CheapBone

Zeeman Effect

2005-04-04T14:48:00.000-07:00

In physics and astronomy, the splitting of a spectral line into two or more components of slightly different frequency when the light source is placed in a magnetic field. It was first observed in 1896 by the Dutch physicist Pieter Zeeman as a broadening of the yellow D-lines of sodium in a flame held between strong magnetic poles. Later the broadening was found to be a distinct

Levi-montalcini, Rita

2005-04-02T03:56:00.000-08:00

Levi-Montalcini studied medicine at the University of Turin and did research there on the

Augustine, Saint, Scholarly literature

2005-04-01T01:53:00.000-08:00

The best one-volume study of Augustine's thought is Eugene TeSelle, Augustine the Theologian (1970). John Burnaby, Amor Dei: A Study of the Religion of St. Augustine (1938; reissued with corrections and a new foreword, 1991), is sympathetic and illuminating but dated. For Augustine in his cultural context, there is still nothing better than Henri Irénée Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique, 4th ed., 2 vol. in 1 (1958; reissued in 1 vol., 1983). Other useful studies are Brian Stock, Augustine the Reader: Meditation, Self-Knowledge, and the Ethics of Interpretation (1996); and Sabine MacCormack, The Shadows of Poetry: Vergil in the Mind of Augustine (1998). Augustine's political views are addressed in Herbert A. Deane, The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine (1963); and R.A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St. Augustine, rev. ed. (1988). Augustine's views on sexuality have come under scrutiny in recent years; the most comprehensive study is Kim Power, Veiled Desire: Augustine on Women (1996); but Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity (1988), is also important.

Epictetus

2005-03-29T16:07:00.000-08:00

Epictetus is most frequently mentioned in connection with a series of medallions on plates in the British Museum in London and the Cabinet des Médailles in Paris. The medallion paintings

Water Snake

2005-03-28T20:36:00.000-08:00

Any member of the genus Natrix, family Colubridae, and similar snakes. The 65 to 80 species of Natrix occur on all continents except South America. Some authorities place the New World species in several genera, the largest of which is Nerodia. Most water snakes have dark blotches or dorsal streaks on their stout bodies, and the scales are keeled. They are semiaquatic, preying

Art And Architecture, Egyptian, Relief sculpture and painting

2005-03-26T21:48:00.000-08:00

The beginnings of the dynastic tradition can be found in tombs of the 3rd

Uji

2005-03-24T17:41:00.000-08:00

Any of the hereditary lineage groups that, until their official abolition in AD 604, formed the basic, decentralized ruling structure of early Japan. They are often referred to as the great clans because of their traditions of common descent, and they were ruled by an uji chief who was considered a direct descendant of the deity (ujigami) worshiped by the group's members. The

Yungas

2005-03-23T06:28:00.000-08:00

Humid, subtropical region in western Bolivia. It occupies the eastern slopes of the Andean Cordillera Real and extends northeast and north of the cities of La Paz and Cochabamba. This rainy forested belt of rugged terrain (deep valleys and gorges separated by sharp ridges) has its counterparts in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Settlers have been attracted to the area

Middle Age

2005-03-22T19:48:00.000-08:00

Period of human adulthood that immediately precedes the onset of old age. Though the age period that defines middle age is somewhat arbitrary, differing greatly from person to person, it is generally defined as being between the ages of 40 and 60. The physiological and psychological changes experienced by a middle-aged person centre on the gradual decline of physical

California, Animal life

2005-03-22T14:43:00.000-08:00

California's animal life is as varied as its geography; about 400 species of mammals and 600 species of birds are identified. The California grizzly bear is extinct, however, and the rare bighorn sheep are found mostly in remote desert mountains. The endangered California condor is being nurtured with the help of zoo hatching programs. Coyotes and pumas (cougars) prowl remote

Vaccine

2005-03-20T20:43:00.000-08:00

A vaccine can confer active immunity against a specific harmful agent by stimulating the immune system to attack the agent. Once stimulated by a vaccine, the antibody-producing cells, called B lymphocytes,

Stabiae

2005-03-20T10:53:00.000-08:00

The town was originally settled by Oscan-speaking people, the native inhabitants of Campania. It entered the Social War (the “war of the allies” against Rome) in 90 BC and was destroyed

