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screamer

(Encyclopedia)screamer, common name for gregarious, aquatic birds comprising three species in the family Anhimidae. Although they are related to the ducks and geese, they do not resemble them in outward appearance....

carbon monoxide

(Encyclopedia)carbon monoxide, chemical compound, CO, a colorless, odorless, tasteless, extremely poisonous gas that is less dense than air under ordinary conditions. It is very slightly soluble in water and burns ...

Arctic, the

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Arctic, the northernmost area of the earth, centered on the North Pole. The arctic regions are not coextensive with the area enclosed by the Arctic Circle (lat. 66°30′N) but are usually defi...

white dwarf

(Encyclopedia)white dwarf, in astronomy, a type of star that is abnormally faint for its white-hot temperature (see mass-luminosity relation). Typically, a white dwarf star has the mass of the sun and the radius of...

wind chill

(Encyclopedia)wind chill, the cooling effect of wind and temperature combined, expressed in terms of the effect produced by a lower, windless temperature, also called wind chill factor, wind chill temperature, wind...

chromosphere

(Encyclopedia)chromosphere krōˈməsfērˌ [key] [Gr.,=color sphere], layer of rarefied, transparent gases in the solar atmosphere; it measures 6,000 mi (9,700 km) in thickness and lies between the photosphere (th...

clay

(Encyclopedia)clay, common name for a number of fine-grained, earthy materials that become plastic when wet. Chemically, clays are hydrous aluminum silicates, ordinarily containing impurities, e.g., potassium, sodi...

bivalve

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Internal anatomy of a clam, Anodonta, representative mollusk of the class Pelecypoda (the bivalves) bivalve, aquatic mollusk of the class Pelecypoda (“hatchet-foot”) or Bivalvia, with a la...

Arctic Ocean

(Encyclopedia)Arctic Ocean, the smallest ocean, c.5,400,000 sq mi (13,986,000 sq km), located entirely within the Arctic Circle and occupying the region around the North Pole. The Arctic basin was almost wholly u...

firefly

(Encyclopedia)firefly or lightning bug, small, luminescent, carnivorous beetle of the family Lampyridae. Fireflies are well represented in temperate regions, although the majority of species are tropical and subtro...