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metasoma (arachnid anatomy)
There are many modifications of the cephalothorax and abdomen. Among the scorpions the abdomen is subdivided into the mesosoma, or preabdomen, and the metasoma, or postabdomen, which is mobile and more slender. Similar arrangements are found among whip scorpions, schizomids, and ricinuleids. Among the daddy longlegs the division between the two parts is indistinct, and among most of the mites......
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metasomatic metamorphism (mineralogy)
Other types of metamorphism can occur. They are retrograde metamorphism, the response of mineral assemblages to decreasing temperature and pressure; metasomatism, the metamorphism that includes the addition or subtraction of components from the original assemblage; poly-metamorphism, the effect of more than one metamorphic event; and hydrothermal metamorphism, the changes that occur in the......
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metasomatic replacement (mineralogy)
the process of simultaneous solution and deposition whereby one mineral replaces another. It is an important process in the formation of epigenetic mineral deposits (those formed after the formation of the host rock), in the formation of high- and intermediate-temperature hydrothermal ore deposits, and in supergene sulfide enrichment (enriched by generally downward movement). Metasomatic replacem...
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metasomatism (mineralogy)
Other types of metamorphism can occur. They are retrograde metamorphism, the response of mineral assemblages to decreasing temperature and pressure; metasomatism, the metamorphism that includes the addition or subtraction of components from the original assemblage; poly-metamorphism, the effect of more than one metamorphic event; and hydrothermal metamorphism, the changes that occur in the......
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metasome (beardworm anatomy)
...Lamellibrachia barhami is one of the largest species. The body consists of three segments: two small anterior regions are called protosome and mesosome; the long trunk section is called the metasome. Each segment has its own coelom. The small protosome bears tentacles. The mesosome contains a structure known as a bridle, also called a frenulum, a pair of oblique cuticular ridges that......
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metastable peak (chemistry)
...ion will give rise to a peak at an apparent mass m* = m 22/m1, not necessarily an integral number. This peak is known as a metastable peak. Generally, metastable peaks occur at nonintegral mass numbers, and, because there usually is a kinetic energy of separation during fragmentation of the polyatomic ion, they tend to......
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metastable state (chemistry and physics)
in physics and chemistry, particular excited state of an atom, nucleus, or other system that has a longer lifetime than the ordinary excited states and that generally has a shorter lifetime than the lowest, often stable, energy state, called the ground state. A metastable state may thus be considered a kind of temporary energy trap or a somewhat stable intermediate stage of a system the energy of...
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Metastasio, Pietro (Italian poet)
Italian poet and the most celebrated librettist in Europe writing during the 18th century for the opera seria; his librettos were set more than 800 times. In 1708 his astonishing skill in verse improvisation attracted the attention of Gian Vincenzo Gravina, a man of letters who made him his heir adoptive and Hellenized his name into Pietro Metastasio....
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metastasis (pathology)
In order to disseminate throughout the body, the cells of a solid tumour must be able to accomplish the following tasks. They must detach from neighbouring cells, break through supporting membranes, burrow through other tissues until they reach a lymphatic or blood vessel, and then migrate through the lining of that vessel. Next, individual cells or clumps of cells must enter the circulatory......
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Metastigmata (arachnid suborder)
any of about 825 species of invertebrates in the order Parasitiformes (subclass Acari). Ticks are important parasites of large wild and domestic animals and are also significant as carriers of serious diseases. Although no species is primarily a human parasite, some occasionally attack humans....
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Metastrongyloidea (worm)
any of the parasitic worms of the superfamily Metastrongyloidea (phylum Nematoda) that infest the lungs and air passages of mammals, including dolphins and whales. Examples include those of the genus Metastrongylus that live in pigs, and those of the genus Dictyocaulus that live in sheep and cattle. Many species of lungworms are of veterinary importance. Members of the genus Angio...
