Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Herzberg, Gerhard

(Encyclopedia)Herzberg, Gerhard gĕrˈhärt hûrtsˈbûrg [key], 1904–99, Canadian physicist, b. Hamburg, Germany. He studied at Darmstadt, Göttingen, and Bristol, England, receiving a doctorate in engineering p...

Delbrück, Max Ludwig Henning

(Encyclopedia)Delbrück, Max Ludwig Henning dĕlˈbrük [key], 1906–1981, American biophysicist, b. Berlin, Germany. Ph.D, Univ. of Göttingen, 1930. He spent most of his career as a professor at the California I...

sociobiology

(Encyclopedia)sociobiology, controversial field that studies how natural selection, previously used only to explain the evolution of physical characteristics, shapes behavior in animals and humans. The theory has c...

Pennsylvania, University of

(Encyclopedia)Pennsylvania, University of, in Philadelphia; private with some state support; coeducational. It dates to 1740 and plans for a charity school, and the first predecessor opened in 1751 as an academy, l...

Sanger, Frederick

(Encyclopedia)Sanger, Frederick săngˈər [key], 1918–2013, British biochemist, grad. Cambridge (B.A., 1939; Ph.D., 1943). He continued his research at Cambridge after 1943. He won the 1958 Nobel Prize in Chemis...

Loricifera

(Encyclopedia)Loricifera lôrˌĭsĭfˈərə [key], phylum of microscopic animals discovered in 1974. They have spiny heads and unsegmented bodies encased in a vase-shaped anterior that can retract into the posteri...

limpet

(Encyclopedia)limpet, marine gastropod mollusk with a simple, flattened, conical shell, found in cooler waters of the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Certain species creep over rocks, feeding on algae during high ...

Kinorhyncha

(Encyclopedia)Kinorhyncha kĭnˌərĭngˈkə [key], phylum containing about 150 species of tiny pseudocoelomate worms, it is widely distributed in marine sediments. The kinorhynch body is divided into 13 segments, ...

Hartlepool

(Encyclopedia)Hartlepool härtˈlēpo͞ol, härtˈəl– [key], borough and unitary authority, NE E...

ammonite

(Encyclopedia)ammonite ămˈənīt [key], one of a type of extinct marine cephalopod mollusk, related to the nautilus and resembling it in having an elaborately coiled and chambered shell. Unlike the interiors of n...