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ash, in botany

(Encyclopedia)ash, in botany, any plant of the genus Fraxinus of the family Oleaceae (olive family), trees and shrubs mainly of north temperate regions. The ashes are characterized by small clusters of greenish flo...

Atacama Desert

(Encyclopedia)Atacama Desert ätäkäˈmä [key], arid region, c.600 mi (970 km) long, N Chile, extending south from the border of Peru. The desert itself, c.2,000 ft (610 m) above sea level, is a series of dry sal...

land art

(Encyclopedia)land art or earthworks, art form developed in the late 1960s and early 70s by Robert Smithson, Robert Morris, Michael Heizer, and others, in which the artist employs the elements of nature in situ or ...

African music

(Encyclopedia)African music, the music of the indigenous peoples of Africa. Sub-Saharan African music has as its distinguishing feature a rhythmic complexity common to no other region. Polyrhythmic counterpoint, wh...

aerodynamics

(Encyclopedia)aerodynamics, study of gases in motion. As the principal application of aerodynamics is the design of aircraft, air is the gas with which the science is most concerned. Although aerodynamics is primar...

Douglas-Home, Alexander Frederick, Baron Home of the Hirsel

(Encyclopedia)Douglas-Home, Alexander Frederick, Baron Home of the Hirsel dŭgˈləs-hyo͞om [key], 1903–95, British politician. Educated at Eton and Oxford, he was elected to the House of Commons in 1931 as a Co...

French Revolutionary calendar

(Encyclopedia)French Revolutionary calendar, the official calendar of France, Nov. 24, 1793–Dec. 31, 1805. Its introduction was decreed by the Convention on Oct. 5, 1793, but it was computed from Sept. 22, 1792, ...

musical instruments

(Encyclopedia)musical instruments are classified in various ways, but the system devised in 1914 by Kurt Sachs and E. M. von Hornbostel has been accorded recognition by both anthropologists and musicologists becaus...

milling

(Encyclopedia)milling, mechanical grinding of wheat or other grains to produce flour. Milling separates the fine, mealy parts of grain from the fibrous bran covering. In prehistoric times grain was crushed between ...

Kiarostami, Abbas

(Encyclopedia)Kiarostami, Abbas ăbôˈsā kēyôˈrōmămēˌ [key], 1940–2016, Iranian filmmaker. Widely acclaimed as Iran's greatest film director, he typically explores the lives of ordinary Iranians in his f...