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metatarsal (bone)
any of several tubular bones between the ankle (tarsal) bones and each of the hindlimb digits, in land vertebrates corresponding to the metacarpal bones of the hand (forepaw). In humans the five metatarsal bones help form longitudinal arches along the inner and outer sides of the foot and a transverse arch at the ball of the foot. The first metatarsal (which adjoins the phalang...
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metatarsalgia (bone disorder)
persistent pain in the metatarsal region, or ball, of the foot. The condition arises when the weight of the body, while standing, is forced to rest on the centre of the anterior arch (on the heads of the central metatarsal bones) instead of on the inside and outside of the foot. The most common cause of metatarsalgia is the wearing of improper footwear. Among women this may be h...
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metate (tool)
...was boiled with unslaked lime to soften the kernels and loosen the hulls. (This lime was the principal source of calcium in the Mexican diet.) The grains were ground on a stone saddle quern, or metate. Small pieces of dough were patted by hand into thin disks, a task requiring considerable dexterity. The tortilla was then baked on a comal, a griddle of earthenware or iron. Today.....
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metathalamus (anatomy)
The metathalamus is composed of the medial and lateral geniculate bodies, or nuclei. Fibres of the optic nerve end in the lateral geniculate body, which consists of six cellular laminae, or layers, folded into a horseshoe configuration. Each lamina represents a complete map of the contralateral......
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metatheory
a theory the subject matter of which is another theory. A finding proved in the former that deals with the latter is known as a metatheorem....
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Metatheria (mammal)
any of more than 250 species belonging to the infraclass Metatheria (sometimes called Marsupialia), a mammalian group characterized by premature birth and continued development of the newborn while attached to the nipples on the lower belly of the mother. The pouch, or marsupium, from which the group takes its name, is a flap of skin covering the nipples. Alth...
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metathesis (paleography)
The order of letters also might be inverted. Such metathesis, as it is called, appears in Psalms, in which qirbam (“their inward thoughts”) stands for qibram (“their grave”)....
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metathesis (organic chemistry)
French chemist who was corecipient, with Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock, of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2005 for developing metathesis, an important chemical reaction used in organic chemistry. Chauvin offered a detailed explanation of “how metatheses reactions function and what types of metal compound act as catalysts in the reactions.”...
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metathesis reaction
An interesting reaction of the Schrock carbenes is the alkene metathesis reaction:...
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metathetic reaction
An interesting reaction of the Schrock carbenes is the alkene metathesis reaction:...
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metathorax (anatomy)
...bears the first pair of legs and a pair of respiratory openings (spiracles). The much larger mesothorax bears the second pair of legs, a second pair of spiracles, and the pair of forewings. The metathorax bears the third pair of legs and the pair of hind wings. In many moths the metathorax bears a pair of complex auditory organs (tympana). In some species these organs serve as receptors of......
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Metatron (angel)
greatest of angels in Jewish myths and legends, variously identified as the Prince (or Angel) of the Presence, as Michael the archangel, or as Enoch after his ascent into heaven. He is likewise described as a celestial scribe recording the sins and merits of men, as a guardian of heavenly secrets, as God’s mediator with men, as the “lesser Yahweh,” as the archetype of man, an...
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Metauro River (river, Italy)
river, Marche region, central Italy, rising in the Etruscan Apennines (Appennino Tosco-Emiliano) and flowing for 68 mi (109 km) east-northeast into the Adriatic Sea just south of Fano. The lower valley of the river (the ancient Metaurus) was the scene of a great Roman victory over the Carthaginians in 207 bc, when the consuls Marcus Livius Salinator and Claudius Nero defeated and sle...
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Metaurus, Battle of the (Roman history)
...there. In 208 Hasdrubal, detaching a force from the main Carthaginian army, crossed the Alps (probably by his brother’s route) to go to Hannibal’s aid. Hasdrubal’s army was defeated, however, at Metaurus in northern Italy (207) before the Carthaginian armies could effect a junction. His last hope of making a recovery in central Italy thus dashed, Hannibal concentrated his f...
