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  • animal disease (non-human)
    an impairment of the normal state of an animal that interrupts or modifies its vital functions....
  • animal dispersal in rainforests (seed dispersal)
    ...
  • Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour (work by Wynne-Edwards)
    ...watershed events in the study of social behaviour took place in the 1960s and ’70s. First was the challenge to Lack by English zoologist V.C. Wynne-Edwards, whose controversial Animal Dispersion in Relation to Social Behaviour (1962) proposed a pervasive role for group selection, allowing sacrificial behaviour for the good of the group or species. Although largel...
  • Animal Dreams (novel by Kingsolver)
    Kingsolver’s novel The Bean Trees (1988) concerns a woman who makes a meaningful life for herself and a young Cherokee girl with whom she moves from rural Kentucky to the Southwest. In Animal Dreams (1990) a disconnected woman finds purpose and moral challenges when she returns to live in her small Arizona hometown. Pigs in Heaven (1993), a sequel to her first novel, de...
  • Animal Drive and the Learning Process (work by Holt)
    Holt retired from Harvard to devote time to writing but in 1926 began 10 years of teaching at Princeton University, where he completed the first volume of Animal Drive and the Learning Process (1931). This work contributed to the development of dynamic psychology, or the psychology of human nature, and sought to explain the significance of radical empiricism for psychology....
  • Animal Ecology (work by Elton)
    Elton’s first book, Animal Ecology, published in 1927, was a landmark not only for his brilliant treatment of animal communities but also because the main features of his discussion have remained as leading principles of the subject ever since: food chains and the food cycle, the size of food, niches, and the “pyramid of numbers.” He also developed more comprehensive id...
  • Animal Ecology and Evolution (work by Elton)
    In 1930 appeared his provocative book Animal Ecology and Evolution, in which he said that “the balance of nature does not exist and perhaps never has existed.” Moreover, “in periods of stress it is a common thing for animals to change their habitats and usually this change involves migration.” And again, “we are face to face with a process which may be......
  • animal experimentation (biology)
    ...has been separated from that of human medicine, the observations of the physician and the veterinarian continue to add to the common body of medical knowledge. Of the more than 1,200,000 species of animals thus far identified, only a few have been utilized in research, even though it is likely that, for every known human disease, an identical or similar disease exists in at least one other......
  • Animal Farm (novel by Orwell)
    anti-utopian satire by George Orwell, published in 1945. One of Orwell’s finest works, it is a political fable based on the events of Russia’s Bolshevik revolution and the betrayal of the cause by Joseph Stalin. The book concerns a group of barnyard animals who overthrow and chase off their exploitative human masters and set up...
  • Animal Farm (cartoon by Halas and Batchelor)
    The collaborators directed and coproduced their greatest work in 1955, an animated version of the George Orwell novel Animal Farm, England’s first full-length colour feature cartoon. Their other projects included The History of the Cinema (1956); Automania 2000 (1963); Dilemma (1982), the fir...
  • animal fat
    Fats (and oils) may be divided into animal and vegetable fats according to source. Further, they may be classified according to their degree of unsaturation as measured by their ability to absorb iodine at the double bonds. This degree of unsaturation determines to a large extent the ultimate use of the fat....
  • animal feed (agriculture)
    food grown or developed for livestock and poultry. Modern feeds are produced by carefully selecting and blending ingredients to provide highly nutritional diets that both maintain the health of the animals and increase the quality of such end products as meat, milk, or eggs. Ongoing improvements in animal diets...
  • animal fibre (raw material)
    Natural fibres can be classified according to their origin. The vegetable, or cellulose-base, class includes such important fibres as cotton, flax, and jute; the animal, or protein-base, fibres include wool, mohair, and silk (qq.v.); an important fibre in the mineral class is asbestos (q.v.)....
  • animal glue (glue)
    The term animal glue usually is confined to glues prepared from mammalian collagen, the principal protein constituent of skin, bone, and muscle. When treated with acids, alkalies, or hot water, the normally insoluble collagen slowly becomes soluble. If the original protein is pure and the conversion process is mild, the high-molecular-weight product is called gelatin and may be used for food or......
