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giraffe

(Encyclopedia)giraffe, African ruminant mammal, genus Giraffa, living in open savanna S of the Sahara. Giraffes have historically been considered to be one species, G. camelopardalis, with a number of subspecies, b...

monotreme

(Encyclopedia)monotreme mŏnˈətrēmˌ [key], name for members of the primitive mammalian order Monotremata, found in Australia, Tasmania, and New Guinea. The only members of this order are the platypus, or duckbi...

Murillo, Bartolomé Estéban

(Encyclopedia)Murillo, Bartolomé Estéban bärtōlōmāˈ āstāˈbän mo͞orēˈlyō [key], 1617?–1682, Spanish religious and portrait painter. He was born in Seville, where most of his life was spent. There, c...

Mitford, Nancy

(Encyclopedia)Mitford, Nancy, 1904–73, English novelist and biographer, b. London. She managed a London bookshop during World War II and moved to Paris in 1945. Mitford and her five celebrated and politically div...

Love Canal

(Encyclopedia)Love Canal, section of Niagara Falls, N.Y., that formerly contained a canal that was used as chemical disposal site. In the 1940s and 50s the empty canal was used by a chemical and plastics company to...

Lorenzetti

(Encyclopedia)Lorenzetti lōrān-tsĕtˈtē [key], two brothers who were major Sienese painters. Pietro Lorenzetti, c.1280–c.1348, was first influenced by Duccio di Buoninsegna and Giovanni Pisano. His earliest k...

parthenogenesis

(Encyclopedia)parthenogenesis pärˌthənōjĕnˈəsĭs [key] [Gr.,=virgin birth], in biology, a form of reproduction in which the ovum develops into a new individual without fertilization. Natural parthenogenesis ...

acne

(Encyclopedia)acne, common inflammatory disease of the hair follicles and sebaceous glands characterized by blackheads, whiteheads, pustules, nodules and, in the more severe forms, by cysts and scarring. The lesion...

Robert II, king of Scotland

(Encyclopedia)Robert II, 1316–90, king of Scotland (1371–90), nephew and successor of David II. He was the first sovereign of the house of Stuart, or Stewart (see Stuart, family), which eventually succeeded to ...

Agent Orange

(Encyclopedia)Agent Orange, herbicide used by U.S. forces during the Vietnam War to expose enemy guerrilla forces in forested areas. Agent Orange contains varying amounts of dioxin. Exposure to the defoliant has be...