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Metaurus River (river, Italy)
river, Marche region, central Italy, rising in the Etruscan Apennines (Appennino Tosco-Emiliano) and flowing for 68 mi (109 km) east-northeast into the Adriatic Sea just south of Fano. The lower valley of the river (the ancient Metaurus) was the scene of a great Roman victory over the Carthaginians in 207 bc, when the consuls Marcus Livius Salinator and Claudius Nero defeated and sle...
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Metaxa (distilled liquor)
...the finest of all brandies, and Armagnac, from the Gers region. The sherry-producing centres of Spain and the port-producing centres of Portugal are also known for brandy. Greek brandy includes Metaxa, sweetened and usually darkened with caramel, and ouzo, colourless and flavoured with anise or licorice. American brandy, produced mainly in California, tends to be neutral and uniform in......
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Metaxas, Ioannis (Greek statesman)
general and statesman, dictator of Greece from 1936 to 1941....
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Metaxas, Ionnis (Greek statesman)
general and statesman, dictator of Greece from 1936 to 1941....
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Metaxas, John (Greek statesman)
general and statesman, dictator of Greece from 1936 to 1941....
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Metaxas Line (fortification)
...a Finnish marshal and statesman); the Soviets built the Stalin Line facing Poland; the Czechoslovaks constructed what became known as the Little Maginot Line to oppose Germany; the Greeks built the Metaxas Line facing Bulgaria; and the Belgians erected a series of elaborate forts along the Albert Canal. German capture of the most elaborate and allegedly impregnable of the Belgian forts, Eben......
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Metaxya lanosa (fern)
...the sporangia mixed with paraphyses, the annulus slightly oblique; spores globose, finely sculptured, lacking an equatorial flange or girdle; 1 genus and 2 species (Metaxya rostrata and M. lanosa), of low elevations in the Neotropics, particularly the Amazonian region.Order Polypodiales (known as ...
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Metaxya rostrata (fern)
...round, lacking an indusium, the sporangia mixed with paraphyses, the annulus slightly oblique; spores globose, finely sculptured, lacking an equatorial flange or girdle; 1 genus and 2 species (Metaxya rostrata and M. lanosa), of low elevations in the Neotropics, particularly the Amazonian region.Order Polypodiales......
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Metaxyaceae (plant family)
small family of ferns in the division Pteridophyta (the lower vascular plants). The single genus, Metaxya, contains two species, M. rostrata and M. lanosa. M. rostrata is widespread in Neotropical mountains from southern Mexico to Bolivia and Brazil. It also occurs on some islands, including Tri...
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métayage (land ownership)
type of land tenure whereby the cultivator (metayer) uses land without owning it and pays rent in kind to the owner. Pure métayage is a form of share tenancy involving payment of approximately half the annual output; the métayer’s family permanently occupies the land that it works. The term describes what was probably the dominant type of land tenure in 18th-century F...
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Metazoa (animal)
In the lower metazoans (multicellular organisms), reproduction is also by both asexual and sexual means. As befits their sessile life-style and low population densities, sponges that reproduce sexually are usually hermaphroditic; that is, each individual is capable of producing both sperm and eggs, but often at different times to prevent self-fertilization.......
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metazoan (animal)
In the lower metazoans (multicellular organisms), reproduction is also by both asexual and sexual means. As befits their sessile life-style and low population densities, sponges that reproduce sexually are usually hermaphroditic; that is, each individual is capable of producing both sperm and eggs, but often at different times to prevent self-fertilization.......
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metazoonosis (pathology)
...tapeworm infections are an example, requires at least two different vertebrate species. Both vertebrate and invertebrate animals are required as intermediate hosts in the transmission to humans of metazoonoses; arboviral and trypanosomal diseases are good examples of metazoonoses. The cycles of saprozoonoses (for example, histoplasmosis) may require, in addition to vertebrate hosts, specific......
