, Education

2004-12-22T11:15:00.000-08:00

One of the most notable institutions of higher learning in Fukien is Amoy University. Fu-chou, famous since the Sung dynasty as a cultural centre, is the site of Fu-chou University, Fukien Medical College, Fukien Agricultural Institute, Fukien Normal College, and the Fukien Institute of Epidemiology of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. Illiteracy has generally

Ligdan

2004-12-21T16:30:00.000-08:00

Ligdan's authority

Malar, Lake

2004-12-19T23:13:00.000-08:00

Swedish Mälaren, lake in eastern Sweden, located just west of Stockholm, which lies at the lake's junction with Salt Bay, an arm of the Baltic Sea. At one time Lake Malar was a bay of the Baltic, and seagoing vessels using it were able to sail far into the interior of Sweden. Because of movements of the Earth's crust, however, the rock barrier at the mouth of the bay had become so shallow by about

Selkirk, Alexander

2004-12-16T22:06:00.000-08:00

The son of a shoemaker, Selkirk ran away to sea in 1695; he joined a band of buccaneers in the Pacific and by 1703 was sailing master of a galley on a privateering expedition. In September 1704, after a quarrel with his captain, he was put ashore at his own request

Pacific Ocean, Eastern region

2004-12-14T15:22:00.000-08:00

The eastern region, which extends southward from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, is relatively narrow and is associated with the American cordilleran system of almost unbroken mountain chains, the coastal ranges of which rise steeply from the western shores of North and South America. The continental shelf, which runs parallel to it, is steep and comparatively narrow.

Houghton

2004-12-13T17:45:00.000-08:00

City, seat of Houghton county, northwestern Upper Peninsula of Michigan, U.S. It lies along Portage Lake and the Keweenaw Waterway, opposite Hancock. It was settled in 1851 and named for Douglass Houghton, a state geologist. The discovery of nearby rich copper lodes between 1855 and 1870 resulted in an economic boom that lasted until after World War I. Houghton is now a distribution

Aesthetics

2004-12-10T05:27:00.000-08:00

All aesthetic experience, whether of art or nature, seems to be informed by and dependent upon an exercise of taste. We choose the object of aesthetic experience, and often do so carefully and deliberately. Moreover, we are judged by our choices, not only of works of art but also of colour schemes, dresses, and garden ornaments, just as we are judged by our manners and our

Wichale, Treaty Of

2004-12-09T18:12:00.000-08:00

Article XVII of the Treaty of Wichale stated that the emperor of Ethiopia “could” have

Basildon

2004-12-07T10:13:00.000-08:00

New town, Basildon district, administrative and historic county of Essex, England. Basildon new town was established in 1949. It was one of eight established 20 to 30 miles (32 to 48 km) from central London to help alleviate the city's acute post-World War II housing shortage. More than 230 factories have been built and nearly 400 shops, with more than 200 in the town centre. Pop. (1991) 100,924.

France, History Of, Geographic-historical scope

2004-12-05T20:13:00.000-08:00

Gaul, in this context, signifies only what the Romans, from their perspective, termed Transalpine Gaul (Gallia Transalpina), or “Gaul across the Alps.” Broadly, it comprised all lands from the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean coast of modern France to the English Channel and from the Atlantic to the Rhine and the western Alps. The Romans knew a second Gaul, Cisalpine

Confession Of Faith

2004-12-02T01:24:00.000-08:00

The medieval Christian Church did not attempt an official codification of

Kaiser, Georg

2004-12-01T17:31:00.000-08:00

Kaiser went to Argentina as a clerk, but ill health forced him to return to Germany. During a long convalescence he wrote his first plays, mainly satirical comedies that attracted little attention. His first success was Die Bürger von Calais (1914; The Burghers of Calais). Produced in 1917 at the height

Alcuin

2004-11-28T20:47:00.000-08:00

Anglo-Latin poet, educator, and cleric who, as head of the Palatine school established by Charlemagne at Aachen, introduced the traditions of Anglo-Saxon humanism into western Europe. He was the foremost scholar of the revival of learning known as the Carolingian Renaissance. He also made important reforms in the Roman

Karakorum

2004-11-27T01:53:00.000-08:00

The site of Karakorum may have been first settled about 750. In 1220 Genghis Khan, the great Mongol conqueror, established his headquarters there and used it as a base for his invasion of China. In 1267 the capital was moved to Khanbaliq (modern Peking) by Kublai Khan, greatest of

Quimby, Harriet

2004-11-24T00:05:00.000-08:00

Quimby's birth date and place are not well attested. (She sometimes claimed 1884 in Arroyo Grande, California.) By 1902, however, it is known that she and her family were living in California, and in that year she became