  • animal husbandry (agriculture)
    Controlled cultivation, management, and production of domestic animals, including improvement of the qualities considered desirable by humans by means of breeding. Animals are bred and raised for utility (e.g., food, fur), sport, pleasure, and research. See also beekeeping, dairy farming....
  • Animal Intelligence (work by Thorndike)
    ...(1898) and where he spent most of his career. He first proposed his two behavioral laws, the law of effect and the law of exercise, in his doctoral dissertation, which was published in 1911 as Animal Intelligence. He regarded adaptive changes in animal behaviour as analogous to human learning and suggested that behavioral associations (connections) could be predicted by application...
  • animal interlace (calligraphy)
    in calligraphy, rich, fanciful decorative motif characteristic of work by the Hiberno-Saxon book artists of the early Middle Ages in the British Isles. Its intertwined, fantastic animal and bird forms are often densely and minutely detailed—an example in the Book of Kells (c. 800) contains 158 interlacements in a space of 0.25 ...
  • Animal Kingdom (American periodical)
    ...field projects overseas. It also operates the Wildlife Survival Center on St. Catherine’s Island, Georgia. The findings of studies supported by the zoo are published in its popular Wildlife Conservation (formerly Animal Kingdom) magazine as well as in technical journals. The zoo, managed by the Wildlife Conservation Society (formerly, until 1993, the New York......
  • animal learning (zoology)
    the alternation of behaviour as a result of individual experience. When an organism can perceive and change its behaviour, it is said to learn....
  • Animal Legal Defense Fund (American organization)
    ...interest in animal rights and animal-protection issues was significant. Dozens of law schools in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere offered courses in animal law and animal rights; the Animal Legal Defense Fund had created an even greater number of law-student chapters in the United States; and at least three legal journals—Animal Law, ......
  • Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for Our Treatment of Animals (book by Singer)
    ...mention, not just because their work has been influential but because they represent two major currents of philosophical thought regarding the moral rights of animals. Singer, whose book Animal Liberation (1972) is considered one of the movement’s foundational documents, argues that the interests of humans and the interests of animals should be given equal consideration. A.....
  • animal magnetism (psychology)
    a presumed intangible or mysterious force that is said to influence human beings. The term was used by the German physician Franz Anton Mesmer to explain the hypnotic procedure that he used in the treatment of patients. (See hypnosis.) Mesmer believed that it wa...
  • animal mask (art)
    ...and British Columbian Indian fulfills the same function. The African totem mask is often carved from ebony or other hard woods, designed with graceful lines and showing a highly polished surface. Animal masks, their features elongated and beautifully formalized, are common in western Africa. Dried grass, woven palm fibres, coconuts, and shells, as well as wood are employed in the masks of New.....
  • animal migration (animal)
    in ethology, the regular, usually seasonal, movement of all or part of an animal population to and from a given area. Familiar migrants include many birds; hoofed animals, especially in East Africa and in the Arctic tundra; bats; whales and porpoises; seals; and fishes, such as salmon....
  • Animal Mind, The (work by Washburn)
    ...in a series of Studies from the Psychological Laboratory of Vassar College. Her own publications include scores of articles, reviews, and notes in professional journals and two books, The Animal Mind (1908) and Movement and Mental Imagery (1916). The former is a summary of studies that is of lasting importance, and the latter is a development of Washburn’s dualistic....
  • animal movement
    ...in a series of Studies from the Psychological Laboratory of Vassar College. Her own publications include scores of articles, reviews, and notes in professional journals and two books, The Animal Mind (1908) and Movement and Mental Imagery (1916). The former is a summary of studies that is of lasting importance, and the latter is a development of Washburn’s dualistic....
  • animal, mythical
    Animals and plants have played important roles in the oral traditions and the recorded myths of the peoples of the world, both ancient and modern. This section of the article is concerned with the variety of relationships noted between man and animals and plants in myths and popular folk traditions and in so-called primitive and popular systems of classification....
  • Animal Planet (American cable channel)
    ...old movies (American Movie Classics, Turner Classic Movies), home improvement and gardening (Home and Garden Television [HGTV]), comedy (Comedy Central), documentaries (Discovery Channel), animals (Animal Planet), and a host of other interests. The Golf Channel and the Game Show Network were perhaps the most emblematic of how far target programming could go during this era. By the end of the......
