Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

341 results found

Olduvai Gorge

(Encyclopedia)Olduvai Gorge ōlˈdəwāˌ, –vāˌ [key], a feature of the E African Rift Valley in Tanzania. Erosional processes have exposed geological strata in the gorge dating to the lower Pleistocene epoch, ...

jackal

(Encyclopedia)jackal, name for several Old World carnivorous mammals of the genus Canis, which also includes the dog and the wolf. Jackals are found in Africa and S Asia, where they inhabit deserts, grasslands, and...

battleship

(Encyclopedia)battleship, large, armored warship equipped with the heaviest naval guns. The evolution of the battleship, from the ironclad warship of the mid-19th cent., received great impetus from the Civil War. B...

Bassiouni, M. Cherif

(Encyclopedia)Bassiouni, M. Cherif (Mahmoud Cherif Bassiouni), 1937–2017, Egyptian-American international criminal law jurist and human-rights advocate, b. Cairo. Bassiouni fought for Egypt in the Suez conflict (...

Wolfe, Tom

(Encyclopedia)Wolfe, Tom (Thomas Kennerly Wolfe, Jr.), 1931–2018, American journalist and novelist, b. Richmond, Va., B.A. Washington and Lee Univ., 1951, Ph.D. Yale, 1957. He began his writing career as a newspa...

neutron star

(Encyclopedia)neutron star, extremely small, extremely dense star, with as much as double the sun's mass but only a few miles in radius, in the final stage of stellar evolution. Astronomers Baade and Zwicky predict...

Lyell, Sir Charles

(Encyclopedia)Lyell, Sir Charles līˈəl [key], 1797–1875, British geologist. After studying and briefly practicing law, he spent most of his life in travel and in popularizing scientific ideas. He championed an...

monotreme

(Encyclopedia)monotreme mŏnˈətrēmˌ [key], name for members of the primitive mammalian order Monotremata, found in Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea. The only members of this order are the platypus, or duckbi...

red giant

(Encyclopedia)red giant, star that is relatively cool but very luminous because of its great size. All normal stars are expected to pass eventually through a red-giant phase as a consequence of stellar evolution. A...

National Radio Astronomy Observatory

(Encyclopedia)National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), federal observatory for radio astronomy, founded in 1956 and operated under contract with the National Science Foundation by Associated Universities, Inc.,...