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Anglican Communion

(Encyclopedia)Anglican Communion, the body of churches in all parts of the world that are in communion with the Church of England (see England, Church of). The communion is composed of regional churches, provinces,...

obscenity

(Encyclopedia)obscenity, in law, anything that tends to corrupt public morals by its indecency. The moral concepts that the term connotes vary from time to time and from place to place. In the United States, the wo...

Cummings, E. E.

(Encyclopedia)Cummings, E. E. (Edward Estlin Cummings), 1894–1962, American poet, b. Cambridge, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1915. His poetry, noted for its eccentricities of typography (notably the lack of capitalizati...

endorphins

(Encyclopedia)endorphins ĕndôrˈfĭnz [key], neurotransmitters found in the brain that have pain-relieving properties similar to morphine. There are three major types of endorphins: beta endorpins, found primaril...

Fonseca, Rubem

(Encyclopedia)Fonseca, Rubem, 1925–2020, Brazilian short-story writer and novelist. Fonseca, who studied law and worked for a time as a police officer, is known for urban crime tales, many informed by his police ...

Dworkin, Andrea

(Encyclopedia)Dworkin, Andrea, 1946–2019, American feminist writer and activist, b. Camden, N.J., B.A. Bennington College, 1968. A fierce opponent of pornography and of violence against women, she is best known f...

Julian, Percy Lavon

(Encyclopedia)Julian, Percy Lavon, 1899–1975, African-American chemist, inventor, and businessman, b. Montgomery, Ala., grad. DePauw Univ. (A.B., 1920), Harvard (M.A., 1923), and the Univ. of Vienna (Ph.D., 1931)...

Welby, Justin Portal

(Encyclopedia)Welby, Justin Portal, 1956–, archbishop of Canterbury (2013–), b. London, grad. Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1978). An oil executive until 1989, he studied theology at St. John's College, Dur...

meiosis

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Formation of sperm cells through meiosis meiosis mīŏˈsĭs [key], process of nuclear division in a living cell by which the number of chromosomes is reduced to half the original number. Meio...

multiple birth

(Encyclopedia)multiple birth, bringing forth of more than one offspring at birth. Although many smaller mammals bear several young at a time, multiple births are relatively uncommon in humans and other primates. Tw...