  • animal poison (poison)
    Poisonous animals are widely distributed throughout the animal kingdom; the only major group that seems to be exempt is the birds. ...
  • Animal Population, Bureau of (research centre, Oxford, England, United Kingdom)
    In 1932 Elton established his Bureau of Animal Population at Oxford. It became both a world centre for the collection of data on variations in animal numbers and a research institute in terrestrial ecology. It attracted workers from many countries, providing training for younger individuals who carried the Elton tradition to distant places, such as California and British Columbia in one......
  • animal rights
    moral or legal entitlements attributed to nonhuman animals, usually because of the complexity of their cognitive, emotional, and social lives or their capacity to experience physical or emotional pain or pleasure. Historically, different views of the scope of animal rights have reflected philosophical and legal developments, scientific conceptions of animal and ...
  • animal sacrifice (religion)
    a religious rite in which an object is offered to a divinity in order to establish, maintain, or restore a right relationship of a human being to the sacred order. It is a complex phenomenon that has been found in the earliest known forms of worship and in all parts of the world. The present article treats...
  • animal shelter
    ...director of the New Jersey branch of the HSUS, Hylton was appointed in 1967 as program director of the National Humane Education Center (NHEC), the HSUS’s new humane-education headquarters and model animal shelter in Waterford, Va. His activities included investigating and leading instruction in humane methods of animal euthanasia at Waterford. He also conceived and produced monthly publ...
  • animal training (animal science)
    In 1887 Hagenbeck took up the cause of humane treatment of animals with the aim of demonstrating that the beatings and hot irons then used in animal training were both cruel and unnecessary. In 1889 he introduced a lion act in which, as a finale, three lions pulled him around the cage in a chariot. After some years, the Hagenbeck system gradually replaced harsher training methods used in......
  • animal transportation
    Animal transport has minimal importance yet survives locally, often appealing to visitors from more prosperous regions, where the simple technology disappeared long ago. The horse-drawn cart may still be seen in east-central Europe, and the ox-drawn plow and the loaded ass, mule, and donkey—affordable and sure-footed in rough, hilly country—are still used in parts of southern......
  • Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (work by Kingsolver)
    ...Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never (1995) and Small Wonder (2002) contain observations on nature, family life, and world events. In Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (2007), Kingsolver expounded upon the environmental consequences of human consumption and used anecdotes from her own experiences eating only locally grown food to......
  • animal virus (microbiology)
    Virtually all plant viruses are transmitted by insects or other organisms (vectors) that feed on plants. The hosts of animal viruses vary from protozoans (single-celled animal organisms) to humans. Many viruses infect either invertebrate animals or vertebrates, and some infect both. Certain viruses that cause serious diseases of animals and humans are carried by arthropods. These vector-borne......
  • Animal Welfare Act (1966, United States)
    ...legislature in 1965 adopted a law that required dealers to obtain a kennel license in order to sell dogs. Hylton’s reports were later presented as evidence in congressional hearings on the federal Animal Welfare Act of 1966. Signed into law in August of that year, the act remains the only federal statute regulating animal treatment in the areas of research, transport, exhibition, and......
  • animal worship
    veneration of an animal, usually because of its connection with a particular deity. The term was used by Western religionists in a pejorative manner and by ancient Greek and Roman polemicists against theriomorphic religions—those religions whose gods are represented in animal form. Most examples given for animal worship, however, are not instances of worship of an animal itself. Instead, th...
  • animalcule (biology)
    ...feat for hand-ground lenses. Among his most conspicuous observations was the discovery in 1675 of the existence in stagnant water and prepared infusions of many protozoans, which he called animalcules. He observed the connections between the arteries and veins; gave particularly fine accounts of the microscopic structure of muscle, the lens of the eye, the teeth, and other structures;......
  • “animali parlanti, Gli” (work by Casti)
    ...librettos, chiefly remembered for the verse satires Poema tartaro (1787; “Tartar Poem”) and Gli animali parlanti (1802, “The Talking Animals”; Eng. trans. The Court and Parliament of Beasts, 1819)....
  • Animalia (biology)
    (kingdom Animalia), any of a group of multicellular eukaryotic organisms (i.e., as distinct from bacteria, their deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, is contained in a membrane-bound nucleus). They are thought to have evolved independently from the unicellular eukaryotes. Animals differ from members of the two othe...
