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Passamaquoddy Bay

(Encyclopedia)Passamaquoddy Bay păsəməkwŏdˈē [key], inlet of the Bay of Fundy, between Maine and New Brunswick, at the mouth of the St. Croix River. Most of it (including Campobello island) is within Canada's...

taconite

(Encyclopedia)taconite, low-grade iron ore, a flintlike rock usually containing less than 30% iron. Resistant to drilling and to the extraction of its contained metal, the rock was long considered worthless. Experi...

Stigler, George Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Stigler, George Joseph, 1911–91, American economist, b. Renton, Wash., Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1938. A professor at Univ. of Chicago from 1958, Stigler wrote about the economics of information. He e...

Beas

(Encyclopedia)Beas bēˈäs [key], river, 250 mi (402 km) long, rising in the Himalayas and flowing generally SW through the fertile Kulu Valley of Himachal Pradesh and the Shiwalik Range to join the Sutlej River, ...

Truth or Consequences

(Encyclopedia)Truth or Consequences, city (1990 pop. 6,221), seat of Sierra co., SW N.Mex., on the Rio Grande between the Black Range (W) and Jornada del Meurto desert basin (E); inc. 1916 as Hot Springs, renamed 1...

Cecco d'Ascoli

(Encyclopedia)Cecco d'Ascoli chĕkˈkō däsˈkōlē [key], 1269?–1327, Italian astrologer, mathematician, poet, and physician, whose real name was Francesco degli Stabili, b. Ascoli. A teacher of astrology at se...

castrato

(Encyclopedia)castrato kăsträˈtō [key] [Ital.,=castrated], a male singer with an artificially created soprano or alto voice, the result of castration in boyhood. The combination of the larynx of a youth and the...

Himalayas

(Encyclopedia)Himalayas hĭmälˈəyəz, hĭməlāˈəz [key] [Sanskrit,=abode of snow], great Asian mountain system, extending c.1,500 mi (2,410 km) E from the Indus River in Pakistan through India, the Tibet regi...

radio-frequency identification

(Encyclopedia)radio-frequency identification (RFID), a technology that uses radio waves to transmit data and uniquely identify an animal, person, or thing. An RFID system typically consists of a tag and a reader. T...

cosmic rays

(Encyclopedia)cosmic rays, charged particles moving at nearly the speed of light reaching the earth from outer space. Primary cosmic rays consist mostly of protons (nuclei of hydrogen atoms), some alpha particles (...