Zoji

2005-03-18T00:38:00.000-08:00

Pass across the Himalayas in the Indian-held part of Jammu and Kashmir state, in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. Situated at an elevation of 11,580 feet (3,529 m), Zoji Pass carries the only road leading from the Vale of Kashmir eastward to Leh, in Ladakh district, and on to Tibet. Heavily forested, the pass is the lowest in the western axis of the Himalayas but is extremely

Robbe-grillet, Alain

2005-03-17T13:05:00.000-08:00

Trained as a statistician and agronomist, he claimed to write novels for his time, especially attentive “to the ties that exist between objects, gestures, and situations, avoiding

Animal Behaviour, Habituation

2005-03-16T17:56:00.000-08:00

Habituation is learning to disregard stimuli that are without significance to the animal. In many respects it is the simplest form of learning, and it is sometimes regarded as a fundamental property of all living matter. Most animals inherit a response to be frightened by sudden and strong stimuli such as loud sounds, flashes of light, and the sudden intrusion of

Wait

2005-03-15T17:12:00.000-08:00

An English town watchman or public musician who sounded the hours of the night. In the later Middle Ages the waits were night watchmen, who sounded horns or even played tunes to mark the hours. In the 15th and 16th centuries waits developed into bands of itinerant musicians who paraded the streets at night at Christmas time. From the early 16th century, London and all the chief

Leucothea

2005-03-14T09:17:00.000-08:00

(Greek: White Goddess [of the Foam]), in Greek mythology, a sea goddess first mentioned in Homer's Odyssey, in which she rescued the Greek hero Odysseus from drowning. She was customarily identified with Ino, daughter of the Phoenician Cadmus; because she cared for the infant god Dionysus, the goddess Hera drove Ino (or her husband, Athamas) mad so that she and her son, Melicertes,

Aeolian Harp

2005-03-14T00:56:00.000-08:00

(from Aeolus, the Greek god of the winds), stringed musical instrument played by the wind. It is made of a wooden sound box about 3 feet by 5 inches by 3 inches (1 m by 13 cm by 8 cm) that is loosely strung with 10 or 12 gut strings. These strings are all of the same length but vary in thickness and hence in elasticity. The strings are all tuned to the same pitch. In the wind they vibrate in aliquot

Mahendra

2005-03-12T15:38:00.000-08:00

Mahendra ascended the throne in 1955 upon the death of his father, King Tribhuvan. The new king came into conflict with his Cabinet, which was dominated by a coalition of the Nepali Congress Party and the Ranas (a line of hereditary prime ministers). In order to assert his control, Mahendra staged a coup in 1960, dissolving

Dan

2005-03-12T08:37:00.000-08:00

One of the 12 tribes of Israel that in biblical times comprised the people of Israel who later became the Jewish people. The tribe was named after the first of two sons born to Jacob (also called Israel) and Bilhah, the maidservant of Jacob's second wife, Rachel. Nine of the other 11 tribes were also named after sons of Jacob, while two bear the names of Jacob's grandsons, children

Uganda

2005-03-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

Officially Republic of Uganda, Swahili Jamhuri ya Uganda landlocked country of East Africa. Covering a total area of 93,072 square miles (241,038 square km), the country is slightly smaller in size than its former colonial ruler, Great Britain. It is bordered by The Sudan to the north, Kenya to the east, Tanzania and Rwanda to the south, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo [Kinshasa]; formerly Zaire) to the west. The capital city, Kampala

Earth, Evidence for polar wandering, continental drift, and seafloor spreading

2005-03-09T23:26:00.000-08:00

Polar wandering, continental drift, and seafloor spreading are all consequences of plate movements. Polar wandering is the movement of a continent relative to the rotational poles or spin axis of the Earth. Continental drift is the movement of one continent relative to another continent, and seafloor spreading is the movement of one block of seafloor relative

Sangha

2005-03-08T09:47:00.000-08:00

The sangha originated in the group of disciples who renounced the worldly life to wander with the Buddha and listen to his teachings. After the Buddha's

La Taille, Jean De

2005-03-07T01:40:00.000-08:00

While studying in Paris La Taille came under the influence, shown in his minor poems, of Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay. His chief poems, prosaic but forceful, are

Essexite

2005-03-05T21:25:00.000-08:00

Dark gray to black, fine-grained, intrusive igneous rock that occurs in Essex County, Mass.; at Mount Royal, near Montreal; near Oslo, Nor.; at Roztoky, Czech Republic; and at Carclout, Scot. It contains plagioclase as the dominant feldspar, as well as orthoclase feldspar, augite, biotite, hornblende, olivine, and nepheline. As the proportion of nepheline increases, essexite

