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Masaccio

(Encyclopedia)Masaccio mäzätˈchō [key], 1401–1428?, Italian painter. He is the foremost Italian painter of the Florentine Renaissance in the early 15th cent. Masaccio's original name was Tommaso Guidi. He was...

Victoria, Lake

(Encyclopedia)Victoria, Lake, or Victoria Nyanza nēănˈzə, nī– [key], largest lake of Africa and the world's second largest freshwater lake, c.26,830 sq mi (69,490 sq km), E central Africa, on the Uganda-Tanz...

DNA fingerprinting

(Encyclopedia)DNA fingerprinting or DNA profiling, any of several similar techniques for analyzing and comparing DNA from separate sources, used especially in law enforcement to identify suspects from hair, blood, ...

oceanography

(Encyclopedia)oceanography, study of the seas and oceans. The major divisions of oceanography include the geological study of the ocean floor (see plate tectonics) and features; physical oceanography, which is conc...

creole

(Encyclopedia)creole crēōlˈyō [key] [probably from crío=child], term originally applied in West Indies to the native-born descendants of the Spanish conquerors. The term has since been applied to certain desce...

Crick, Francis Harry Compton

(Encyclopedia)Crick, Francis Harry Compton, 1916–2004, English scientist, grad. University College, London, and Caius College, Cambridge. Crick was trained as a physicist, and from 1940 to 1947 he served as a sci...

formaldehyde

(Encyclopedia)formaldehyde fôrmălˈdəhīdˌ [key], HCHO, the simplest aldehyde. It melts at −92℃, boils at −21℃, and is soluble in water, alcohol, and ether; at STP, it is a flammable, poisonous, colorle...

National Science Foundation

(Encyclopedia)National Science Foundation (NSF), an independent agency in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government concerned with promoting a national science policy by supporting basic research and educ...

Mead, George Herbert

(Encyclopedia)Mead, George Herbert mēd [key], 1863–1931, American philosopher and psychologist, b. South Hadley, Mass., grad. Oberlin, 1883, and Harvard, 1888, and studied in Leipzig and Berlin. He taught at the...

kinship

(Encyclopedia)kinship, relationship by blood (consanguinity) or marriage (affinity) between persons; also, in anthropology and sociology, a system of rules, based on such relationships, governing descent, inheritan...