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West Nile virus

(Encyclopedia)West Nile virus, microorganism and the infection resulting from it, which typically produces no symptoms or a flulike condition. The virus is a flavivirus and is related to a number of viruses that ca...

Blackfoot

(Encyclopedia)Blackfoot, Native North Americans of the Algonquian branch of the Algonquian-Wakashan linguistic stock (see Native American languages). They occupied in the early 19th cent. a large range of territory...

stroboscope

(Encyclopedia)stroboscope strŏbˈəskōp [key], optical instrument for making a moving object appear to be slowed down or stationary. This effect is created by interrupting the observer's view so that the object i...

toxoplasmosis

(Encyclopedia)toxoplasmosis, infection caused by Toxoplasma gondii, a single-celled parasitic microorganism that can infect most warm-blooded animals but reproduces only in animals of the cat family, who shed the p...

Shepard, Sam

(Encyclopedia)Shepard, Sam, 1943–2017, one of the major American playwrights and actors of his era, b. Fort Sheridan, Ill., as Samuel Shepard Rogers 3d. A product of the 1960s counterculture and an important figu...

purgatory

(Encyclopedia)purgatory pûrgˈətôrˌē [key] [Lat.,=place of purging], in the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, the state after death in which the soul destined for heaven is purified. Since only the perfec...

Victoria and Albert Museum

(Encyclopedia)Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London, opened in 1852 as the Museum of Manufacturers at Marlborough House. It originally contained a nucleus of contemporary objects of applied art bough...

Dominic, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Dominic, Saint dŏmˈənĭk [key], 1170?–1221, Castilian churchman, named Domingo de Guzmán, founder of the Dominicans. He studied at Palencia and became a canon, then prior of canons, of the cathe...

Ibn al-Arabi, Muhyi ad-Din Muhammad bin Ali al-Hatimi at-Tai

(Encyclopedia)Ibn al-Arabi or Ibn Arabi, Muhyi ad-Din Muhammad bin Ali al-Hatimi at-Tai ĭbˌən äl äräˈbē [key], 1165–1240, a Muslim Sufi mystic b. in Murcia, Spain. As a child in Seville, Ibn al-Arabi had ...

heaven

(Encyclopedia)heaven, blissful upper realm or state entered after death; in Western monotheistic religions it is the place where the just see God face to face (sometimes called the beatific vision). In Judaism, hea...