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bioluminescence

(Encyclopedia)bioluminescence bīˌōlo͞oˌmĭnĕsˈəns [key], production of light by living organisms. Organisms that are bioluminescent include certain fungi and bacteria that emit light continuously. The dinof...

scarlet fever

(Encyclopedia)scarlet fever or scarlatina, an acute, communicable infection, caused by group A hemolytic streptococcal bacteria (see streptococcus) that produce an erythrogenic toxin. The disease is now uncommon, p...

Hershey, Alfred Day

(Encyclopedia)Hershey, Alfred Day, 1908–1997, American microbiologist, b. Owosso, Mich., Ph.D., Michigan State College (now Michigan State Univ.), 1934. Hershey was a professor at the Washington Univ. School of M...

lactose

(Encyclopedia)lactose lăkˈtōs [key] or milk sugar, white crystalline disaccharide (see carbohydrate). It has the same empirical formula (C12H22O11) as sucrose (cane sugar) and maltose but differs from both in st...

cacao

(Encyclopedia)cacao kəkäˈō, –kāˈ– [key], tropical tree (Theobroma cacao) of the family Sterculiaceae (sterculia family), native to South America, where it was first domesticated and was highly prized by t...

Yonath, Ada E.

(Encyclopedia)Yonath, Ada E., 1939–, Israeli crystallographer, Ph.D. Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovat, Israel, 1968. Yonath has been a researcher and professor at the Weizmann Institute since 1970. She was ...

ameba

(Encyclopedia)ameba or amoeba both: əmēˈbə [key], common name for certain one-celled organisms belonging to the phylum Sarcodina of the kingdom Protista. Amebas were previously classified as members of the anim...

cheese

(Encyclopedia)cheese, food known from ancient times and consisting of the curd of milk separated from the whey. The numerous cheeses (often named for their place of origin) depend for their distinctive qualities ...

syphilis

(Encyclopedia)syphilis sĭfˈəlĭs [key], contagious sexually transmitted disease caused by the spirochete Treponema pallidum (described by Fritz Schaudinn and Erich Hoffmann in 1905). Syphilis was not widely reco...

prion

(Encyclopedia)prion prēˈŏn [key], abnormal form of a protein found in mammals, now generally believed to cause a group of diseases known as prion diseases or transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, which are ...