Argentina, The Gran Chaco

2004-11-22T17:04:00.000-08:00

The western sector of the North region, the Gran Chaco, extends beyond the international border at the Pilcomayo River into Paraguay, where it is called the Chaco Boreal (“Northern Chaco”) by Argentines. The Argentine sector between the Pilcomayo River and the Bermejo River is known as the Chaco Central. Argentines have named the area southward to latitude 30° S, where the

Joule's Law

2004-11-21T19:03:00.000-08:00

In electricity, mathematical description of the rate at which resistance in a circuit converts electric energy into heat energy. The English physicist James Prescott Joule discovered in 1840 that the amount of heat per second that develops in a wire carrying a current is proportional to the electrical resistance of the wire and the square of the current. He determined

International Law, Antarctica

2004-11-19T09:47:00.000-08:00

The Antarctic Treaty (1959) prevents militarization of the Antarctic continent and suspends territorial claims by states for the life of the treaty. Because it provides no mechanism for its termination, however, a continuing and open-ended regime has been created. There also are various agreements that protect Antarctica's environment.

Facsimile

2004-11-17T00:28:00.000-08:00

Most office and home fax machines conform to the Group 3 standard, which was adopted in 1980 in order to ensure the compatibility of digital machines operating through public telephone systems worldwide. As a standard letter-size sheet is fed through a machine, it is scanned repeatedly across its width by a strip of 1,728 photosensors. Each photosensor in turn generates a low

Wu-hsing

2004-11-14T20:49:00.000-08:00

The city was established as a county, Wu-ch'eng, in

Latent Image

2004-11-12T09:03:00.000-08:00

According to current theories of latent image formation, small specks of silver atoms (one ten-millionth

Resorcinol

2004-11-11T19:54:00.000-08:00

Also called m-dihydroxybenzene phenolic compound used in the manufacture of resins, plastics, dyes, medicine, and numerous other organic chemical compounds. It is produced in large quantities by sulfonating benzene with fuming sulfuric acid and fusing the resulting benzenedisulfonic acid with caustic soda. Reaction with formaldehyde produces resins used to make rayon and nylon amenable

Slaughter, Enos Bradsher

2004-11-08T03:35:00.000-08:00

American baseball player (b. April 27, 1916, Roxboro, N.C.—d. Aug. 12, 2002, Durham, N.C.), had a lifetime .300 batting average and was a hero of the St. Louis Cardinals, for whom he played 13 of his 19 major league seasons. He was a hard-hitting outfielder who led the National League in hits in 1942 and in runs batted in 1946; played in 10 All-Star games, and was elected in 1985 to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He was most renowned for his

Cummingtonite

2004-11-07T01:48:00.000-08:00

An amphibole mineral, an iron and magnesium silicate that occurs in metamorphic rocks. For chemical formula and detailed physical properties, see amphibole (table).

Tibet, The arts

2004-11-04T13:46:00.000-08:00

Tibet is most renowned for its religious scroll paintings (tankas, or thang-ka), metal images, and wooden block prints. There are three categories of images—representing the peaceful, moderate, and angry deities—and three schools of painting—the Sman-thang, Gong-dkar Mkhan-bris, and Kar-ma sgar-bris—which are differentiated by colour tones and depicted facial

Puerto Padre

2004-11-03T07:14:00.000-08:00

City, northeastern Las Tunas provincia, eastern Cuba. Lying on sheltered Puerto Padre Bay, off the Atlantic Ocean, the city is a commercial and manufacturing centre for a fertile irrigated hinterland. Sugarcane, tobacco, fruit, and livestock produced in the area are processed in the city, which also contains brickyards and sawmills. Saltworks, asphalt deposits, and

Pietro Della Vigna

2004-11-01T09:24:00.000-08:00

Born in the mainland part of the kingdom of Sicily to a poor family (his parents were said to have been

Germanic Religion And Mythology, Minor Aesir

2004-10-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

A number of minor deities are also ranked among the Aesir. The god Heimdall (Heimdal[l]r) is particularly interesting, but rather enigmatic. His antagonism with Loki, with whom he struggles for the possession of the Brísingamen necklace, results in their killing each other in the Ragnarök, according to Snorri. Heimdall is of mysterious origin: he is the son of nine mothers,

Dancourt, Florent Carton

2004-10-27T08:13:00.000-07:00

Born into an established bourgeois family, Dancourt was educated in Paris by Jesuits and studied law. In 1680 he married an actress, Thérèse de La Thorillière. They debuted with

