Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Maes, Nicolaes

(Encyclopedia)Maes or Maas, Nicolaes both: nēˈkōläs mäs [key], 1632–93, Dutch genre and portrait painter. His earlier genre pictures bear, in their manner and coloring, a certain resemblance to those of his ...

Bütschli, Otto

(Encyclopedia)Bütschli, Otto ôˈtō büchˈlē [key], 1848–1920, German zoologist. He was professor of zoology at the Univ. of Heidelberg. His researches on invertebrate animals advanced knowledge of the develo...

Sperry, Roger Wolcott

(Encyclopedia)Sperry, Roger Wolcott, 1913–94, American biologist, b. Hartford, Conn., Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1941. He studied zoology before teaching biology at the Univ. of Chicago (1946–52) and the Californi...

kinkajou

(Encyclopedia)kinkajou kĭngˈkəjo͞oˌ [key], nocturnal, arboreal mammal, Potos flavus, found from Mexico to Brazil and related to the raccoon. It has a long, slender body with soft, short, woolly hair of any of ...

Star of Bethlehem, in the Gospels

(Encyclopedia)Star of Bethlehem, name given to the luminous celestial object rising in the sky that, as related in the Gospel of Matthew, led the Wise Men of the East to the manger in Bethlehem where Jesus was born...

Bill of Rights, in British history

(Encyclopedia)Bill of Rights, 1689, in British history, one of the fundamental instruments of constitutional law. It registered in statutory form the outcome of the long 17th-century struggle between the Stuart kin...

biology

(Encyclopedia)biology, the science that deals with living things. It is broadly divided into zoology, the study of animal life, and botany, the study of plant life. Subdivisions of each of these sciences include cy...

Mayr, Ernst

(Encyclopedia)Mayr, Ernst ĕrnst mīr [key], 1904–2005, American zoologist and author, b. Kempten, Germany. He began his career in Berlin and emigrated to the United States in 1931, where, until 1953, he was asso...

bramble

(Encyclopedia)bramble, name for plants of the genus Rubus [Lat.,=red, for the color of the juice]. This complex genus of the family Rosaceae (rose family), with representatives in many parts of the world, includes ...

Browse by Subject