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Metcalf, Joseph, III (United States vice admiral)
vice admiral (ret.), U.S. Navy who commanded the full-scale U.S. military invasion of Grenada on Oct. 25, 1983, after a bloody Marxist coup resulted in the execution of the country’s prime minister and 15 of his supporters. Metcalf had less than 36 hours to prepare for Operation Urgent Fury, but he succeeded in pulling together some 6,000 troops, which, in just three days, successfully sec...
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Metcalf, Willard Leroy (American artist)
...independently, hoping to draw public attention to their paintings. The members of The Ten were Childe Hassam, John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, Thomas W. Dewing, Joseph De Camp, Frank W. Benson, Willard Leroy Metcalf, Edmund Charles Tarbell, Robert Reid, and E.E. Simmons. When Twachtman died in 1902,William Merritt Chase replaced him....
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Metcalfe, Ben (Canadian journalist)
Canadian environmentalist, journalist, and broadcaster (b. Oct. 31, 1919, Winnipeg, Man.—d. Oct. 14, 2003, Shawnigan Lake, Vancouver Island, British Columbia), was a founder of the small antinuclear Don’t Make a Wave Committee. Using his broadcasting and public relations skills, he attracted international attention to the mission of the group and helped launch its growth into the thr...
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Metcalfe, E. Bennett (Canadian journalist)
Canadian environmentalist, journalist, and broadcaster (b. Oct. 31, 1919, Winnipeg, Man.—d. Oct. 14, 2003, Shawnigan Lake, Vancouver Island, British Columbia), was a founder of the small antinuclear Don’t Make a Wave Committee. Using his broadcasting and public relations skills, he attracted international attention to the mission of the group and helped launch its growth into the thr...
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Metcalfe of Fern Hill, Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, Baron, 2nd Baronet (British colonial official)
British overseas administrator who, as acting governor general of India, instituted in that country important reforms, particularly freedom of the press and the establishment of English as the official language. He later served as crown-appointed governor of Jamaica and governor general of Canada....
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Metcalfe, Ralph (American athlete)
American sprinter, member of the American 4 × 100-meter relay team that won a gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. At his peak, in 1934–35, he was called “the world’s fastest human”; in 1932 and 1936 he won Olympic silver medals in the 100-metre dash, losing close races to his great rivals Eddie Tolan and Jesse Owens...
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Metcalfe, Ralph Harold (American athlete)
American sprinter, member of the American 4 × 100-meter relay team that won a gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. At his peak, in 1934–35, he was called “the world’s fastest human”; in 1932 and 1936 he won Olympic silver medals in the 100-metre dash, losing close races to his great rivals Eddie Tolan and Jesse Owens...
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Metcalfe, Robert (American engineer)
Another researcher at PARC, Robert Metcalfe, developed a network system in 1973 that could transmit and receive data at three million bits a second, much faster than was generally thought possible at the time. Xerox did not see this as related to its core business of copiers, and it allowed Metcalfe to start his own company based on the system, called Ethernet. Ethernet eventually became the......
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Metcalfe, Thomas B. (American businessman)
...constructing models for castings and working on new inventions. At that time he decided to construct a machine for solving arithmetical problems and, with financial help from an acquaintance, Thomas B. Metcalfe, completed his first calculating machine (1885), which, however, proved to be commercially impractical. But, with Metcalfe and two other St. Louis businessmen, he organized the......
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Metchnikoff, Élie (Russian biologist)
Russian zoologist and microbiologist who received (with Paul Ehrlich) the 1908 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery in animals of amoeba-like cells that engulf foreign bodies such as bacteria—a phenomenon known as phagocytosis and a fundamental part of the immune response....
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metecdysis (zoology)
...In isopods the exoskeleton is cast in two parts; the front portion may be cast several days after the hind part. Immediately after ecdysis the crustacean swells from a rapid intake of water. (3) Metecdysis, or postmolt, is the stage in which the soft cuticle gradually hardens and becomes calcified. At the end of this stage the cuticle is complete. (4) Intermolt is a period of variable......
