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universe

(Encyclopedia)universe, totality of matter and energy in existence. The study of the origin of the universe, or cosmos, is known as cosmogony, and that of its structure and evolution, cosmology. The age of the univ...

dust, atmospheric

(Encyclopedia)dust, atmospheric, minute particles slowly settling or suspended by slight currents and existing in varying amounts in all air. There is least dust at high levels over the ocean and most at low levels...

Abe, Shinzo

(Encyclopedia)Abe, Shinzo shēnˈzō äˈbā [key], 1954–2022, Japanese political leader. The son and grandson of politicians (his grandfather was Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi), he s...

moscovium

(Encyclopedia)moscovium mŏskōˈvēəm [key], artificially produced radioactive chemical element; symbol Mc; at. no. 115; mass number of most stable isotope 288; m.p., b.p., sp. gr., and valence unknown. Situated ...

meiosis

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Formation of sperm cells through meiosis meiosis mīŏˈsĭs [key], process of nuclear division in a living cell by which the number of chromosomes is reduced to half the original number. Meio...

McNamara, Robert Strange

(Encyclopedia)McNamara, Robert Strange măkˈnəmârˌə [key], 1916–2009, U.S. secretary of defense (1961–68), b. San Francisco, grad Univ. of California, Berkeley (B.A., 1937), Harvard (M.B.A., 1939). He taug...

Rutherford, Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron

(Encyclopedia)Rutherford, Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron, 1871–1937, British physicist, b. New Zealand. Rutherford left New Zealand in 1895, having earned three degrees from the Univ. of New Zealand but having fail...

Bristol, city, England

(Encyclopedia)Bristol, city and unitary authority (2021 est. pop. 694,000), SW England, at the confluence of the Avon and Frome rivers. Bristol, a leading internation...

transuranium elements

(Encyclopedia)transuranium elements, in chemistry, radioactive elements with atomic numbers greater than that of uranium (at. no. 92). All the transuranium elements of the actinide series were discovered as synthet...

science fiction

(Encyclopedia)science fiction, literary genre in which a background of science or pseudoscience is an integral part of the story. Although science fiction is a form of fantastic literature, many of the events recou...