(Encyclopedia) Blue Nile, Arab. Bahr el Azraq, river, c.1,000 mi (1,600 km) long, the chief headstream of the Nile, rising in Lake Tana, NW Ethiopia, at an altitude of c.6,000 ft (1,800 m). It flows…
blues/rock band Lead singer John Popper almost had no choice but to embark upon a music career after his parents had enrolled him in music lessons for one instrument after another, including cello…
The Question: In a funeral scene in Four Weddings and a Funeral, a character reads a beautiful poem about the anger at a friend's death. Who is the author…
For the past 138 years, since its discovery in 1867, Comet Tempel 1 has had distant but harmonious relations with the inhabitants of planet Earth. But on July 4, somewhere between Mars and Jupiter…
(Encyclopedia) blue shift or blueshift, in astronomy, the systematic displacement of individual lines in the spectrum of a celestial object toward the blue, or shorter wavelength, end of the visible…
(Encyclopedia) blue jay, common name for a familiar bird (Cyanocitta cristata) of central and E North America, allied to the crow, the raven, and the magpie, belonging to the family Corvidae. Almost…
Modern Winter of Deep SnowsWeatherBlowing Cold and Hot: The Big OnesWinter Gone SouthBig-City SnowsStorm of the Century?The Greatest One of AllModern Winter of Deep SnowsGalveston Storm SurgeThe…
(Encyclopedia) blue whale, a baleen whale, Balaenoptera musculus. Also called the sulphur-bottom whale and Sibbald's rorqual, it is the largest animal that has ever lived. Blue whales have been known…
(Encyclopedia) Blue Ridge, eastern range of the Appalachian Mts., extending south from S Pa. to N Ga.; highest mountains in the E United States. Mt. Mitchell, 6,684 ft (2,037 m) high, is the tallest…