Gheyn, Matthias Van Den

2005-03-04T15:50:00.000-08:00

He was born into a celebrated family of Flemish bell founders. He moved with his family to Louvain in 1726 and probably received his first musical education

Sudan, History Of The, Medieval Christian kingdoms

2005-03-03T16:23:00.000-08:00

The 200 years from the fall of Kush to the middle of the 6th century is an unknown age in the Sudan. Nubia was inhabited by a people called the Nobatae by the ancient geographers and the X-Group by modern archaeologists, who are still at a loss to explain their origins. The X-Group were clearly, however, the heirs of Kush, for their whole cultural life was dominated by Meroitic

Abs, Hermann J.

2005-03-02T21:32:00.000-08:00

Abs studied law for one year before joining a merchant bank in Cologne. After World War I, he obtained a series of posts, in Germany and abroad, learning the business of international banking. In 1938 he became a manager of Berlin's Deutsche Bank, which had,

Adrar

2005-03-02T06:12:00.000-08:00

Traditional region of central Mauritania in western Africa. It consists of a low central massif with noticeable cliffs that rise to about 800 feet (240 m). The terrain is arid and almost totally unsuitable for cropping. There is, however, sufficient water at the base of the uplands to support date-palm groves, and during the wetter part of the year there is cultivation of millet,

Affreightment

2005-02-28T18:52:00.000-08:00

Essentially, such a contract is an agreement between two parties, the carrier and the shipper. The carrier undertakes to carry the goods to

Ammeter

2005-02-28T06:12:00.000-08:00

Ammeters vary in their operating principles and accuracies. The

Fusel Oil

2005-02-25T11:19:00.000-08:00

A mixture of volatile, oily liquids produced in small amounts during alcoholic fermentation. A typical fusel oil contains 60–70 percent of amyl alcohol (q.v.), smaller amounts of n-propyl and isobutyl alcohols, and traces of other components. Before industrial production of synthetic amyl alcohols began in the 1920s, fusel oil was the only commercial source of these compounds,

Kiddush

2005-02-24T21:59:00.000-08:00

Also spelled Qiddush (Hebrew: “sanctification”) Jewish benediction and prayer recited over a cup of wine immediately before the meal on the eve of the sabbath or of a festival; the ceremony acknowledges the sanctity of the day that has just begun. Chanting, or recitation, usually performed by the head of the household, may involve several or all members of the family, depending on the custom; each then sips wine from

Cohen, Albert

2005-02-23T06:31:00.000-08:00

Cohen earned an M.A. in sociology from Indiana University (1942) and a Ph.D. in sociology from

Maturidi, Abu Mansur Muhammad Al-

2005-02-22T02:17:00.000-08:00

Except for the place and time of Maturidi's death, almost nothing is known about the details of Maturidi's life. He lived during a time when the Mu'tazilites, a Muslim sect, were using the techniques of Greek logical argument to attack what had

Kirkwall

2005-02-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

Royal burgh (town), seaport, and chief town of the Orkney Islands, Scotland, off the northern tip of the Scottish mainland. It was designated a royal burgh in 1486. Early Norse influence persisted as late as the building of the 12th-century red sandstone St. Magnus Cathedral, a dominant feature of the present town. The ruins of the Earl's Palace and 17th-century houses standing gable-end

Wage And Salary

2005-02-20T19:32:00.000-08:00

Karl Marx accepted Ricardo's labour theory of value, but he subscribed to a subsistence theory of wages for a different reason than that given by the classical economists. In Marx's mind, it was not the pressure of population that drove wages to the subsistence level but rather the existence of a large army of unemployed, which he blamed on the capitalists. He stated

Sibyl

2005-02-20T08:28:00.000-08:00

Also called Sibylla, prophetess in Greek legend and literature. Tradition represented her as a woman of prodigious old age uttering predictions in ecstatic frenzy, but she was always a figure of the mythical past, and her prophecies, in Greek hexameters, were handed down in writing. In the 5th and early 4th centuries BC, she was always referred to in the singular; Sibylla was treated as her proper

Jujuy

2005-02-18T21:24:00.000-08:00

Provincia, extreme northwestern Argentina, bordering Chile (west) and Bolivia (north), having an area of 20,548 square miles (53,219 square km). It comprises several cordilleras of the Andes—reaching elevations of 16,500 feet (5,000 m) and separated by a bleak plateau 11,500 feet (3,500 m) high called the Puna de Atacama—that descend on the east to form sub-Andean ranges and valleys. The eastern Andean and sub-Andean

Vigny, Alfred-victor, Comte De

2005-02-18T19:48:00.000-08:00

Poet, dramatist, and novelist who was the most philosophical of the French Romantic writers.

