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beggarweed

(Encyclopedia)beggarweed or tick trefoil, leguminous plant (Desmodium purpureum) native to the West Indies and sown in the S United States for green manure and for forage; it has high nutritive value and is palatab...

Rego, José Lins do

(Encyclopedia)Rego, José Lins do zho͝ozĕˈ lēnz dô rĕˈgo͝o [key], 1901–57, Brazilian novelist. His fame rests largely on his semiautobiographical “sugarcane cycle,” dealing with social transformation ...

spontaneous combustion

(Encyclopedia)spontaneous combustion, phenomenon in which a substance unexpectedly bursts into flame without apparent cause. In ordinary combustion, a substance is deliberately heated to its ignition point to make ...

siderite

(Encyclopedia)siderite kălˈĭbīt [key], a mineral, varying in color from brown, green, or gray to black and occurring in nature in massive and crystalline form. A carbonate of iron, FeCO3, it serves as an iron o...

Andes

(Encyclopedia)Andes ănˈdēz [key], mountain system, more than 5,000 mi (8,000 km) long, W South America. The ranges run generally parallel to the Pacific coast and extend from Tierra del Fuego northward, across t...

cod

(Encyclopedia)cod, member of the large family Gadidae, comprising commercially important food fishes. The family, whose members are found in the N Atlantic and Pacific, includes the tomcods, the haddock, and the po...

Arabian Desert

(Encyclopedia)Arabian Desert or Eastern Desert, c.86,000 sq mi (222,740 sq km), E Egypt, bordered by the Nile valley in the west and the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez in the east. It extends along most of Egypt's ea...

Namib

(Encyclopedia)Namib näˈmĭb [key], desert, c.800 mi (1,290 km) long and from 30 to 100 mi (50–160 km) wide, SW Africa, along the coast of Namibia. It occupies a rocky platform between the Atlantic Ocean and the...

Konyukhov, Fedor Filippovich

(Encyclopedia)Konyukhov, Fedor Filippovich, 1951–, Russian adventurer and explorer, b. Chkalove, Ukraine. After attending nautical schools in Odessa and Leningrad, he became a marine engineer and navigator and se...

Krkonoše

(Encyclopedia)Krkonoše kŭrˈkônôshĕ [key], Ger. Riesengebirge, Pol. Karkonosze, highest range of the Sudetes, extending c.25 mi (40 km) along the border of N Czech Republic and SW Poland. Its highest peak, Sn�...