  • Animalier school (art)
    prolific French sculptor, painter, and printmaker, whose subject was primarily animals. He is known as the father of the modern Animalier school....
  • animalism (religion)
    ...In some traditions, this is confined to the familiar or guardian of a witch or shaman; in others, it is an individual relationship possible for any man. An example of the latter relationship is nagualism, a phenomenon found among the Indians of Guatemala and Honduras in Central America. Nagualism is the belief that there exists a nagual—an object or, more often, an animal—that......
  • Animals’ Conference, The (work by Kästner)
    ...Tom Sawyer, Detective [1896] may be ignored). Kästner, the dean of German writers for children, won an international audience with a long series of stories of which the thesis-fable Die Konferenz der Tiere (1949; Eng. trans. The Animals’ Conference, 1949) is perhaps the funniest as well as the most serious....
  • animals, cruelty to
    ...Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine “deliberately” mutilated animals as part of the teaching process, but the government insisted that the school violated no laws governing the treatment of animals....
  • Animals Improvise Counterpoint, The (work by Banchieri)
    ...in Bosco, near Bologna, becoming abbot in 1620. Banchieri was second only to Orazio Vecchi as a composer of madrigal comedies, a genre much in fashion shortly before the rise of opera. His II festino nella sera del giovedì grasso avanti cena (1608; modern English edition, The Animals Improvise Counterpoint, 1937) contains some delightful characterizations....
  • animals, master of the (religion)
    supernatural figure regarded as the protector of game in the traditions of foraging peoples. The name was devised by Western scholars who have studied such hunting and gathering societies. In some traditions, the master of the animals is believed to be the ruler of the forest and guardian of all animals; i...
  • animals, taming of (biology and society)
    the process of hereditary reorganization of wild animals and plants into domestic and cultivated forms according to the interests of people. In its strictest sense, it refers to the initial stage of human mastery of wild animals and plants. The fundamental distinction of domesticated animals and plants from their wild ancestors is that they are created by huma...
  • Animals, The (British rock group)
    five-piece rock group from northeastern England whose driving sound influenced Bob Dylan’s decision, in 1965, to begin working with musicians playing electric instruments. The principal members were Eric Burdon (b. May 11, 1941...
  • animation (motion picture)
    the art of making inanimate objects appear to move. Animation is an artistic impulse that long predates the movies. History’s first recorded animator is Pygmalion of Greek and Roman mythology, a sculptor who created a figure of a woman so perfect that he fell in love with her and begged Venus to bri...
  • animatism (religion)
    The English anthropologist R.R. Marett (1866–1943), in contrast to Tylor, viewed what he termed animatism as of basic importance. He took his clue from such ideas as mana, mulungu, orenda, and so on (concepts found in the Pacific, Africa, and America, respectively), referring to a supernatural power (a kind of supernatural “electricity”) that does not necessarily have the......
  • animatograph (movie technology)
    ...until nearly a decade after their appearance in Europe, where England and France had taken an early lead in both production and exhibition. Britain’s first projector, the theatrograph (later the animatograph), had been demonstrated in 1896 by the scientific-instrument maker Robert W. Paul. In 1899 Paul formed his own production company for the manufacture of actualities and trick films, ...
  • anime (Japanese animation)
    style of animation popular in Japanese films. Early anime films were intended primarily for the Japanese market and, as such, employed many cultural references unique to Japan. For example, the large eyes of anime characters are commonly perceived in Japan as multifaceted “windows to the soul.” Much of the genre is aimed at children, but anime films are sometimes marked by adult them...
  • Animé: Year In Review 2000
    Over the past two decades, animé has become the worldwide term for Japanese-style animation, be it for television, feature-length film, or direct-to-video release. Animé differs from Western animation in form, themes, structure, and, most important, philosophical concepts and codes. Because animé primarily is meant for domestic Japanese co...
  • Animikie Series (geology)
    division of Precambrian rocks and time in North America (the Precambrian occurred from 3.96 billion to 540 million years ago). The Animikie Series, the uppermost division of the Huronian System, overlies rocks of the ...
