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Attica

(Encyclopedia)Attica ătˈĭkə [key], region of ancient Greece, a triangular area at the eastern end of central Greece, around Athens. According to Greek legend, the four Attic tribes were founded by Ion; in later...

MacKinnon, Roderick

(Encyclopedia)MacKinnon, Roderick, 1956–, American biochemist, b. Burlington, Mass., M.D. Tufts Univ., 1982. MacKinnon was on the faculty at Harvard Medical School from 1989–96 and has been a professor at the H...

Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea

(Encyclopedia)Codreanu, Corneliu Zelea kŏrnĕˈlyo͞o zĕlˈyä kôdrĕäˈno͞o [key], 1899–1938, Romanian political leader and anti-Semitic terrorist. Active in the Romanian student movement against leftists a...

heat exhaustion

(Encyclopedia)heat exhaustion, condition caused by overexposure to sunlight or another heat source and resulting in dehydration and salt depletion, also known as heat prostration. The symptoms are severe headaches,...

Prakrit literature

(Encyclopedia)Prakrit literature. By the 6th cent. b.c. the people of India were speaking and writing languages that were much simpler than classical Sanskrit. These vernacular forms, of which there were several, a...

jeopardy

(Encyclopedia)jeopardy, in law, condition of a person charged with a crime and thus in danger of punishment. At common law a defendant could be exposed to jeopardy for the same offense only once; exposing a person ...

karma

(Encyclopedia)karma or karman kärˈmə, kärˈmən [key], [Skt.,=action, work, or ritual], basic concept common to Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The doctrine of karma states that one's state in this life is a r...

placebo

(Encyclopedia)placebo pləsēˈbō [key], inert substance given instead of a potent drug. Placebo medications are sometimes prescribed when a drug is not really needed or when one would not be appropriate because t...

Dehmelt, Hans Georg

(Encyclopedia)Dehmelt, Hans Georg häns gāˈôrkh dāˈməlt [key], 1922–2017, German-American physicist, b. Gorlitz, Germany, Ph.D. Univ. of Göttingen, 1950. A professor at the Univ. of Washington in Seattle, ...

Tanaka, Koichi

(Encyclopedia)Tanaka, Koichi, 1959–, Japanese engineer, B.S. Tohoku Univ., 1983. He has been a researcher at Shimadzu Corporation in Kyoto, Japan, since 1983. Tanaka shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with ...

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