Celastraceae

2004-10-26T21:48:00.000-07:00

The staff-tree family, in the order Celastrales, comprising about 55 genera of woody vines, shrubs, and trees, native in tropical and temperate zones but best known for ornamental forms of the genera Euonymus and Celastrus (bittersweet). Fruit of the family is often colourful. Leaves are frequently leathery and flowers are small, with four to five sepals and petals; alternating

Wang Xizhi

2004-10-24T04:57:00.000-07:00

It is said that even in his lifetime a few of Wang's characters or his signature were priceless; down through the ages, aspiring students of that most basic yet highest art in China, calligraphy, have copied and preserved traces of his style. The most famous example of his writing is the

Agribusiness

2004-10-21T18:24:00.000-07:00

In highly industrialized countries, many activities essential to agriculture are carried on separately from the farm. These include the development and production of

Ze'evi, Rechavam

2004-10-19T16:22:00.000-07:00

Israeli soldier and politician (b. Aug. 20, 1926, Jerusalem, Palestine—d. Oct. 17, 2001, Jerusalem, Israel), pursued hard-line ultranationalist policies, most notably in support of his outspoken belief that all Palestinians should be removed from the Israel-occupied territories in Gaza and the West Bank and transferred to Arab countries and his claim that the kingdom of Jordan should

Hadley Cell

2004-10-18T14:34:00.000-07:00

Simple model of the Earth's atmospheric circulation that was proposed by George Hadley (1735). It consists of a single wind system in each hemisphere, with westward and Equatorward flow near the surface and eastward and poleward flow at higher altitudes. The tropical regions receive more heat from solar radiation than they radiate back into space, and the polar regions

Sprint

2004-10-16T14:13:00.000-07:00

Racers compete in groups of two (sometimes called a match sprint) or three, and they frequently spend the early laps of the race moving relatively slowly and trying to manoeuvre their opponents into the lead, while at the same time following close

Conestoga Wagon

2004-10-13T05:02:00.000-07:00

Horse-drawn freight wagon that originated during the 18th century in the Conestoga Creek region of Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, U.S. Ideally suited for hauling freight over bad roads, the Conestoga wagon had a capacity of up to six tons, a floor curved up at each end to prevent the contents from shifting inside, and a white canvas cover to protect against bad weather;

Unity School Of Christianity

2004-10-12T15:14:00.000-07:00

Also called Unity, religious movement founded in Kansas City, Mo., in 1889 by Charles Fillmore (1854–1948), a real-estate agent, and his wife, Myrtle (1845–1931). Mrs. Fillmore believed that spiritual healing had cured her of tuberculosis. As a result, the Fillmores began studying spiritual healing. They were deeply influenced by Emma Curtis Hopkins, a former follower of Mary Baker Eddy, who founded Christian Science.

Lai

2004-10-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

Medieval poetic and musical form, cultivated especially among the trouvères, or poet-musicians, of northern France in the 12th and 13th centuries but also among their slightly earlier, Provençal-language counterparts, the troubadours, and, called Leich, by the German minnesingers. The lai was a long poem having nonuniform stanzas of about 6 to 16 or more lines of 4 to 8 syllables.

Hülegü

2004-10-08T14:12:00.000-07:00

Hülegü, a grandson of Genghis Khan, was appointed by his brother

Quibdó

2004-10-05T19:53:00.000-07:00

City, western Colombia, on the Río Atrato, in the Pacific coastal plain. Its receipt of more than 420 inches (10,700 mm) of rain a year probably exceeds that of any other equatorial area on Earth. Founded in 1654 as San Francisco de Quibdó, the city has served as Chocó's capital since 1948. It is a regional commercial and manufacturing centre, housing metalworks, sawmills, and clothing and soft-drink

Biblical Literature, Analogical interpretation

2004-10-04T04:50:00.000-07:00

Analogical interpretation traditionally includes not only interpretation according to the analogy of Scripture (parallelism, in other words) but also interpretation according to the “analogy of faith”—an expression that misapplies the language of Rom. 12:6 in the King James Version of 1611. It has at times been pressed to mean that no biblical interpretation is valid unless

I-lan

2004-10-01T06:46:00.000-07:00

Shih (municipality) and seat of I-lan hsien (county), northeastern Taiwan, the centre of the only sizable alluvial basin on the island's mountainous eastern coast. The basin itself was largely formed as the delta of the Cho-Shui River and is about 30 miles (50 km) from north to south. I-lan city lies in the centre of this plain on the Lan River. The plain is a fertile rice-producing region,

Induction, Electromagnetic

2004-09-29T04:54:00.000-07:00

In physics, the induction of an electromotive force in a circuit by varying the magnetic flux linked with the circuit. See Faraday's law of induction.

