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brown recluse spider

(Encyclopedia)brown recluse spider or violin spider, poisonous nocturnal spider, Loxoceles reclusa, most common in the SE and S central United States. Adults are 3⁄8 in. (10 mm) long and are light brown with a da...

Cavalieri, Lina

(Encyclopedia)Cavalieri, Lina lēˈnä kävälyĕˈrē [key], 1874–1944, Italian operatic soprano. After her debut in Lisbon in 1900 she achieved great success throughout Europe and in the United States in the ly...

Cardigan, James Thomas Brudenell, 7th earl of

(Encyclopedia)Cardigan, James Thomas Brudenell, 7th earl of, 1797–1868, British general. In the Crimean War he led the disastrous cavalry charge at Balaklava (1854) that Tennyson immortalized in The Charge of the...

bluestone

(Encyclopedia)bluestone, common name for the blue, crystalline heptahydrate of cupric sulfate called chalcanthite, a minor ore of copper. It also refers to a fine-grained, light to dark colored blue-gray sandstone....

liquid crystal

(Encyclopedia)liquid crystal, liquid whose component particles, atoms or molecules, tend to arrange themselves with a degree of order far exceeding that found in ordinary liquids and approaching that of solid cryst...

luminescence

(Encyclopedia)luminescence, general term applied to all forms of cool light, i.e., light emitted by sources other than a hot, incandescent body, such as a blackbody radiator. Luminescence is caused by the movement ...

antibody

(Encyclopedia)antibody, protein produced by the immune system (see immunity) in response to the presence in the body of antigens: foreign proteins or polysaccharides such as bacteria, bacterial toxins, viruses, or ...

Hyades, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Hyades hīˈədēz [key], in astronomy, open star cluster in the constellation Taurus, located immediately to the right of the bright star Aldebaran. The cluster is about 130 light-years from the eart...

Daubigny, Charles-François

(Encyclopedia)Daubigny, Charles-François shärl-fräNswäˈ dōbēnyēˈ [key], 1817–78, French landscape painter. He went to Italy early in life and later studied in Paris with Paul Delaroche. Although usually ...

radar astronomy

(Encyclopedia)radar astronomy, application of radar to the determination of distances and planetary features within the solar system, such as rotation rates. A short burst of radio waves is transmitted in the direc...