Mineola

2005-02-15T08:25:00.000-08:00

Village, mainly in North Hempstead town (township) with a small section in Hempstead town, and seat (1898) of Nassau county, Long Island, southeastern New York, U.S. It was settled in the 17th century by English and Dutch inhabitants of Connecticut who crossed Long Island Sound; it was known as Hempstead Branch until its present name was adopted in 1858. The name is from an Algonquian

Cylinder Recording

2005-02-15T05:40:00.000-08:00

Earliest form of phonograph record, invented by Thomas A. Edison in 1877. The sound to be recorded was focused by a horn onto a diaphragm, causing it to vibrate; the vibrations were transmitted to a stylus and modulated its motion as it followed a helical path along the surface of a yielding material (such as wax) that coated a cylinder rotating under the stylus. See also phonograph

Ayrshire

2005-02-13T09:39:00.000-08:00

Breed of hardy dairy cattle originating in the county of Ayr, Scotland, in the latter part of the 18th century and considered to be the only special dairy breed to have originated in the British Isles. The body colour varies from almost pure white to nearly all cherry red or brown with any combination of these colours; black or brindle are considered undesirable. The beef

Sketch

2005-02-13T01:22:00.000-08:00

In a traditional sketch, the emphasis usually is laid on the general design and composition of the work and

Nakho-dagestanian Languages

2005-02-12T04:40:00.000-08:00

Also called Northeast Caucasian Languages, group of languages spoken in the northeastern Caucasus Mountains. The Nakh division consists of the languages of the Chechen, Ingush, and Bats. The Dagestanian division is more multifarious and includes such groups as the Avar-Andi-Dido languages, the Lak-Dargin (Lak-Dargwa) languages, and the Lezgian languages. See also Dagestanian languages; Nakh languages.

Nicholas Of Damascus

2005-02-11T16:35:00.000-08:00

Nicholas instructed Herod the Great in rhetoric and philosophy, and attracted the notice of Augustus when he accompanied his patron on a visit to Rome. Later, when Herod's conduct aroused the suspicions of Augustus, Nicholas was

Arabian Basin

2005-02-10T22:14:00.000-08:00

Submarine basin of the southern Arabian Sea, rising to meet the submerged Carlsberg Ridge to the south, the Maldive Island chain to the southeast, India and Pakistan to the northeast, Iran to the north, and the Arabian Peninsula to the west. It has a maximum depth of 19,275 feet (5,875 m) and is separated by the Carlsberg Ridge from the deeper Somali Basin to the south and west. The sill

Smyrna

2005-02-10T10:55:00.000-08:00

Town, Kent county, central Delaware, U.S., near the Smyrna River. Established about 1755, it was known as Duck Creek Cross Roads (for its location on the creek, which flows into the Smyrna River) until 1806, when it was renamed for the biblical seaport of Asia Minor. In 1792 a piqued state assembly, barred from the State House at Dover by a sheriff, met in the village tavern and named Duck Creek

Heinse, (johann Jakob) Wilhelm

2005-02-08T01:42:00.000-08:00

A law student at Erfurt, Heinse met the Romantic writer Christoph

Hindenburg

2005-02-08T00:18:00.000-08:00

German dirigible, the largest rigid airship ever constructed, and the victim of a spectacular disaster. The Hindenburg was an 804-foot- (245-metre-) long airship of conventional Zeppelin design that was first launched at Friedrichshafen, Germany, in April 1936. It had a maximum speed of 84 miles per hour (135 km/h) and a cruising speed of 78 miles per hour (126 km/h). In 1936 the Hindenburg inaugurated commercial

Hojo Tokimune

2005-02-06T17:48:00.000-08:00

Tokimune was 17 when he assumed the office of regent in 1268, the year that the Mongol conqueror of China, Kublai Khan, sent a message demanding that

Byssinosis

2005-02-06T05:19:00.000-08:00

Also called Brown Lung, or Brown Lung Disease, respiratory disorder, a type of pneumoconiosis caused by dust from cotton and other fibres, common among textile workers. When inhaled, the dust stimulates histamine release, which causes constriction of the air passages, making breathing difficult. Over time the dust accumulates in the lung, producing a typical discoloration that gives the disease its common

