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porcelain

(Encyclopedia)porcelain [Ital. porcellana], white, hard, permanent, nonporous pottery having translucence which is resonant when struck. Porcelain was first made by the Chinese to withstand the great heat generated...

Rothamsted

(Encyclopedia)Rothamsted rŏthˈəmstĭd [key], world's oldest and England's most important agricultural experiment station, now the main center of the Institute of Arable Crops Research (IACR). It was founded in 1...

Osaka

(Encyclopedia)Osaka ōˈsäkä [key], city (1990 pop. 2,623,801), capital of Osaka prefecture, S Honshu, Japan, on Osaka Bay, at the mouth of the Yodo River. One of Japan's largest cities and principal industrial a...

Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent

(Encyclopedia)Beardsley, Aubrey Vincent ôˈbrē, bĭrdzˈlē [key], 1872–98, English illustrator and writer, b. Brighton. Beardsley exemplifies the aesthetic movement in English art of the 1890s (see decadents)....

burn

(Encyclopedia)burn, injury resulting from exposure to heat, electricity, radiation, or caustic chemicals. Three degrees of burn are commonly recognized. In first-degree burns the outer layer of skin, called epiderm...

chivalry

(Encyclopedia)chivalry shĭvˈəlrē [key], system of ethical ideals that arose from feudalism and had its highest development in the 12th and 13th cent. Chivalric ethics originated chiefly in France and Spain and ...

litany

(Encyclopedia)litany lĭtˈənē [key] [Gr.,=prayer], solemn prayer characterized by varying petitions with set responses. The term is mainly used for Christian forms. Litanies were developed in Christendom for use...

Lagerkvist, Pär Fabian

(Encyclopedia)Lagerkvist, Pär Fabian pâr fäˈbēän läˈgərkvĭst [key], 1891–1974, Swedish poet, dramatist, and novelist. Lagerkvist is considered one of the most significant figures of modern Swedish liter...

epinephrine

(Encyclopedia)epinephrine ĕpˌənĕfˈrīn [key], hormone important to the body's metabolism, also known as adrenaline. Epinephrine, a catecholamine, together with norepinephrine, is secreted principally by the me...

Ignarro, Louis Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Ignarro, Louis Joseph, 1941–. American pharmacologist, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., Ph.D. Univ. of Minnesota, 1966. He was on the faculty at Tulane Univ. from 1979 to 1985, when he became a professor at the U...