  • animism
    belief in innumerable spiritual beings concerned with human affairs and capable of helping or harming human interests. Animistic beliefs were first competently surveyed by Sir Edward Burnett Tylor in his work Primitive Culture (1871), to which is owed the continued currency of the term. While none of the major world religions are animistic (though...
  • Animuccia, Giovanni (Italian composer)
    Italian composer who contributed to the development of the oratorio....
  • animus (philosophy)
    ...fine atoms and has two connected parts: the anima distributed throughout the body, which is the cause of sensation, and the animus in the breast, the central consciousness. The soul is born and grows with the body, and at death it is dissipated like “smoke.”...
  • animus (medicine)
    in medicine, Alexandrian medical school, or sect, based on the theory that life is associated with a subtle vapour called the pneuma; it was, in essence, an attempt to explain respiration....
  • Anini (India)
    ...silver working, and blacksmithing. The system of roads in the Dibang Valley region is largely undeveloped. Most distances are traveled over simple tracks, though there are a few all-weather roads. Anini is the chief settlement in the region. The Igu, a sombre dance performed by the Idu Mishmi priests, is closely associated with the region....
  • Anio River (river, Italy)
    major tributary of the Tiber (Tevere) River in central Italy. It rises from two springs in the Simbruini Mountains near Subiaco, southeast of Rome, flows through a narrow valley past Tivoli, and meanders through the Campagna di Roma (territory) to join the Tiber north of Rome. It is 67 miles (108 km) long and has a ...
  • anion (chemistry)
    atom or group of atoms carrying a negative electric charge. See ion....
  • anion channel (biology)
    There may be channels that pass anions such as Cl−, but their existence is difficult to prove. Single-channel recordings of cultured tissue have shown selective Cl− channels that are voltage dependent and of high conductance. Channels with lower conductance have been demonstrated in reconstituted artificial membranes as well as in neurons....
  • anion exchange (chemical reaction)
    Depending on deficiency in the positive or negative charge balance (locally or overall) of mineral structures, clay minerals are able to adsorb certain cations and anions and retain them around the outside of the structural unit in an exchangeable state, generally without affecting the basic silicate structure. These adsorbed ions are easily exchanged by other ions. The exchange reaction......
  • anion-exchange resin (chemistry)
    ...a finely divided, insoluble substance (the ion exchanger, usually a synthetic resin). In a cation-exchange resin all the sites are negatively charged, so that only positive ions can be separated; an anion-exchange resin has positively charged sites. Ion-exchange chromatography has become one of the most important methods for separating proteins and small oligonucleotides....
  • anionic detergent
    Anionic detergents (including soap and the largest portion of modern synthetic detergents), which produce electrically negative colloidal ions in solution.Cationic detergents, which produce electrically positive ions in solution.Nonionic detergents, which produce electrically neutral colloidal particles in solution.Ampholytic, or amphoteric, detergents, which are capable of acting either as......
  • Anirmoksha
    ...philosophies assume that moksha is possible, and the “impossibility of moksha” (anirmoksha) is regarded as a material fallacy likely to vitiate a philosophical theory....
  • anirmoksha
    ...philosophies assume that moksha is possible, and the “impossibility of moksha” (anirmoksha) is regarded as a material fallacy likely to vitiate a philosophical theory....
  • Aniruddha (Indian philosopher)
    ...Chandrika by Narayanatirtha; and the Tattva-kaumudi by Vachaspati (9th century). The Samkhya-sutras are a much later work (c. 14th century) on which Aniruddha (15th century) wrote a vritti and Vijnanabhikshu (16th century) wrote the Samkhya-pravachana-bhashya (“Commentary on the Samkhya......
  • Aniruddha (king of Myanmar)
    the first king of all of Myanmar, or Burma (reigned 1044–77), who introduced his people to Theravāda Buddhism. His capital at Pagan on the Irrawaddy River became a prominent city of pagodas and temples....
  • anis (alcoholic beverage)
    ...for export to those countries prohibiting true absinthe. Beverages developed as substitutes, similar in taste but lower in alcohol content and without wormwood, are known by such names as Pernod, anis (or anisette), pastis, ouzo, or raki....
  • anise (herb)
    (Pimpinella anisum), annual herb of the parsley family (Apiaceae, or Umbelliferae), cultivated chiefly for its fruits, called aniseed, the flavour of which resembles that of licorice. The plant, up to 0.75 m (2.5 feet) tall, ha...