Cortés, Hernán, Marqués Del Valle De Oaxaca

2005-02-04T22:17:00.000-08:00

Cortés was the son of Martín Cortés de Monroy and of Doña Catalina Pizarro Altamarino—names of ancient lineage. “They had little wealth, but much honour,” according to Cortés's secretary,

Narameikhla

2005-02-03T05:32:00.000-08:00

When Arakan became the scene of a struggle between rival centres of power in the 15th century, Narameikhla, the son of King Rajathu (reigned 1397–1401), was forced in the first year

Arica

2005-02-01T23:39:00.000-08:00

Capital of Arica province, Tarapacá region, Chile. The city lies along the Pacific coast, at the foot of El Morro (a precipitous headland), and is fringed on its southern edge by sand dunes of the rainless Atacama Desert. Arica is situated near the Peruvian border and is the northernmost Chilean seaport. Founded as San Marcos de Arica in 1570 on the site of a pre-Columbian settlement,

Schaff, Philip

2005-02-01T17:46:00.000-08:00

Schaff was educated at the universities of Tübingen, Halle, and Berlin and was made a lecturer in 1842 at Berlin, where his interest in church history was aroused

Alfonsine Tables

2005-01-31T22:50:00.000-08:00

Also spelled Alphonsine Tables the first set of astronomical tables prepared in Christian Europe. They enabled calculation of eclipses and the positions of the planets for any given time based on the Ptolemaic theory, which assumed that the Earth was at the centre of the universe. The introduction states that the work was prepared in Toledo, Spain, for King Alfonso X of León and Castile under the

Selkirk Mountains

2005-01-30T04:23:00.000-08:00

Major subdivision of the Columbia Mountains, extending for 200 miles (320 km) in a southeasterly arc, mostly in British Columbia, Canada, and just across the U.S. border into northern Idaho and Montana. Bounded by the Purcell Mountains (east) and the Columbia River (west and north), they are sometimes considered part of the Rocky Mountain system. The summits are lowest in the south,

Dardanus

2005-01-29T03:34:00.000-08:00

According to tradition, having slain his brother Iasius, or Iasion, Dardanus fled from Arcadia across the sea to Samothrace. When that island was visited by a flood, he crossed over to

Anthony Of Tagrit

2005-01-28T21:58:00.000-08:00

Originally from Tagrit, near Latakia, Syria, Anthony belonged to the part of the Eastern Syriac Church called the Jacobites, which had separated from the authority of the Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople in the 6th century.

Leah

2005-01-27T23:20:00.000-08:00

After Jacob had deprived his brother Esau of his birthright

Priapea

2005-01-26T23:21:00.000-08:00

Also spelled Priapeia poems in honour of the the god of fertility Priapus. Although there are ancient Greek poems addressed to him, the name Priapea is mainly applied to a collection of 85 or 86 short Latin poems composed in various metres and dealing with the fertility god who, with his sickle, protected gardens and vineyards against thieves and from whose axe-hewn image of figwood or willow

Alexis

2005-01-25T19:01:00.000-08:00

After his mother, Eudoxia, was forced to enter a convent (1698), Alexis was brought up by his aunts and, after 1702, was educated by the tutor Baron Heinrich von Huyssen. Although he dutifully obeyed his father—participating in the

Arrow Cross Party

2005-01-25T17:58:00.000-08:00

Hungarian Nyilaskeresztes Párt, Hungarian fascist organization that controlled the Hungarian government from October 1944 to April 1945 during World War II. It originated as the Party of National Will founded by Ferenc Szálasi in 1935. Szálasi's party was quite small and underwent numerous reorganizations; it reconstituted itself under a new name and emerged early in 1939 as the Arrow Cross Party. In the May 1939 national

Narcissus

2005-01-22T03:56:00.000-08:00

Any member of a genus (Narcissus) of bulbous, often fragrant, ornamental plants in the family Amaryllidaceae. The genus contains about 40 species, native primarily to Europe. Daffodil, or narcissus (N. pseudonarcissus), jonquil (N. jonquilla), and poet's narcissus (N. poeticus) are popular garden flowers. The central crown of each yellow, white, or pink flower ranges in shape from

