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basic oxygen process

(Encyclopedia)basic oxygen process, method of producing steel from a charge consisting mostly of pig iron. The charge is placed in a furnace similar to the one used in the Bessemer process of steelmaking except tha...

Williams, Roger John

(Encyclopedia)Williams, Roger John, 1893–1988, American chemist, b. India, grad. Univ. of Redlands, Redlands, Calif. (B.S., 1914), Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1919; brother of the chemist Robert R. Williams, Jr. He t...

viscose process

(Encyclopedia)viscose process vĭsˈkōs [key], method widely used for the commercial preparation of rayon. Cellulose, prepared from either wood pulp or, less commonly, cotton linters, is treated with sodium hydrox...

rayon

(Encyclopedia)rayon, synthetic fibers made from cellulose or textiles woven from such fibers; more rayon is manufactured than any other synthetic fiber. The name was adopted (1924), in preference to “artificial s...

immunosuppressive drug

(Encyclopedia)immunosuppressive drug, any of a variety of substances used to prevent production of antibodies. They are commonly used to prevent rejection by a recipient's body of an organ transplanted from a donor...

methotrexate

(Encyclopedia)methotrexate, drug used in halting the growth of actively proliferating tissues. Introduced in the 1950s, it is used in the treatment of leukemia, psoriasis, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. By binding to ...

rosin

(Encyclopedia)rosin or colophony, hard, brittle, translucent resin, obtained as a solid residue from crude turpentine. Usually pale yellow or amber, its color may vary from brownish-black to transparent depending o...

Roethke, Theodore

(Encyclopedia)Roethke, Theodore rĕtˈkə [key], 1908–63, American poet, b. Saginaw, Mich., educated at the Univ. of Michigan and Harvard. A poet of the Midwest, Roethke combined a love of the land with his visio...

Crofton, Sir John Wenman

(Encyclopedia)Crofton, Sir John Wenman, 1912–2009, British physician, b. Dublin. He served in the British medical corps during World War II and during 1946–52 was part of a research team studying the effects of...

alanine

(Encyclopedia)CE5 alanine ălˈənēnˌ [key], organic compound, one of the 20 amino acids commonly found in animal proteins. Only the l-stereoisomer participates in the biosynthesis of proteins (see stereochemi...