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Metelli (Roman family)
...Rome, as in better known aristocratic republics, of family feuds, alliances, and policies, and parts of the picture are known—e.g., the central importance of the family of the Metelli, prominent in politics for a generation after the Gracchi and dominant for part of that time. In foreign affairs the client kingdom of Numidia—loyal ever since its institution by Scipio......
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Metello (work by Pratolini)
Between 1955 and 1966 Pratolini published three novels under the general title Una storia italiana (“An Italian Story”), covering the period from 1875 to 1945. The first, Metello (1955), considered the finest of the three, follows its working-class hero through the labour disputes after 1875 and climaxes with a successful building masons’ strike in 1902. The seco...
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Metellus Celer, Quintus Caecilius (Roman politician)
a leading Roman politician of the late 60s bc who became an opponent of Pompey the Great, the Catilinarian conspiracy (see Catiline), and the formation of the secret political agreement of Julius Caesar, Pompey, and Marcus Crassus....
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Metellus Creticus, Quintus Caecilius (Roman general)
Roman general....
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Metellus, Lucius Caecilius (Roman general)
Roman general during the First Punic War (264–241 bc)....
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Metellus Macedonicus, Quintus Caecilius (Roman general and statesman)
Roman general and statesman who was the first Roman not of noble birth to serve as consul (one of two chief magistrates) and censor (one of two magistrates in charge of the census and the enforcement of public morality)....
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Metellus Numidicus, Quintus Caecilius (Roman general)
Roman general during the Jugurthine War (111–105) and leader of the powerful Caecilius Metellus family, whose power had been established in the previous generation by his father, Metellus Calvus, and Calvus’s brother, Quintus Metellus Macedonicus....
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Metellus Pius, Quintus Caecilius (Roman general and statesman)
Roman general and statesman who supported Lucius Cornelius Sulla. He earned his surname Pius (signifying filial devotion) by his unremitting efforts in 99 bc to obtain the recall from exile of his father, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Numidicus....
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Metellus Pius Scipio, Quintus Caecilius (Roman politician)
Roman politician, a leading supporter of his son-in-law Pompey the Great in the power struggle between Pompey and Julius Caesar....
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Metemma, Battle of (African history)
...Meanwhile, Yohannes repulsed Italian forays inland, and in 1889 he marched into the Sudan to avenge Mahdist attacks on Gonder. On March 9, 1889, with victory in his grasp, he was shot and killed at Metema....
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metempsychosis (religious belief)
in religion and philosophy, rebirth of the soul in one or more successive existences, which may be human, animal, or, in some instances, vegetable. While belief in reincarnation is most characteristic of Asian religions and philosophies, it also appears in the religious and philosophical thought of primitive religions, in some ancient Middle Eastern religions (e.g., the G...
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metencephalon (anatomy)
...movements initiated at cortical levels. In mammals a great mass of fibres connects the brain stem to the cerebellum; this region forms the pons, which, together with the cerebellum, constitutes the metencephalon. The caudal part of the hindbrain remains as the medulla oblongata (myelencephalon)....
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Meteor (work by Čapek)
...three aspects of knowledge. Hordubal (1933) contrasts an inarticulate man’s awareness of the causes of his actions with the world’s incomprehension; Povětroň (1934; Meteor) illustrates the subjective causes of objective judgments; and Obyčejný život (1934; An Ordinary Life) explores the complex layers of persona...
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Meteor (military aircraft)
...He 178 that made the first jet flight on Aug. 27, 1939. Even though World War II accelerated the growth of the airplane, the jet aircraft was not introduced into service until 1944, when the British Gloster Meteor became operational, shortly followed by the German Me 262. The first practical American jet was the Lockheed F-80, which entered service in 1945....
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Meteor (satellite)
...He 178 that made the first jet flight on Aug. 27, 1939. Even though World War II accelerated the growth of the airplane, the jet aircraft was not introduced into service until 1944, when the British Gloster Meteor became operational, shortly followed by the German Me 262. The first practical American jet was the Lockheed F-80, which entered service in 1945.......