Hokkaido

2005-01-22T01:48:00.000-08:00

Northernmost of the four main islands of Japan, bordered by the Sea of Japan (west), the Sea of Okhotsk (north), and the Pacific Ocean (east and south). The island of Hokkaido has an area of 30,107 square miles (77,978 square km). Together with a few small adjacent islands, it constitutes a do (province) with an area of 32,247 square miles (83,520 square km), making up 21 percent of Japan's land area. Hokkaido is characterized

Lance

2005-01-21T05:41:00.000-08:00

The combination of lance and stirrup gave the armoured knights of the European

Earth

2005-01-20T10:34:00.000-08:00

The works by William K. Hartmann and Ron Miller, The History of Earth: An Illustrated Chronicle of an Evolving Planet (1991), lavishly illustrated; Preston Cloud, Oasis in Space: Earth History from the Beginning (1988); and Jonathan Weiner, Planet Earth (1986), the companion volume to a PBS television series, are good introductions to the planet for the general reader. An older but excellent summary of the historical development of plate tectonics is the book by Ursula B. Marvin, Continental Drift: The Evolution of a Concept (1973). Virgil L. Sharpton and Peter D. Ward (eds.), Global Catastrophes in Earth History: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Impacts, Volcanism, and Mass Mortality (1990), is a technical but definitive collection of papers on the role of giant impacts in the Earth's history. Earth (bimonthly), published in Waukesha, Wis., is for the general reader.

Yangtze Plain

2005-01-19T22:58:00.000-08:00

Wade-Giles romanization Ch'ang Chiang P'ing-yüan, Pinyin Chang Jiang Pingyuan, series of alluvial plains of uneven width along the Yangtze River and its major tributaries, beginning east of I-ch'ang (Hupeh province), China. The Middle Yangtze Plain comprises parts of northeastern Hunan, southeastern Hupeh, and north-central Kiangsi provinces, including Tung-t'ing, P'o-yang, and Hung lakes. The Lower Yangtze Plain includes the Yangtze River delta

Jackson

2005-01-18T09:54:00.000-08:00

Town, seat (1921) of Teton county, northwestern Wyoming, U.S. The town lies at the southern end of the Teton Range, just north of the Snake River, and is the centre of an important recreation and tourist industry. Explored by the fur trapper John Colter in 1807, Jackson takes its name from another trapper, David Jackson, who worked in the area in the 1820s and who organized summer rendezvous

Valdosta

2005-01-16T11:22:00.000-08:00

City, seat (1860) of Lowndes county, southern Georgia, U.S., about 60 miles (100 km) northeast of Tallahassee, Florida. Troupville, the original town and county seat (1828, as Franklinville), was moved 4 miles (6 km) east in 1859 to the present site to be on the right-of-way of the area's first railroad. The new town was named for Georgia Governor George M. Troup's plantation, Val d'Osta (for the Italian region Valle

Japan, Aesthetics

2005-01-16T10:30:00.000-08:00

The dual influences of East and West have helped construct a modern Japanese culture that offers familiar elements to the Westerner but that also contains a powerful and distinctive traditional cultural aesthetic. This can be seen, for example, in the intricate detail, miniaturization, and concepts of subtlety that have transformed imported visual art forms.

Ouvéa Island

2005-01-15T09:37:00.000-08:00

French Île Uvéa , also called Urea or Uea northernmost of the Loyalty Islands, an island group within the French overseas territory of New Caledonia, southwestern Pacific Ocean. Ouvéa is a crescent-shaped atoll, 30 miles (50 km) long and 4.5 miles (7 km) wide, with a total area of 51 square miles (132 square km). The most fertile of the group, it is wooded and exports copra. Faiaué (Fayaoué), on the southeast coast, is the chief village and

La Follette, Robert M

2005-01-14T11:58:00.000-08:00

Biographies and analyses of La Follette and the Progressive movement include Belle Case La Follette and Fola La Follette, Robert M. La Follette, June 14, 1855–June 18, 1925, 2 vol. (1953, reissued 1971); David P. Thelen, The Early Life of Robert M. La Follette, 1855–1884 (1966), and Robert M. La Follette and the Insurgent Spirit (1976, reissued 1985); Robert S. Maxwell, La Follette and the Rise of the Progressives in Wisconsin (1956, reprinted 1973); Fred Greenbaum, Robert Marion La Follette (1975); and Patrick J. Maney, “Young Bob” La Follette (1978).

