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rattan

(Encyclopedia)rattan rătănˈ [key], name for a number of plants of the genera Calamus, Daemonorops, and Korthalsia climbing palms of tropical Asia, belonging to the family Palmae (palm family). Rattan leaves, unl...

Tertullian

(Encyclopedia)Tertullian (Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus) tûrtŭlˈyən [key], c.160–c.230, Roman theologian and Christian apologist, b. Carthage. He was the son of a centurion and was well educated, espe...

reserpine

(Encyclopedia)reserpine rĕsûrˈpēn [key], alkaloid isolated from the root of the snakeroot plant (Rauwolfia serpentina), a small evergreen climbing shrub of the dogbane family native to the Indian subcontinent. ...

Semenza, Gregg Leonard

(Encyclopedia)Semenza, Gregg Leonard, 1956–, American oncologist and molecular biologist, b. New York City, Ph.D. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1984. Semenza has spent his entire career at the Johns Hopkins School of Me...

chigoe

(Encyclopedia)chigoe chĭgˈō [key] or jigger, small parasitic flea (Tunga penetrans) of the tropics and subtropics, including the S United States. Humans and their domestic animals are the main hosts. The fertili...

Cocteau, Jean

(Encyclopedia)Cocteau, Jean zhäN kôktōˈ [key], 1889–1963, French writer, visual artist, and filmmaker. He experimented audaciously in almost every artistic medium, becoming a leader of the French avant-garde ...

globulin

(Encyclopedia)globulin, any of a large family of proteins of a spherical or globular shape that are widely distributed throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. Many of them have been prepared in pure crystalline f...

Vane, Sir John Robert

(Encyclopedia)Vane, Sir John Robert, 1927–2004, British pharmacologist, Ph.D. Oxford, 1953. With B. I. Samuelsson and Sune K. Bergström, Vane was awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. The trio ...

prostaglandin

(Encyclopedia)prostaglandin prŏsˌtəglănˈdən [key], any of a group of about a dozen compounds synthesized from fatty acids in mammals as well as in lower animals. Prostaglandins are highly potent substances th...

Galen

(Encyclopedia)Galen gāˈlən [key], c.130–c.200, physician and writer, b. Pergamum, of Greek parents. After study in Greece and Asia Minor and at Alexandria, he returned to Pergamum, where he served as physician...