Annelid, Life span
Since both the polychaetes and oligochaetes are able to regrow lost parts - i.e., regenerate (see below) - it may appear that they are essentially ageless. Few longevity studies have been carried out with polychaetes, however. Most of the adults of species studied have a characteristic number of segments, which form rapidly during early life and prior to the appearance
Saidpur
Town, northwestern Bangladesh. A jute-processing and export centre, it is a major railway terminus containing large railway workshops. It has a college affiliated with the University of Rajshahi. Pop. (1981 prelim.) 128,085.
Gall, Saint
Educated at the monastery of Bangor (in present-day North Down district, N.Ire.), Gall became a disciple of St. Columban and joined him on a mission to France. When Columban proceeded to Italy, Gall remained with the semipagan Alemanni,
Bylina
Plural �Byliny, � traditional form of Old Russian and Russian heroic narrative poetry transmitted orally, still a creative tradition in the 20th century. The oldest byliny belong to a cycle dealing with the golden age of Kievan Rus in the 10th - 12th century. They centre on the deeds of Prince Vladimir I and his court. One of the favourite heroes is the independent Cossack Ilya of Murom, who defended
Bukuru
Town, Plateau state, central Nigeria, located on the Jos Plateau. It lies along a branch railway from Jos town (8 miles [13 km] north-northeast), and it is a major tin- and columbite-mining centre on one of the highest parts (more than 4,000 feet [1,200 metres]) of the plateau. The Bauchi Light Railway, which was closed in 1957, had been built in 1914 to carry tin from Bukuru to Zaria (120 miles [190 km] northwest) and connected
Szekler
Hungarian �Sz�kely, � member of a people inhabiting the upper valleys of the Mures and Olt rivers in what was eastern Transylvania and is now Romania. They were estimated to number about 860,000 in the 1970s and are officially recognized as a distinct minority group by the Romanian government. Their origin has been much debated. According to their own tradition, repeated in Procopius' De bello
Bonney, Th�r�se
Bonney grew up in New York and California. She graduated from the University of California, took a master's degree in Romance languages at Harvard University, and, after a short time at Columbia University
Anchieta, Jos� De
Anchieta came from a prominent Portuguese family and was even thought to be related to the founder of the Jesuit
Aylesbury
Town, Aylesbury Vale district, administrative and historic county of Buckinghamshire, England. The town lies at the centre of a rich clay vale. It was once an important market town for ducks and dairy produce but is now an expanding centre of industry, which includes food processing, light engineering, and especially printing. The town's market square is surrounded
Aylesbury
Also called �Carbon Bisulfide� a colourless, toxic, highly volatile and flammable liquid chemical compound, large amounts of which are used in the manufacture of viscose rayon, cellophane, and carbon tetrachloride; smaller quantities are employed in solvent extraction processes or converted into other chemical products, particularly accelerators of the vulcanization of rubber or agents
Peter The Apostle, Saint
Original name �Simeon,� or �Simon � disciple of Jesus Christ, recognized in the early Christian church as the leader of the disciples and by the Roman Catholic church as the first of its unbroken succession of popes. Peter, a fisherman, was called to be a disciple of Jesus at the beginning of his ministry. He received from Jesus the name Cephas (i.e., Rock, hence Peter, from the Latin petra).
Mckenzie, Sir John
McKenzie's deep antagonism toward land monopolists was rooted in his boyhood in Scotland, where he witnessed the dispossession of small farmers by Highland landlords. After
Wesley, Charles
The youngest and third surviving son of Samuel and Susanna Wesley, Wesley entered Westminster School, London, in 1716. In 1726 he was elected to Christ Church College, Oxford, where he translated Greek and
Wesley, Charles
Byname �Star Wars� proposed U.S. strategic defensive system against potential nuclear attacks - as originally conceived, from the Soviet Union. The SDI was first proposed by President Ronald Reagan in a nationwide television address on March 23, 1983. Because parts of the defensive system that Reagan advocated would be based in space, the proposed system was dubbed �Star Wars,� after the space
Beard Lichen
Any member of the genus Usnea, a yellow or greenish fruticose (bushy, branched) lichen with long stems and disk-shaped holdfasts, which resembles a tangled mass of threads. It occurs in both the Arctic and the tropics, where it is eaten by wild animals or collected as fodder. In the past it was used as a remedy for whooping cough, catarrh, epilepsy, and dropsy. It has been used
Kuei
Kuei are spirits of individuals who were not properly buried or whose families neglected the proper memorial offerings; they lack the means to ascend to the spirit world, hence their malevolent disposition. In traditional China,
Wandering Jew
In Christian legend, character doomed to live until the end of the world because he taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion. A reference in John 18:20 - 22 to an officer who struck Jesus at his arraignment before Annas is sometimes cited as the basis for the legend. The medieval English chronicler Roger of Wendover describes in his Flores historiarum how an archbishop from
Saxon Duchies
The house of Wettin had accumulated possessions in Thuringia from the middle decades of the 13th century onward.
Muhammadi
A native of western Iran, he was a son of the painter Sultan Muhammad, who was one of his teachers. A master of line, Muhammadi (so called after his great father) began to paint while still young and while Tabriz was still the capital. The surviving examples of his work were
West Bank
The approximately 2,270-square-mile (5,900-square-kilometre) area is the centre of contending
Latakia
Ancient Ramitha replaced
Amnesty International
(AI), � international organization headquartered in London that seeks to inform public opinion about violations of human rights, especially the abridgments of freedom of speech and of religion and the imprisonment and torture of political dissidents, and which actively seeks the release of political prisoners and the relief, when necessary, of their families. In
Yukaghir
Also spelled �Yukagir� or �Jukagir�, self-name �Odul� remnant of an ancient human population of the tundra and taiga zones of Arctic Siberia east of the Lena River in Russia, an area with one of the most severe climates in the inhabited world. Brought close to extinction by privation, encroachment, and diseases introduced by other groups, they numbered some 1,100 in the late 20th century. Although they still generally inhabit
Earth, Variation with latitude
Even if the Earth were of uniform density or uniformly stratified in layers of constant density, gravity at sea level would increase from the Equator to the poles because of the combined effects of the planet's rotation and spheroidal shape. The effect of rotation arises from the fact that any body on the Earth experiences a centripetal acceleration given by rw2, where
Avignon
City, capital of Vaucluse d�partement, Provence-Alpes-C�te-d'Azur region, southeastern France, at a point on the east bank of the Rh�ne River where the narrow valley opens into a broad delta plain, northwest of N�mes. A stronghold of the Gallic tribe of Cavares that became the Roman city of Avennio, it was a much-fought-over prize, although never of primary importance until
Tracheitis
Acute infections occur suddenly and usually subside quickly. Common bacterial causes
Arts, Central Asian
The performing arts have played an important role in the spiritual and social life of Central Asia, where they evolved as didactic art forms within a religious context. Performance, therefore, occurs in conjunction with some religious or special event. Two main types of performance predominate throughout Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, Mongolia, and the former Soviet
B�o-b�
Regi�n, central Chile, bordering Argentina to the east and fronting the Pacific Ocean to the west. It was given its present boundaries in 1974. Its area of 14,262 square miles (36,939 square km) includes the provincias of �uble, Concepci�n, Arauco, and B�o-B�o. The islands of Santa Mar�a, in the Bay of Arauco, and Mocha, 14 miles (23 km) offshore, are part of Arauco provincia. B�o-B�o regi�n spans the coastal