Brundage, Avery

2005-01-12T18:09:00.000-08:00

Brundage competed in the pentathlon and decathlon at the

Sachs, Curt

2005-01-12T01:09:00.000-08:00

In his youth Sachs took lessons in piano, theory, and composition. Later, at Berlin University—although he included music history in his studies—he took his doctorate in the history of art (1904). After several years as an art critic and historian, during which time

Nagasaki

2005-01-11T03:28:00.000-08:00

Ken (prefecture), northwestern Kyushu, Japan, facing the East China Sea. It includes the islands of Tsushima, Iki, Hirado, and the Goto Archipelago. The prefecture has an irregular shape, with rounded Shimabara Peninsula in the southeast; Cape Nomo and Nishisonoki Peninsula enclose Omura Bay also in the southeast. Dominated by mountains, the limited agricultural land

Middle Rhine Highlands

2005-01-10T04:54:00.000-08:00

Also called Rhenish Slate Mountains , German Rheinisches Schiefergebirge mountainous highlands lying mainly in northwestern Germany but also extending westward as the Ardennes through southeastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg, with an overlap into eastern France beyond the Meuse River. The Highlands form a greatly varied plateau with areas of rugged relief, as in the Eifel and the Rothaargebirge in the region of Sauerland, though

Huyton-with-roby

2005-01-09T21:23:00.000-08:00

Urban area, metropolitan borough of Knowsley, metropolitan county of Merseyside, historic county of Lancashire, England. It lies on the eastern periphery of Liverpool. Although mentioned (as Hitune and Rabil) in Domesday Book (1086), the record of William the Conqueror's land survey of England, the town was not important until its rapid development as a suburban area for

Anorexia

2005-01-07T04:28:00.000-08:00

Persistent lack of appetite not caused by repletion. It may spring from psychoneurotic causes, as in anorexia nervosa (q.v.), a lack of appetite, primarily in young women, that may lead to extreme emaciation and even to death. Anorexia, like nausea and vomiting, may be brought about by shock, pain, or an inadequate supply of oxygen to a centre in the medulla oblongata (the part

Gobi

2005-01-06T22:16:00.000-08:00

Also called Gobi Desert, great desert and semidesert region of Central Asia. The Gobi (from Mongolian gobi, meaning “waterless place”) stretches across huge portions of both Mongolia and China. Contrary to the perhaps romantic image long associated with what—at least to the European mind—was a remote and unexplored region, much of the Gobi is not sandy desert but bare rock. It is possible to drive

Dadra And Nagar Haveli

2005-01-05T23:42:00.000-08:00

Works dealing specifically with the west and west-central area prior to its annexation by India are mainly in Portuguese; see Henry Scholberg, Archana Ashok Kakodker, and Carmo Azevedo, Bibliography of Goa and the Portuguese in India (1982). See also M.N. Pearson, Merchants and Rulers in Gujarat: The Response to the Portuguese in the Sixteenth Century (1976); and K.S. Mathew, Portuguese and the Sultanate of Gujarat, 1500–1573 (1986). Ganesh Dass, Socio-economic Profile of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, ed. by K.D. Ballal (1974); and P.S. Lele, Dadra and Nagar Haveli (1987), provide useful overviews. S.S. Desai, Goa, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli (1976), is a study of the three union territories.

Eye Rhyme

2005-01-05T14:57:00.000-08:00

In poetry, an imperfect rhyme in which two words are spelled similarly but pronounced differently (such as move and love, bough and though, come and home, and laughter and daughter). Some of these (such as flood and brood) are referred to as historical rhymes because at one time they probably had the same pronunciation.

Ozier Pattern

2005-01-03T13:47:00.000-08:00

In tableware, molded basket-weave pattern produced in Germany in the 1730s on Meissen porcelain tableware. It was probably one of the numerous inventions of the celebrated modeler Johann Joachim Kändler. There are four basic types of ozier molding: the ordinair-ozier (“ordinary ozier”), a kind of zigzag basket weave; the alt-ozier (“old ozier”), which has radial ribs; the neu-ozier

Encyclopaedia, China

2005-01-02T06:23:00.000-08:00

The contribution from the East to the history of encyclopaedias is distinctive and covers a longer period than that of the West. The Chinese have produced encyclopaedias for approximately 2,000 years, but traditionally they differ from the modern Western encyclopaedia in that they are mainly anthologies of significant literature with some elements of the dictionary.

