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Hawking, Stephen William

(Encyclopedia)Hawking, Stephen William, 1942–2018, British theoretical physicist, b. Oxford, England, grad. University College, Oxford, 1962, Ph.D. Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1966. In 1962 Hawking was diagnosed as ...

hydrocortisone

(Encyclopedia)hydrocortisone hīˌdrəkôrˈtĭzōnˌ [key], another name for the steroid hormone cortisol, more especially used to refer to preparations of this hormone used medicinally. Hydrocortisone, introduced...

vertigo

(Encyclopedia)vertigo vûrˈtĭgō [key], sensations of moving in space or of objects moving about a person and the resultant difficulty in maintaining equilibrium. True vertigo, as distinguished from faintness, li...

tamoxifen

(Encyclopedia)tamoxifen təmŏkˈsĭfĕnˌ [key], synthetic hormone used in the treatment of breast cancer. Introduced in 1978, tamoxifen is used to prevent recurrences of cancer in women who have already undergone...

carotene

(Encyclopedia)carotene kârˈətēnˌ [key], long-chained, unsaturated hydrocarbon found as a pigment in many higher plants, particularly carrots, sweet potatoes, and leafy vegetables. Carotene is thought to assist...

tonsils

(Encyclopedia)tonsils, name commonly referring to the palatine tonsils, two ovoid masses of lymphoid tissue situated on either side of the throat at the back of the tongue. The pharyngeal tonsils, or adenoids, are ...

Horvitz, H. Robert

(Encyclopedia)Horvitz, H. Robert (Howard Robert Horivtz), 1947–, American geneticist, b. Chicago, Ill., Ph.D. Harvard, 1974. Horvitz has been a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1978. W...

Murad, Ferid

(Encyclopedia)Murad, Ferid, 1936–, American pharmacologist, b. Whiting, Ind., M.D., Ph.D. Western Reserve Univ. (now Case Western Reserve Univ.), 1965. Murad taught at the Univ. of Virginia (1975–81), Stanford ...

bighorn, in zoology

(Encyclopedia)bighorn or Rocky Mountain sheep, wild sheep, Ovis canadensis, of W North America, formerly plentiful in mountains from SW Canada to N Mexico. Indiscriminate hunting, disease, and scarcity of food enor...

Mullis, Kary Banks

(Encyclopedia)Mullis, Kary Banks, 1944–2019, American biochemist, b. Lenoir, N.C., Ph.D. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1972. Mullis was a researcher with Cetus Corp., Emeryville, Calif., from 1979 to 1986 and wi...