Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

78 results found

biological diversity

(Encyclopedia)biological diversity or biodiversity, the number of species in a given habitat. Scientists have variously estimated that there are from 3 to 30 million extant species, of which 2.5 million have been c...

Soleri, Paolo

(Encyclopedia)Soleri, Paolo, 1919–2013, Italian-American architect. He studied architecture in his native Turin (Ph.D., 1946). Soleri's works have been influenced by both Frank Lloyd Wright, with whom he apprenti...

Warming, Johannes Eugenius Bülow

(Encyclopedia)Warming, Johannes Eugenius Bülow yōhänˈəs ĕo͝ogāˈnēo͝os büˈlou värmˈĭng [key], 1841–1924, Danish botanist, a founder of the science of plant ecology. He was a professor at the Univ. ...

Texas Woman's University

(Encyclopedia)Texas Woman's University, main campus at Denton; state supported; primarily for women; est. 1901. It is the largest state-supported university for women in the country. There are schools of arts and s...

O'Sullivan, Timothy H.

(Encyclopedia)O'Sullivan, Timothy H., c.1840–1882, American pioneer photographer, b. New York City. O'Sullivan worked in Matthew Brady's first New York gallery and on the battlefronts of the Civil War. He made ph...

Schimper, Karl Friedric

(Encyclopedia)Schimper, Karl Friedric shĭmˈpər [key], 1803–67, German botanist. He did important work in plant morphology and originated the theory, called phyllotaxis, that there is a fixed order to the arran...

Paine, Robert Treat, 3d

(Encyclopedia)Paine, Robert Treat, 3d, 1933–2016, American ecologist, b. Cambridge, Mass., Ph.D. Univ. of Michigan, 1961. He was on the faculty of the Univ. of Washington from 1962 to 1998. Paine's major contribu...

Beebe, William

(Encyclopedia)Beebe, William (Charles William Beebe) bēˈbē [key], 1877–1962, American ornithologist, explorer, and author, b. Brooklyn, N.Y., B.S. Columbia, 1898. He became (1899) curator of ornithology and la...

zoological garden

(Encyclopedia)zoological garden or zoo, public or private park where living animals are kept for exhibition and study. The menageries and aviaries of China, Egypt, and Rome were famous in ancient times. From the la...

Browse by Subject