Antarctica, Early scientific progress

The period from the 1760s to about 1900 was one dominated by exploitation of Antarctic and subantarctic seas, particularly along Scotia Ridge. Sealing vessels of many nations, principally American and British but including Argentine, Australian, South African, New Zealand, German, and Norwegian, participated in hunting that eventually led to near extinction of the southern

Molecule

The division of a sample of a substance into progressively smaller parts produces no change in either its composition or its chemical properties until parts consisting of single molecules are reached. Further

Ryan, T. Claude

Ryan learned to fly in 1917, trained with the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1919 at Marsh Field, California, and served with the U.S. Aerial Forest Patrol until 1922. Ryan established a flight school and a business

Teaching Machine

There are many types of teaching machines. In general, they all work on the same method, which is to present a question, have the user indicate the answer, and then provide the user with the correct answer. Some machines may be extremely simple, such as test sheets or books so programmed that

Poldi Pezzoli, Museo

(Italian: Poldi Pezzoli Museum), in Milan, museum in the former private house of G.G. Poldi-Pezzoli, housing fine examples of arms and armour from the 14th to the 17th centuries. There are also antique tapestries. The staircase is decorated with landscapes by Alessandro Magnasco. One room is devoted to works by Bernardino Luini and the Lombard school of painters. Other notable

Vacuum Technology

This gauge makes use of the fact that the rate of ion production by a stream of electrons in a vacuum system is dependent on pressure and the ionization probability of the residual gas. Also called the Penning gauge, it consists of two cathodes opposite one another with an anode centrally spaced between them inside a metal or glass envelope. Outside the envelope a

Janissary

Also spelled �Janizary, �Turkish �Yeni�eri� (New Soldier, or Troop), member of an elite corps in the standing army of the Ottoman Empire from the late 14th century to 1826. Highly respected for their military prowess in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Janissaries became a powerful political force within the Ottoman state. The Janissary corps was originally staffed by Christian

Daumier, Honor�

He did not do so, however, for he had become preoccupied with new technical studies; earlier than others, he had discovered Impressionism - faces and bodies devoured by the surrounding light and becoming one with the atmosphere. He painted a great deal, and the more so as his studies in the new technique did not interest the satirical journals to which he now submitted

Eight, The

Group of American painters who exhibited together only once, in New York City in 1908, but who established one of the main currents in 20th-century American painting. The original Eight included Robert Henri, leader of the group, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, George Luks, and William J. Glackens. George Bellows later joined them.

Aransas National Wildlife Refuge

Coastal habitat conservation area in southern Texas, U.S., located about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Corpus Christi. The refuge, parts of which are jointly administered by state and federal agencies, covers a total of 181 square miles (469 square km) on the Gulf of Mexico, including large tracts of land on Matagorda Island and on a broad peninsula between San Antonio Bay and St. Charles

Augustine Of Canterbury, Saint

Probably of aristocratic birth, Augustine was prior of the Benedictine monastery of St. Andrew, Rome, when Pope St. Gregory I the Great chose him to lead an unprecedented mission

Osaka-kobe Metropolitan Area, Industry

Osaka was once known as the Manchester of the Orient because of its great textile industry; now, however, its leading industries are the manufacture of electrical and other machinery, iron and steel, fabricated metals, and chemicals. Between Osaka and Kobe are several other industrial cities. The largest, Amagasaki, is a centre of machinery, metallurgy, chemicals, cement,

Alcott, Louisa May

A daughter of the transcendentalist Bronson Alcott, Louisa spent most of her life in Boston and Concord, Massachusetts, where she grew up in the company of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Theodore Parker, and Henry David Thoreau. Her education was largely

Beirut

Beirut is a city of baffling contradictions whose character blends the sophisticated and cosmopolitan with the provincial and parochial. Before 1975 Beirut was widely considered the most thoroughly Westernized city in the Arab Middle East;

