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Pap test

(Encyclopedia)Pap test, Pap smear, or Papanicolaou test păpˌənēˈkəlou [key], medical procedure used to detect cancer of the uterine cervix (see uterus). A scraping, brushing, or smear, is taken from the surf...

ultrasonics

(Encyclopedia)ultrasonics, study and application of the energy of sound waves vibrating at frequencies greater than 20,000 cycles per second, i.e., beyond the range of human hearing. The application of sound energy...

race

(Encyclopedia)race, one of the group of populations regarded as constituting humanity. The differences that have historically determined the classification into races are predominantly physical aspects of appearanc...

life support system

(Encyclopedia)life support system: see artificial life support; Life Support for Human Spaceflight under space science. ...

Jinja

(Encyclopedia)Jinja jĭnˈjə [key], city (2002 pop. 71,213), SE Uganda, on the Victoria Nile River, near Lake Victoria. It is an industrial city and the commercial and processing center for a region where cotton, ...

lyre

(Encyclopedia)lyre, generic term for stringed musical instruments having a sound box from which project curved arms joined by a crossbar. The strings are stretched between the crossbar and the sound box and are plu...

Ma, Yo-Yo

(Encyclopedia)Ma, Yo-Yo mä [key], 1955–, American cellist, b. Paris. The son of musicologist Hiao-Tsun Ma, who left China in the 1930s, he was a musical prodigy, giving a public recital in Paris at the age of si...

Kern

(Encyclopedia)Kern, river, 155 mi (249 km) long, rising in the S Sierra Nevada Mts., E Calif., and flowing south, then southwest to a reservoir in the extreme southern part of the San Joaquin valley. The river has ...

Mulholland, William

(Encyclopedia)Mulholland, William, 1855–1935, American engineer, b. Belfast, Ireland. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1877, becoming a laborer for the local water company. Despite his lack of formal training, he eve...

Hoar, Ebenezer Rockwood

(Encyclopedia)Hoar, Ebenezer Rockwood, 1816–95, American lawyer, U.S. Attorney General (1869–70), b. Concord, Mass. While serving (1846) in the Massachusetts senate, he declared that he would rather be a “Con...