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Meteor (German ship)
...this period, having used it in 1899 to report from sea the results of the America’s Cup yacht races. In 1925–27 a series of scientific voyages by the research vessel Meteor established Germany as a leader in marine research. Operating in the waters of the South Atlantic, the Meteor traversed the basin 14 times, mapping ...
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meteor (astronomy)
respectively, a glowing streak in the sky (meteor) and its cause, which is a relatively small stony or metallic natural object from space (meteoroid) that enters Earth’s atmosphere and heats to incandescence. In modern usage the term meteoroid, rather than being restricted to objects entering Earth’s atmosphere, is applied to any small object in orbit around...
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Meteor Crater (crater, Arizona, United States)
rimmed, bowl-shaped pit produced by a large meteorite in the rolling plain of the Canyon Diablo region, 19 miles (30 km) west of Winslow, Arizona, U.S. The crater is 4,000 feet (1,200 metres) in diameter and about 600 feet (180 metres) deep inside its rim, which rises nearly 200 feet (60 metres) above the plain. Drillings reveal undisturbed rock beneath 700–800 feet (213...
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Meteor Deep (trench, Atlantic Ocean)
...in the Scotia Sea generally range between 10,000 and 13,000 feet (3,000 to 4,000 m), but to the east, across the volcanic arc of the South Sandwich Islands, depths exceed 26,000 feet (7,900 m) in Meteor Deep of the South Sandwich Trench. Water of the southern seas in its unimpeded clockwise race around the Antarctic continent is funneled through the 600-mile- (965-kilometre-) wide Drake......
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meteor shower (astronomy)
temporary rise in the rate of meteor sightings, caused by the entry into Earth’s atmosphere of a number of meteoroids (see meteor and meteoroid) at approximately the same place in the sky and the same time of year, traveling in parallel paths and apparently having a common origin. Most meteor showers are known or believed to be associated with ac...
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meteor stream (astronomy)
The Leonid meteor shower represents a recently formed meteor stream. This shower, though it occurs every year, tends to increase greatly in visual strength every 33 or 34 years, which is the orbital period of the parent comet, Tempel-Tuttle. Such behaviour results from the fact that these meteoroids are mostly still clustered in a compact swarm moving in the orbit of the comet. Over the next......
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Metéora (monasteries, Greece)
group of monasteries on the summits of vertical rock formations in Thessaly, Greece. The monasteries are located just north of the small town of Kalambáka, south of the village of Kastraki, and east of the Pindus Mountains in the valley of the Piniós River. The name was derived from a Greek...
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Météores, Les (work by Descartes)
...water, though moisture can enter the air and later be condensed into water. Guericke’s experiments, however, did not answer the question as to how water enters the atmosphere as vapour. In “Les Météores”(“Meteorology,” an essay published in the book Discours de la methodein 1637), Descartes envisioned water as composed of minute particles ...
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meteorite (astronomy)
any fairly small natural object from interplanetary space—i.e., a meteoroid—that survives its passage through Earth’s atmosphere and lands on the surface. In modern usage the term is broadly applied to similar objects that land on the surface of other comparatively large bodies. For instance, meteorite fragments have been found in samples returned from the M...
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meteorite crater (landform)
depression that results from the impact of a natural object from interplanetary space with Earth or with other comparatively large solid bodies such as the Moon, other planets and their satellites, or larger asteroids and comets. For this discussion, the term meteorite crater is considered to be synonymous with impact crater. As such, the colliding objects are not restric...
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Meteorite Observation and Recovery Project (Canadian astronomical organization)
...to provide all-sky coverage of meteors over about a million square kilometres of Earth’s surface. Three such networks were developed—the Prairie Network in the central United States, the MORP (Meteorite Observation and Recovery Project) network in the Prairie Provinces of Canada, and the European Network with stations in Germany and Czechoslovakia. The most complete set of publish...
