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Pablos, Juan

(Encyclopedia)Pablos, Juan hwän päˈblōs [key], d. 1561?, printer in Spanish America. Pablos printed in Mexico City the first book known to have been printed in the Western Hemisphere. It was a religious manual,...

Abed-nego

(Encyclopedia)Abed-nego əbĕdˈnēgō [key], in the Book of Daniel, one of the Three Young Men, educated with Daniel in the court of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. With his three companions, Abed-nego was thrown into ...

Taliesin

(Encyclopedia)Taliesin or Taliessin both: tălēĕsˈĭn [key], 6th cent.?, Welsh bard, whose Book of Taliesin is one of the great Welsh poetic works. The book exists only in a 13th-century form, but tradition plac...

defibrillator

(Encyclopedia)defibrillator, device that delivers an electrical shock to the heart in order to stop certain forms of rapid heart rhythm disturbances (arrhythmias). The shock changes a fibrillation to an organized r...

varve

(Encyclopedia)varve, in geology, pair of thin sedimentary layers formed annually by seasonal climatic changes. Usually found in glacial lake deposits, varves consist of a coarse-grained, light-colored summer deposi...

governor, device

(Encyclopedia)governor, automatic device used to regulate and control such variables as speed or pressure in the functioning of an engine or other machine. A governor may be an electric, hydraulic, or mechanical de...

Ditmars, Raymond Lee

(Encyclopedia)Ditmars, Raymond Lee dĭtˈmärz [key], 1876–1942, American naturalist and author, b. Newark, N.J., grad. Barnard Military Academy, 1891. His early skill in preparing insect collections led to his f...

White, T. H.

(Encyclopedia)White, T. H. (Terence Hanbury White), 1906–64, British author, b. Bombay (now Mumbai), India. His best-known work, the tetralogy The Once and Future King (1939–58), is a dramatic and delightfully ...

Newton, Sir Isaac

(Encyclopedia)Newton, Sir Isaac, 1642–1727, English mathematician and natural philosopher (physicist), who is considered by many the greatest scientist that ever lived. Newton was his university's representa...

Susanna

(Encyclopedia)Susanna. 1 Heroine of a story told in the Book of Daniel, in a chapter (13) placed in the Apocrypha in the Authorized Version (see Daniel). Two elders attempt to seduce Susanna and are repulsed; they ...