PrivateBrush

Earth

2005-11-18T19:25:00.000-08:00

The basic structure and composition of the Earth's interior have been known since the mid-20th century. In a landmark paper published in 1952, the American geophysicist Francis Birch described the constitution of the planetary interior based on a broad array of seismological, experimental, and geochemical observations. Although there have been numerous advances in

Petén

2005-10-16T16:20:00.000-07:00

Region of northern Guatemala, bounded on the north and west by Mexico and on the east by Belize. It constitutes more than one-third of the nation's territory. Petén is a low limestone plateau, varying in elevation between 500 and 700 feet (150 and 210 m) above sea level at the base of the Yucatán Peninsula. Except for areas of savanna vegetation, the region is covered by dense tropical rain

Armidale

2005-08-08T21:10:00.000-07:00

City, northeastern New South Wales, Australia. It lies on the valley slopes of Dumaresq Creek in the New England Range. Founded in 1839 by G.J. Macdonald, commissioner of crown lands, and named for his father's Scottish baronial estate on the Isle of Skye, it developed a pastoral-agricultural economy. It has become a regional cultural centre with Anglican and Roman Catholic

Bridges, Harry

2005-07-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

Bridges left home to become a maritime seaman at the age of 16 and in 1920 legally entered the United States, where he worked as a seaman and dockworker

F Region

2005-07-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

Highest region of the ionosphere, at altitudes greater than 160 km (100 miles); it has the greatest concentration of free electrons and is the most important of the ionospheric regions. The charged particles in the F region consist primarily of neutral atoms split into electrons and charged atoms. Although its degree of ionization persists with little change through the

Karamzin, Nikolay Mikhaylovich

2005-07-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

From an early age, Karamzin was interested in Enlightenment philosophy and western European literature. After extensive travel in western Europe,

Botosani

2005-07-06T14:50:00.000-07:00

City, capital of Botosani judet (county), northeastern Romania. It lies in a rich farming area of northern Moldavia, near the border with Moldova. As a settlement, it was first documented in 1439. The Popauti Church dates from 1496. Long known as a market centre for agricultural produce and wines, Botosani has also become an industrial centre, particularly in textiles. Pop. (1989 est.) 119,563.

Webb, Sidney And Beatrice

2005-06-22T23:05:00.000-07:00

In full respectively Sidney James Webb, Baron Passfield of Passfield Corner , and Martha Beatrice Webb, née Potter English Socialist economists (husband and wife), early members of the Fabian Society, and co-founders of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Sidney Webb also helped reorganize the University of London into a federation of teaching institutions and served in

Dualism

2005-06-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

In philosophy, the use of two irreducible, heterogeneous principles (sometimes in conflict, sometimes complementary) to analyze the knowing process (epistemological dualism) or to explain all of reality or some broad aspect of it (metaphysical dualism). Examples of epistemological dualism are being and thought, subject and object, and sense datum and thing; examples

Earthquake, TokyoYokohama

2005-06-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

A great earthquake struck the Tokyo–Yokohama metropolitan area near noon on Sept. 1, 1923. The death toll from this shock was estimated at more than 140,000. Fifty-four percent of the brick buildings and 10 percent of the reinforced concrete structures collapsed. Many hundreds of thousands of houses were either shaken down or burned. The shock started a tsunami that reached a height

Qatar

2005-06-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

Little is known of Qatar's history before the 18th century, when the region's population consisted largely of transient nomads and a few small fishing villages. Qatar's modern history begins conventionally in 1766 with the migration to the peninsula of families from Kuwait, notably the Al Khalifahs. Their settlement at the new town of Az-Zubarah grew into a small pearl-diving

Poseidon

2005-05-18T02:55:00.000-07:00

In Greek religion, god of the sea and of water generally; he is to be distinguished from Pontus, the personification of the sea and the oldest Greek divinity of the waters. The name Poseidon means either “husband of earth” or “lord of the earth.” Traditionally he was a son of Cronus, an ancient chief god, and Rhea, a fertility goddess, and was brother of Zeus, the chief god, and Hades,