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meteorite shower (astronomy)
swarm of separate but related meteorites that land on Earth’s surface at about the same time and place. Meteorite showers are produced by the fragmentation of a large meteoroid in the atmosphere. The area in which the meteorites fall, the strewn-field, is generally a rough ellipse along the direction of flight. Because air resistance slows down larger f...
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Meteorites et la constitution geologique du globe (work by Daubrée)
Although beset with ill health in his later years, he built a large collection of meteorites and in 1886 published Météorites et la constitution géologique du globe (“Meteorites and the Geologic Constitution of the World”). In this work he proposed a classification system for meteorites, presented information on their composition and relationship to......
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Meteorites, Society for Research on (international scientific organization)
international scientific organization that promotes research and education on meteorites and other extraterrestrial materials such as interplanetary dust, interstellar grains, and samples from the Moon. Additional areas of research include impact craters, asteroids, comets, planets, an...
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meteoritic silica glass (mineral)
...dioxide, SiO2) that has the same chemical composition as coesite, cristobalite, stishovite, quartz, and tridymite but has a different crystal structure. Two varieties are included: meteoritic silica glass, produced when terrestrial silica is fused in the intense heat and pressure created by the impact of large meteorites; and fulgurite (q.v.), glass produced when silica......
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Meteoritical Society (international scientific organization)
international scientific organization that promotes research and education on meteorites and other extraterrestrial materials such as interplanetary dust, interstellar grains, and samples from the Moon. Additional areas of research include impact craters, asteroids, comets, planets, an...
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meteoritics (science)
scientific discipline concerned with meteors and meteorites. The awe-inspiring noise and lights accompanying some meteoric falls convinced early humans that meteorites came from the gods; accordingly these objects were widely regarded with awe and veneration. This association of meteorites with the miraculous and religious made 18th-century scientists suspicious of their realit...
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Meteoritics and Planetary Science (scientific journal)
The society awards several annual medals and sponsors two scientific journals—Meteoritics and Planetary Science (monthly), which deals with all research topics of interest to the society, and Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta (twice monthly; jointly with the Geochemical Society), which focuses on meteorite chemistry. Its nomenclature......
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meteorograph (instrument)
...a pressure-tube anemometer, the first device to measure both the velocity and direction of wind. Dines pioneered in the use of kites and balloons for upper-air measurement and designed a remarkable meteorograph for upper-air soundings weighing only about 2 ounces (60 g). This became for years the standard British instrument for upper-atmosphere soundings and provided many data on pressure,......
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meteoroid (astronomy)
respectively, a glowing streak in the sky (meteor) and its cause, which is a relatively small stony or metallic natural object from space (meteoroid) that enters Earth’s atmosphere and heats to incandescence. In modern usage the term meteoroid, rather than being restricted to objects entering Earth’s atmosphere, is applied to any small object in orbit around the Sun......
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Meteorological Essays and Observations (work by Daniell)
In 1820 Daniell invented a dew-point hygrometer (a device that indicates atmospheric humidity), which came into widespread use. In his Meteorological Essays and Observations (1823), Daniell revealed his findings on the behaviour of the atmosphere and on trade winds, in addition to giving details of improved meteorological equipment. In a later edition he also discussed the meteorological......
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meteorological measurement
The observations of few other scientific enterprises are as vital or affect as many people as those related to weather forecasting. From the days when early humans ventured from caves and other natural shelters, perceptive individuals in all likelihood became leaders by being able to detect nature’s signs of impending snow, rain, or wind, indeed of any change in weather. With......
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Meteorological Observations and Essays (work by Dalton)
...of his first book, a collection of essays on meteorologic topics based on his own observations together with those of his friends John Gough and Peter Crosthwaite. This work, Meteorological Observations and Essays, was published in 1793. It created little stir at first but contained original ideas that, together with Dalton’s more developed articles, marked the.....
