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vivisection

(Encyclopedia)vivisection vĭvˌĭsĕkˈshən [key], dissection of living animals for experimental purposes. The use of the term in recent years has been expanded to include all experimentation on living animals, r...

tapeworm

(Encyclopedia)tapeworm, name for the parasitic flatworms forming the class Cestoda. All tapeworms spend the adult phase of their lives as parasites in the gut of a vertebrate animal (called the primary host). Most ...

Sierra Leone

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Sierra Leone sēĕrˈə lēōˈnē, lēōnˈ; sērˈə lēōn [key], officially Republic of Sierra Leone, republic (2015 est. pop. 5,879,000), 27,699 sq mi (71,740 sq km), W Africa. It is borde...

Inca

(Encyclopedia)Inca ĭngˈkə [key], pre-Columbian empire, W South America. The name Inca may specifically refer to the emperor, but is generally used to mean the empire or the people. When Francisco Pizarro lande...

mandates

(Encyclopedia)mandates, system of trusteeships established by Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations for the administration of former Turkish territories and of former German colonies. As finally adopt...

Togoland

(Encyclopedia)Togoland tōˈgō [key], historic region (c.33,500 sq mi/86,800 sq km), W Africa, bordering on the Gulf of Guinea in the south. The western section of Togoland is now part of Ghana, and the eastern po...

ratite

(Encyclopedia)ratite rătˈīt [key], common and general term for a variety of flightless birds characterized by a flat, raftlike sternum rather than the keeled sternum, designed to support flight muscles, typical ...

Ebola virus

(Encyclopedia)Ebola virus ēbōˈlə [key], a virus of the genus Ebolavirus, which belongs to a family (Filoviridae) of RNA viruses that cause hemorrhagic fevers. The viruses, named for a river in Congo (Kinshasa) ...

island

(Encyclopedia)island, relatively small body of land surrounded entirely by water. (As the oceans form a continuous mass of water on the earth's surface, all continents are islands in the strict sense of the word.) ...

Portuguese language

(Encyclopedia)CEE Portuguese language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages). It is the mother tongue of about 170 million people, c...