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dwarfism

(Encyclopedia)dwarfism, condition in which an animal or plant is less than normal in size and lacks the capacity for normal growth. Dwarfism is deliberately produced and perpetuated in certain species (e.g., in bre...

Duke, James Buchanan

(Encyclopedia)Duke, James Buchanan, 1856–1925, American industrialist, processor of tobacco products, b. near Durham, N.C. The Civil War left the Duke family poor, but James and his brother, Benjamin, helped thei...

crane, machine

(Encyclopedia)crane, hoisting machine for lifting heavy loads and transferring them from one place to another, ordinarily over distances of not more than 200 ft (60 m). Cranes have a long reach and can lift loads t...

Akerlof, George Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Akerlof, George Arthur, 1940–, American economist, b. New Haven, Conn., B.A. Yale, 1962, Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1966. He has been a professor at the Univ. of California, Berkel...

eutrophication

(Encyclopedia)eutrophication yo͞otrōˌfĭkāˈshən [key], aging of a lake by biological enrichment of its water. In a young lake the water is cold and clear, supporting little life. With time, streams draining i...

sea spider

(Encyclopedia)sea spider, common name for members of the class Pycnogonida, long-legged, rather spiderlike organisms of the subphylum Chelicerata, widely distributed in marine waters. Most are tiny, from 1 to 9 mm ...

proline

(Encyclopedia)CE5 proline prōˈlēn [key], organic compound, one of the 20 amino acids commonly found in animal proteins. Only the l-stereoisomer appears in mammalian protein. It is not essential to the human d...

parrotfish

(Encyclopedia)parrotfish, common name for a member of a large group of colorful reef fishes of warm seas, resembling the wrasses but of a larger size. Long considered a separate family, Scaridae, they are now group...

tundra

(Encyclopedia)tundra tŭnˈdrə [key], treeless plains of N North America and N Eurasia, lying principally along the Arctic Circle, on the coasts and islands of the Arctic Ocean, and to the north of the coniferous ...

Provensen, Alice

(Encyclopedia)Provensen, Alice, 1918–2018, b. Chicago as Alice Rose Twitchell, and Martin Provensen prōˈvĕnsĕn [key], 1916–87, b. Chicago, American children's book authors and illustrators. They both attend...