Madeira River

Portuguese �Rio Madeira, � major tributary of the Amazon. It is formed by the junction of the Mamor� and Beni rivers at Villa Bella, Bolivia, and flows northward forming the border between Bolivia and Brazil for approximately 60 miles (100 km). After receiving the Rio Abun�, the Madeira meanders northeastward in Brazil through Rond�nia and Amazonas states to its junction with the Amazon River, 90 miles

Rocky Mountains, Plant life

The plant communities of the Rockies vary markedly according to elevation, latitude, and exposure. On the eastern slopes in Colorado and New Mexico, strong winter winds off the arid plains stunt and deform the scattered cedars and pi�on pines. The lower elevations at this end of the system are predominantly treeless, except along watercourses, where cottonwoods

Marda�te

Arabic �Jurjumani, �plural �Jarajima, � member of a Christian people of northern Syria, employed as soldiers by Byzantine emperors. The Marda�tes inhabited the Amanus (Gavur) Mountains, in the modern Turkish province of Hatay, the 7th-century borderland between Byzantine and Muslim territory. In the period 660 - 680, allied with the Byzantine emperor Constantine IV, the Marda�tes pushed southward into Arab-occupied

'abbas I

'Abbas, distrustful of Europeans and European-educated Egyptians, reacted to the reforms of Muhammad 'Ali by closing down or neglecting the public and military

Later Le Dynasty

The Later Le was established when its founder, Le Loi, began a resistance movement against the Chinese armies then occupying Vietnam; by 1428 he had liberated the country and was free to begin the process of recovering the southern

Gaucher's Disease

Rare inherited metabolic disorder characterized by anemia, mental and neurologic impairment, yellowish pigmentation of the skin, and bone deterioration resulting in pathological fractures. Gaucher's disease results when a defect in the body's synthesis of the enzyme glucocerebrosidase allows the lipid glucocerebroside to accumulate in the body's storage

Peregrinatio Etheriae

English �Pilgrimage of Etheria� an anonymous and incomplete account of a western European nun's travels in the Middle East, written for her colleagues at home, near the end of the 4th century. It gives important information about religious life and the observances of the church year in the localities visited, which included the chief holy places of the Old and New Testaments in Egypt, Palestine, and

Duran, Simeon Ben Zemah

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

Antarctica

Combinatorics, Multinomial coefficients

If S is a set of n objects, and n1, n2, � � � , nk are non-negative integers satisfying n1 n2 � � � nk = n, then the number of ways in which the objects can be distributed into k boxes, X1, X2, � � � , Xk, such that the box Xi contains exactly ni objects is given in terms of a ratio constructed of factorials (see 4). This number, called a multinomial coefficient, is the coefficient in the multinomial expansion of the nth power of the sum of the

Earth, Paleontological research

Many paleontological observations are most easily explained by continental drift and/or polar wandering. For example, fossils of the freshwater reptile Mesosaurus, which lived 270,000,000 years ago, are found only in South America and Africa. The reptile's bone structure was such that it probably could not have swum across the Atlantic, but if South America and Africa had been

Pembroke, Mary Herbert, Countess Of

In 1575 Queen Elizabeth I invited Mary to court, promising �a speciall care� of her. Two

Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanasyevich

Beginning his adult life as a doctor, Bulgakov gave up medicine for writing. His first major work was the novel Belaya gvardiya (The White Guard), serialized in 1925 but never published in book form. A realistic and

Fargo

Seat (1873) of Cass county and the largest city of North Dakota, U.S., on the Red River of the North, opposite Moorhead, Minn. Founded in 1871 by the Northern Pacific Railway, it served as an outfitting post for settlers, with its rail, steamboat, and stagecoach facilities. It was named for William George Fargo (of Wells, Fargo

Shamanism

The shaman attains the ecstasy necessary for communicating with the spirits through the performance of the shaman rite, which requires certain appurtenances.