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Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights of

(Encyclopedia)Saint John of Jerusalem, Knights of: see Knights Hospitalers. ...

Protocols of the Elders of Zion

(Encyclopedia)Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fraudulent document that reported the alleged proceedings of a conference of Jews in the late 19th cent., at which they discussed plans to overthrow Christianity thr...

Lycopodiophyta

(Encyclopedia)Lycopodiophyta līˌkōpōˌdēŏfˈətə [key], division of the plant kingdom consisting of the organisms commonly called club mosses and quillworts. As in other vascular plants, the sporophyte, or s...

Rose, Irwin

(Encyclopedia)Rose, Irwin, 1926–2015, American biochemist, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1952. Rose was on the faculty of Yale Medical School from 1954 to 1963 and a senior member of the Fox Chase Ca...

disinfectant

(Encyclopedia)disinfectant, agent that destroys disease-causing microorganisms and their spores. Disinfectants, or germicides, are sometimes considered to be substances applied to inanimate bodies, whereas antisept...

vaccination

(Encyclopedia)vaccination, means of producing immunity against pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria, by the introduction of an killed or weakened microorganism, a harmless piece of a microorganism, or the like t...

rush

(Encyclopedia)rush, name for tall, grasslike plants of various families, many of which have hollow stems. The true rushes belong to the family Juncaceae, one of the oldest families of plants, closely related to the...

Psilotophyta

(Encyclopedia)Psilotophyta sīlōˌtŏfˈətə [key], division of vascular plants consisting of only two genera, Psilotum and Tmesipteris, with very few species. These plants are characterized by the lack of roots,...

ecology

(Encyclopedia)ecology, study of the relationships of organisms to their physical environment and to one another. The study of an individual organism or a single species is termed autecology; the study of groups of ...

blood substitute

(Encyclopedia)blood substitute, substance that mimics the function of blood. Blood substitutes typically concentrate only on reproducing the function of hemoglobin, the molecule that carries oxygen through the body...