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meteorological satellite
any of a class of Earth satellites designed to monitor meteorological conditions (see Earth satellite)....
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meteorological service
agency established by many nations to observe and report the weather and to issue forecasts and warnings of weather and flood conditions affecting national safety, welfare, and economy. In each country the national weather bureau strongly affects almost every citizen’s life, both through its public weather services and through its specialized services to aviation, space o...
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Meteorologische Zeitschrift (Austrian publication)
...well. For example, Julius Hann’smassive Handbuch der Klimatologie (“Handbook of Climatology”), first issued in 1883, is mainly a compendium of works published in the Meteorologische Zeitschrift (“Journal of Meteorology”). The Handbuch was kept current in revised editions until 1911, and this work is still sometimes called the most...
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meteorology (science)
the prediction of the weather through application of the principles of physics, supplemented by a variety of statistical and empirical techniques. In addition to predictions of atmospheric phenomena themselves, weather forecasting includes predictions of changes on the Earth’s surface caused by atmospheric conditions—e.g., snow and ice cover, storm tides, and floods....
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meteōroskopion (instrument)
The earliest known complete armillary sphere with nine circles is believed to have been the meteōroskopion of the Alexandrine Greeks (c. ad 140), but earlier and simpler types of ring instruments were also in general use. Ptolemy, in the Almagest, enumerates at least three. It is stated that Hipparchus (146–127 bc) used a sphere of fou...
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Meteosat (satellite)
...also developed the Ulysses spacecraft (launched 1990) to explore the Sun’s polar regions and the Ariane series of launch vehicles, and it established a system of meteorological satellites known as Meteosat....
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meter (prosody)
in poetry, the rhythmic pattern of a poetic line. Various principles, based on the natural rhythms of language, have been devised to organize poetic lines into rhythmic units. These have produced distinct kinds of versification, among which the most common are quantitative, syllabic, accentual, and accentual-syllabic....
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meter (music)
in music, rhythmic pattern constituted by the grouping of basic temporal units, called beats, into regular measures, or bars; in Western notation, each measure is set off from those adjoining it by bar lines. A time (or metre) signature, found at the beginning of a piece of music, indicates the number of beats in a measure and the value of the basic beat. For example, ...
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meter (measurement)
in measurement, fundamental unit of length in the metric system and in the International Systems of Units (SI). It is equal to approximately 39.37 inches in the British Imperial and United States Customary systems. The metre was historically defined by the French Academy of Sciences in 1791 as 110,000...
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metered-dose aerosol (medical device)
...disinfectants, and spray-on bandages to the skin. Metered-dose aerosols typically are used to deliver calibrated doses of drug to the respiratory tract. Usually, the metered-dose aerosol or inhaler is placed in the mouth for use. When the release valve is activated, a predetermined dose of drug is expelled. The patient inhales the expelled drug, delivering it to the bronchial airways.......
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Meteren, Emanuel van (Flemish historian)
...a driving and sustaining sense of purpose and vigour. This was reflected in the first instance by a notable series of historical works: the contemporary chronicles of the revolt by Pieter Bor and Emanuel van Meteren; the highly polished account by Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, a masterpiece of narration and judgment in the spirit of Tacitus; the heavily factual chronicle of Lieuwe van Aitzema,......
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metes and bounds (land description)
limits or boundaries of a tract of land as identified by natural landmarks, such as rivers, or by man-made structures, such as roads, or by stakes or other markers. A principal legal type of land description in the United States, metes-and-bounds descriptions are commonly used wherever survey areas are irregular in size and shape. The land boundaries are run out by courses and distances, and monu...
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metestrus (zoology)
If fertilization and implantation do not occur, a phase termed metestrus ensues, in which the reproductive tract assumes its normal condition. Metestrus may be followed by anestrus, a nonreproductive period characterized by quiescence or involution of the reproductive tract. On the other hand, anestrus may be followed by a brief quiescent period (diestrus) and another preparatory proestrus......
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