Augustine, Saint

2004-09-27T00:57:00.000-07:00

Augustine's impact on the Middle Ages cannot be underestimated. Thousands of manuscripts survive, and many serious medieval libraries—possessing no more than a few hundred books in all—had more works of Augustine than of any other writer. His achievement is paradoxical inasmuch as—like a modern artist who makes more money posthumously than in life—most of it was

Aung San

2004-09-25T07:09:00.000-07:00

Born

Polar Anticyclone

2004-09-23T06:12:00.000-07:00

Polar anticyclones are created by the cooling

Wahhab, Muhammad Ibn 'abd Al-

2004-09-21T08:19:00.000-07:00

Having completed his formal education in the holy city of Medina, in Arabia, 'Abd al-Wahhab lived abroad for many years. He taught for four years in Basra, Iraq, and in Baghdad he married an affluent woman whose property he inherited

Ampulla

2004-09-19T06:15:00.000-07:00

Plural Ampullae, a small narrow-necked, round-bodied vase for holding liquids, especially oil and perfumes. It was used in the ancient Mediterranean for toilet purposes and for anointing the bodies of the dead, being then buried with them. In early medieval times in Europe, ampullae were used in anointing kings. Both the name and the function of the ampulla have survived in Western Christianity

Empiricism, Degrees of Empiricism

2004-09-17T01:11:00.000-07:00

Absolute Empiricists hold that there are no a priori concepts, either formal or categorial, and no a priori propositions. Absolute Empiricism about knowledge is less common than

Europe, History Of, Aestheticism

2004-09-16T07:51:00.000-07:00

To those who dedicated their lives to Symbolist literature and criticism the name of aesthetes is often given, for it was at this time, from 1870 to the end of the century, that questions of aesthetics became the intense concern of artists, critics, and a portion of the public. The phrase “art for art's sake,” which the Romanticists had toyed with, was revived and made the hallmark

Postmodern Literature In Latin America

2004-09-14T03:28:00.000-07:00

Latin- American literature blossomed and received international acclaim in the 1960s and 1970s with the so-called boom in the novel, a movement signaled by the publication of major works by the Colombian Gabriel García Márquez, the Mexican Carlos Fuentes, the Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa, the Argentine Julio Cortázar, and the Chilean José Donoso. (More recently, the Chilean

San Francisco, University Of

2004-09-11T03:45:00.000-07:00

Private, coeducational institution of higher learning, located near Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Calif., U.S. It is affiliated with the Jesuit order of the Roman Catholic church. It offers undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs through six academic divisions: the College of Arts and Sciences, McLaren School of Business, the College of Professional

Ushak Carpet

2004-09-10T09:56:00.000-07:00

Floor covering handwoven in the city of Usak (Ushak), Tur. By the 16th century the principal manufacture in Ottoman Turkey of large commercial carpets had been established at Usak, which produced for palace and mosque use and for export. By the 18th and early 19th centuries, this manufacture had come increasingly under European control. The carpets became coarser and rougher,

Peru, Pre-Hispanic groups

2004-09-08T11:43:00.000-07:00

Throughout the pre-Hispanic period, the peoples of Peru were largely isolated from one another by the rugged topography of the country. At least three times, however, a unifying culture spread across the Andes. Beginning c. 1000 BC, the Chavín culture permeated the region, emanating possibly from the northern ceremonial site of Chavín de Huántar. After AD 600, the Huari civilization,

Connally, John Bowden, Jr.

2004-09-06T00:19:00.000-07:00

U.S. politician (b. Feb. 27, 1917, Floresville, Texas--d. June 15, 1993, Houston, Texas), was an ambitious political figure who, besides helping elect Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Lyndon B. Johnson, served as secretary of the navy in the Kennedy administration (1961), as a three-term governor of Texas (1963-69), and as secretary of the treasury (1971) under Pres. Richard M. Nixon; he was indelibly identified

Sanibel Island

2004-09-03T02:29:00.000-07:00

Sanibel Island

Cosenza

2004-09-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

Latin Cosentia, city, capital of Cosenza provincia, Calabria regione, southern Italy, on the Crati River at its confluence with the Busento, north-northeast of Reggio di Calabria. The ancient Cosentia, it was the capital of the Bruttii (an Italic tribe) before it was taken by the Romans in 204 BC. Alaric, king of the Visigoths, died there in 410 and is said to have been buried, together with his treasure

Duran, Simeon Ben Zemah

2004-08-30T17:48:00.000-07:00

Also called (by acronym) Rashbaz first Spanish Jewish rabbi to be paid a regular salary by the community and author of an important commentary on Avot (“Fathers”), a popular ethical tractate in the Talmud, the rabbinical compendium of law, lore, and commentary. Before the 14th century, the rabbinical post had been almost invariably honorary; Duran