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tallow

(Encyclopedia)tallow, solid fat extracted from the tissues and fatty deposits of animals, especially from suet (the fat of cattle and sheep). Pure tallow is white, odorless and tasteless; it consists chiefly of tri...

Sylacauga

(Encyclopedia)Sylacauga sĭləkŏgˈə [key], city (1990 pop. 12,520), Talladega co., central Ala.; inc. 1839. It is a processing center for a livestock and timber area. The city is built upon a solid bed of cream-...

Environmental Protection Agency

(Encyclopedia)Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), independent agency of the U.S. government, with headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1970 to reduce and control air and water pollution, noise ...

secretion

(Encyclopedia)secretion, in biology, substance elaborated by the living material of an animal or plant. Secretions in humans can be produced by a single cell or by a group of cells commonly called a gland. Some sec...

Poopó

(Encyclopedia)Poopó pōˌōpōˈ [key], salt lake, on the high plateau of W Bolivia. It is more than 11,000 ft (3,353 m) above sea level. Although it is Bolivia's second largest lake (965 sq mi/2,499 sq km) when w...

vapor pressure

(Encyclopedia)vapor pressure, pressure exerted by a vapor that is in equilibrium with its liquid. A liquid standing in a sealed beaker is actually a dynamic system: some molecules of the liquid are evaporating to f...

Io, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Io īˈō [key], in astronomy, one of the 39 known moons, or natural satellites, of Jupiter. Io is subject to Jupiter's enormous tidal forces and is, as a result, the most volcanically active body in ...

Beltsville swine

(Encyclopedia)Beltsville swine, two breeds of swine developed at the agricultural research center of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Md. The breeds are designated Beltsville No. 1 and Beltsville N...

gas

(Encyclopedia)gas, in physics, one of the three commonly recognized states of matter, the other two being solid and liquid. A substance in the gaseous state has neither definite shape nor definite volume. Like liqu...

common-ion effect

(Encyclopedia)common-ion effect, decrease in solubility of an ionic salt, i.e., one that dissociates in solution into its ions, caused by the presence in solution of another solute that contains one of the same ion...