Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

fer-de-lance

(Encyclopedia)fer-de-lance fĕrˌ-də-lănsˈ [key], highly poisonous snake, Bothrops atrox, found in tropical South America and the West Indies. A pit viper, related to the bushmaster and the rattlesnake, it has h...

Isauria

(Encyclopedia)Isauria īsôrˈēə [key], ancient district of S Asia Minor, on the borders of Pisidia and Cilicia, N of the Taurus range, in present S central Turkey. It was a wild region inhabited by marauding ban...

Integrated Pest Management

(Encyclopedia)Integrated Pest Management (IPM), planned program that coordinates economically and environmentally acceptable methods of pest control with the judicious and minimal use of toxic pesticides. IPM progr...

inductor

(Encyclopedia)inductor, electric device consisting of one or more turns of wire and typically having two terminals. An inductor is usually connected into a circuit in order to raise the inductance to a desired valu...

graphene

(Encyclopedia)graphene, virtually transparent, highly conductive carbon material in which the atoms are organized into a honeycomblike arrangement and form a thin sheet that is one atom thick. Andre Geim and Konsta...

Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve

(Encyclopedia)Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, SE Alaska, near Juneau. The park (3,224,840 acres/1,305,603 hectares) and the preserve (58,406 acres/23,646 hectares) were established in 1925 as a national mon...

ergonomics

(Encyclopedia)ergonomics, the engineering science concerned with the physical and psychological relationship between machines and the people who use them. The ergonomicist takes an empirical approach to the study o...

multiple chemical sensitivity

(Encyclopedia)multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), adverse physical reaction to certain chemicals in susceptible persons. When exposed to the chemicals, people with MCS react with symptoms such as nausea, headache,...

Mifune, Toshiro

(Encyclopedia)Mifune, Toshiro təshērˈō mĭfo͞oˈnē [key], 1920–97, Japanese actor, b. Qingdao, China. Mifune was a versatile actor, noted for a wide range of roles in more than 120 films. He appeared in mor...

Moon, Sun Myung

(Encyclopedia)Moon, Sun Myung sŭn yŭng mo͞on [key], 1920–2012, South Korean religious leader. He was an engineering student in Japan and a dockworker before founding (1954) the Unification Church with a doctri...