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Ticino , river, Switzerland and Italy

(Encyclopedia)Ticino, Lat. Ticinus, river, 154 mi (248 km) long, rising in Ticino canton, S Switzerland, and flowing generally S through Lago Maggiore into N Italy, joining the Po River below Pavia. In Switzerland,...

Davy, Sir Humphry

(Encyclopedia)Davy, Sir Humphry, 1778–1829, English chemist and physicist. The son of a woodcarver, he received his early education at Truro and was apprenticed (1795) to a surgeon-apothecary at Penzance. While d...

Kivu, lake, Congo and Rwanda

(Encyclopedia)Kivu, lake, 1,042 sq mi (2,699 sq km), 55 mi (89 km) long, on the Congo-Rwanda border, E central Africa; highest lake in Africa (4,788 ft/1,459 m). It is drained by the Ruzizi River, which flows S int...

casein

(Encyclopedia)casein kāˈsēn [key], well-defined group of proteins found in milk, constituting about 80% of the proteins in cow's milk, but only 40% in human milk. Casein is a remarkably efficient nutrient, suppl...

purine

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Purines found in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) purine, type of organic base found in the nucleotides and nucleic acids of plant and animal tissue. The German chemist Emil Fischer did much of the...

mudskipper

(Encyclopedia)mudskipper, name for fish of several genera in the subfamily Oxudercinae of the goby family, found in coastal waters of the Indian and Pacific oceans and on the Atlantic coast of Africa. The typically...

triglyceride

(Encyclopedia)triglyceride, ester formed from glycerol and one to three fatty acids. Fats and oils are triglycerides. In a simple triglyceride such as palmitin or stearin, all three fatty-acid groups are identical....

phenylketonuria

(Encyclopedia)phenylketonuria fĕnˌəlkētˌəno͝orˈēə [key] (PKU), inherited metabolic disorder caused by a deficiency in a specific enzyme (phenylalanine hydroxylase). The absence of this enzyme, a recessive...

Hamilcar Barca

(Encyclopedia)Hamilcar Barca, d. 229 or 228 b.c., Carthaginian general. He was assigned the command in Sicily in 247 in the First Punic War (see Punic Wars). From mountain bases near Palermo he made repeated raids ...

Healey, Denis Winston Healey, Baron

(Encyclopedia)Healey, Denis Winston Healey, Baron, 1917–2015, British political leader, grad. Oxford (1940). He served in the British army (1940–45), then joined the Labour party and began a long career in parl...