Scandinavian Literature, The heroic sagas

2005-05-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

The fantastic element was further developed in the fornaldar sögur, literally “the sagas of antiquity,” whose heroes were supposed to have lived in Scandinavia and Germany before Iceland was settled. The best known, the Völsunga saga (c. 1270), retold in prose stories from heroic lays of Sigurd, the Burgundians, and Jörmunrekr, and the Hrólfs saga kraka (c. 1280–1350) incorporated ancient

Earth, Earthquakes

2005-05-14T06:05:00.000-07:00

Most Earth scientists believe that virtually all naturally produced earthquakes occur as a result of movements along faults. The reason that the majority of such earthquakes occur along plate boundaries is that most faults lie along those boundaries.

Cornell, Katharine

2005-03-15T20:15:00.000-08:00

Cornell was the daughter of American parents who were in Berlin at the time of her birth. Later that year the family returned to Buffalo, New York. Her interest in the theatre came naturally - her father was an amateur actor and an associate

Oz, Amos

2005-03-14T20:43:00.000-08:00

Oz's symbolic, poetic novels reflect the splits and strains in Israeli life. Locked in conflict are the traditions

Heredity, DNA repair

2005-03-11T08:55:00.000-08:00

A variety of agents in the cell's environment, both chemical and physical, can damage DNA. Organisms have developed a variety of mechanisms for repairing copying errors produced by damaged DNA, usually by enzymatically excising them. The enzyme DNA polymerase then catalyzes the replacement of the excised segment with the correct nucleotides, using the undamaged

Davidson (of Lambeth), Randall Thomas Davidson, Baron

2005-03-04T04:24:00.000-08:00

Ordained in 1875, Davidson became resident chaplain two years later to the archbishop of Canterbury, Archibald C. Tait. He soon won the trust of Queen Victoria, whose influence

Rockefeller, John D., Jr.

2005-03-03T19:43:00.000-08:00

After graduation from Brown University in 1897, he joined his father in business but never assumed

Wild Rye

2005-03-02T00:40:00.000-08:00

Sea lyme, or dune, grass (E. arenarius) is a Eurasian species 0.6 to 2.5 m (2 to 8 feet)

Biblical Literature, II Maccabees

2005-03-01T20:02:00.000-08:00

The Second Book of the Maccabees, or its source, was probably written in the same period as I Maccabees. The book is preceded by two letters to the Jews of Egypt: the first from the year 124 BCE and the second one written earlier (164 BCE) commemorating the rededication of the Temple. In the preface of the book, the author indicates that he has condensed into one book the lost five-volume

Ksar El-boukhari

2005-02-28T02:09:00.000-08:00

Also called �Boghari, � town, north-central Algeria. Lying along the Chelif River at the junction of the High Plateau and the Atlas Mountains, the town is almost totally surrounded by wooded mountain ridges. The old walled quarter (ksar) is on a hill, overlooking the modern town. Ksar el-Boukhari is a commercial centre for pastoral peoples of the interior, who trade in wool, livestock, and cereals.

Brabant

2005-02-27T02:39:00.000-08:00

The remnant of the duchy of Lower Lorraine was

Cache Memory

2005-02-26T18:08:00.000-08:00

Also called �Cache, � a supplementary memory system that temporarily stores frequently used instructions and data for quicker processing by the central processor of a computer. The cache augments, and is an extension of, a computer's main memory. Both main memory and cache are internal, random-access memories (RAMs) that use semiconductor-based transistor circuits. Cache holds a copy

John

2005-02-25T14:11:00.000-08:00

A penniless younger son of the French count Erard II of Brienne and Agnes of Montb�liard, John passed most of his life as a minor noble until befriended by King Philip II Augustus of France, who arranged for him to