Biblical Literature, The Alexandrian canon

2005-01-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

The Old Testament as it has come down in Greek translation from the Jews of Alexandria via the Christian Church differs in many respects from the Hebrew Scriptures. The books of the second and third divisions have been redistributed and arranged according to categories of literature—history, poetry, wisdom, and prophecy. Esther and Daniel contain supplementary

Einthoven, Willem

2004-12-30T17:46:00.000-08:00

Einthoven was graduated

Aquatint

2004-12-30T04:26:00.000-08:00

A variety of etching widely used by printmakers to achieve a broad range of tonal values. The process is called aquatint because finished prints often resemble watercolour drawings or wash drawings. The technique consists of exposing a copperplate to acid through a layer of granulated resin or sugar. The acid bites away the plate only in the interstices between

Procaine Hydrochloride

2004-12-27T21:06:00.000-08:00

Also called Novocain, or Novocaine, synthetic organic compound used in medicine as a local anesthetic. Introduced in 1905 under the trade name Novocaine, it became the first and best-known substitute for cocaine in local anesthesia. Generally used in a 1 to 10 percent saline solution, procaine hydrochloride is administered by injection for infiltration (area flooding as in dental anesthesia), nerve-block,

Maurice, Saint

2004-12-26T17:20:00.000-08:00

Their story was recorded in the Passio martyrum Acaunensium (“The Passion of the Martyrs of Agaunum”), by the 5th-century French bishop St. Eucherius, who believed

Mural

2004-12-26T04:58:00.000-08:00

Mural painting is inherently different from all other forms of pictorial art in that it is organically connected

Cachet, Lettre De

2004-12-23T21:11:00.000-08:00

(French: “letter of the sign [or signet]”), a letter signed by the king and countersigned by a secretary of state and used primarily to authorize someone's imprisonment. It was an important instrument of administration under the ancien régime in France. Lettres de cachet were abused to such an extent during the 17th and 18th centuries that numerous complaints on the subject

Nematode

2004-12-23T14:13:00.000-08:00

Also called Roundworm, any worm of the class Nematoda (phylum Aschelminthes, though many authorities consider the Nematoda to be a distinct phylum). Nematodes are among the most abundant animals, occurring as parasites in animals and plants or as free-living forms in soil, freshwater, marine environments, and even such unusual places as vinegar and beer malts. The number of named species

La Crosse

2004-12-22T17:07:00.000-08:00

City, seat (1851) of La Crosse county, western Wisconsin, U.S. It lies along the Mississippi River at the influx of the Black and La Crosse rivers, 129 miles (208 km) northwest of Madison. The settlement developed around a trading post (1841) on a site that French explorers named Prairie la Crosse, after the game of lacrosse played by the Indians there. A natural river port, it became an important

Field Emission

2004-12-21T13:52:00.000-08:00

Also called Cold Emission, discharge of electrons from the surface of a material subjected to a strong electric field. In the absence of a strong electric field, an electron must acquire a certain minimum energy, called the work function, to escape through the surface of a given material, which acts as a barrier to electron passage. If the material is placed in an electric circuit that renders

Hengist And Horsa

2004-12-20T22:43:00.000-08:00

Hengist also spelled Hengest (respectively d. c. 488; d. 455?), brothers and legendary leaders of the first Anglo-Saxon settlers in Britain who went there, according to the English historian and theologian Bede, to fight for the British king Vortigern against the Picts between AD 446 and 454. The brothers are said to have been Jutes and sons of one Wihtgils. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that they landed at Ebbsfleet,

Jhabvala, Ruth Prawer

2004-12-20T20:36:00.000-08:00

A Polish Jew, Jhabvala immigrated to England with her family in 1939. After receiving an M.A. in English (1951) from Queen Mary College, London, she married an Indian architect and moved to India, where she lived for the next 24 years. After 1975 she lived

Priapea

2004-12-17T01:59:00.000-08:00

Psamtik Ii

2004-12-17T00:45:00.000-08:00

The Greek historian Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, refers briefly to an Ethiopian war of Psamtik, an expedition that contemporary records prove to have been of great importance. Perhaps suspecting a Cushite threat to Egypt,

Biblical Literature, Developments in the 16th century

2004-12-15T16:27:00.000-08:00

With the advent of printing and differences between Roman Catholics and Protestants, the canon and its relationship to tradition finally became fixed. During the Counter-Reformation Council of Trent (1545–63), the canon of the entire Bible was set in 1546 as the Vulgate, based on Jerome's Latin version. For Luther, the criterion of what was canonical was both apostolicity, or what