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incest

(Encyclopedia)incest, sexual relations between persons to whom marriage is prohibited by custom or law because of their close kinship. Ideas of kinship, however, vary widely from group to group, hence the definitio...

hysterectomy

(Encyclopedia)hysterectomy hĭstərĕkˈtəmē [key], surgical removal of the uterus. A hysterectomy may involve removal of the uterus only or additional removal of the cervix (base of the uterus), fallopian tubes ...

extroversion and introversion

(Encyclopedia)extroversion and introversion, terms introduced into psychology by Carl Jung to identify opposite psychological types. Jung saw the activity of the extrovert directed toward the external world and tha...

Sanger, Margaret Higgins

(Encyclopedia)Sanger, Margaret Higgins, 1879–1966, American leader in the birth control movement, b. Corning, N.Y. Personal experience and work as a public-health nurse, much of it on New York City's Lower East S...

octopus

(Encyclopedia)octopus, cephalopod mollusk having no shell, eight muscular arms or tentacles, a pouch-shaped body, and two large, highly developed eyes. The prey (crabs, lobsters, and other shellfish) is seized by t...

sweat

(Encyclopedia)sweat or perspiration, fluid secreted by the sweat glands of mammalian skin and containing water, salts, and waste products of body metabolism such as urea. The dissolved solid content of sweat is onl...

bonobo

(Encyclopedia)bonobo, smaller of two species of chimpanzee, genus Pan. Whereas the common chimpanzee, P. troglodytes, lives in forests across most of equatorial Africa, the bonobo, P. paniscus (sometimes called the...

Francis

(Encyclopedia)Francis, 1936–, pope (2013–), an Argentinian (b. Buenos Aires to Italian immigrants) named Jorge Mario Bergoglio; successor of Benedict XVI. Francis, the first non-European to assume the papacy in...

polyp and medusa

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Polyp and medusa stages in the life cycle of Obelia, representative of the phylum Cnidaria polyp and medusa, names for the two body forms, one nonmotile and one typically free swimming, found ...

birth control

(Encyclopedia)birth control, practice of contraception for the purpose of limiting reproduction. Although contraceptive techniques had been known in ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome, the modern movement for birth ...