  • aniseed (botany)
    (Pimpinella anisum), annual herb of the parsley family (Apiaceae, or Umbelliferae), cultivated chiefly for its fruits, called aniseed, the flavour of which resembles that of licorice. The plant, up to 0.75 m (2.5 feet) tall, has long-stalked basal leaves and shorter, stalked stem leaves. Its small, yellowish white flowers form loose umbels. The fruit, or seed, is nearly ovoid in shape,......
  • anisette (alcoholic beverage)
    ...for export to those countries prohibiting true absinthe. Beverages developed as substitutes, similar in taste but lower in alcohol content and without wormwood, are known by such names as Pernod, anis (or anisette), pastis, ouzo, or raki....
  • Anishinaabe (people)
    Algonquian-speaking North American Indian tribe who lived in what are now Ontario and Manitoba, Can., and Minnesota and North Dakota, U.S., from Lake Huron westward onto the Plai...
  • Anisian Stage (geology)
    lower of two divisions of the Middle Triassic Series, representing those rocks deposited worldwide during Anisian time (245.9 million to 237 million years ago) in the Triassic Period. The stage name is derived from an area of limestone formations along the Anisus River at Grossreifling i...
  • anisodactyly (foot structure)
    ...feet and bill. Most birds have the four toes arranged with three directed forward—the inner (II), middle (III), and outer (IV)—and one backward, the hallux (I). This condition, called anisodactyl, literally means “without equal toes,” referring to the unequal arrangement. Parrots have two toes (the inner and middle) directed forward and two directed backward; this......
  • anisole (chemical compound)
    ...of organic substances, contains five fused benzene rings. Like several other polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, it is carcinogenic. Aromatic compounds are widely distributed in nature. Benzaldehyde, anisole, and vanillin, for example, have pleasant aromas....
  • Anisolpidiales (order of fungi)
    Annotated classification...
  • anisometric verse (literature)
    poetic verse that does not have equal or corresponding poetic metres. An anisometric stanza is composed of lines of unequal metrical length, as in William Wordsworth’s “Ode: Intimations of Immortality,” which beginsThere was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,The earth, an...
  • Anisomorpha buprestoides (insect)
    Man may handle most walking sticks safely, but a large, heavily bodied species in the southeastern U.S. (Anisomorpha buprestoides) sometimes forcibly ejects a milky fluid that is extremely irritating if introduced into the human eye. This species has a pair of circular pores on the thorax leading to reservoirs of the fluid; each reservoir has circular muscles that permit ejection of......
  • anisomyarianism (mollusk anatomy)
    ...In such cases the shell is typically smooth, although calcareous encrustations on the posterior shell protect the borer from aperture-attacking predators. Reduction of the anterior adductor (the anisomyarian form) creates a triangular-shaped shell, as in the buried fan shell Pinna (Pinnidae) and the mussels (Mytilidae) of rocky coasts. Although such bivalves lack ornamentation, the......
  • Anisophyllea (plant genus)
    Members of Anisophylleaceae are evergreen trees or shrubs found scattered through the tropics. There are 4 genera and 34 species in the family. Anisophyllea (30 species) is pantropical. The leaves are borne in two main ranks on the stem and are often unequal in size. The flowers are small and rather undistinguished; the ovary is inferior; and the fruit is fleshy and has a stone or is dry......
  • Anisophylleaceae (plant family)
    Members of Anisophylleaceae are evergreen trees or shrubs found scattered through the tropics. There are 4 genera and 34 species in the family. Anisophyllea (30 species) is pantropical. The leaves are borne in two main ranks on the stem and are often unequal in size. The flowers are small and rather undistinguished; the ovary is inferior; and the fruit is fleshy and has a stone or is dry......
  • anisophylly (plant anatomy)
    ...readily seen in clambering species. Morphologically, the rhizophore is considered to be a root, although on occasion it can give rise to leafy branches if the normally leafy branches are cut off. Anisophylly (the occurrence of two sizes of leaves) occurs in most species of Selaginella, especially those of the wet tropics....
  • Anisoptera (insect)
    any of a group of aerial, predatory insects most commonly found near freshwater habitats throughout most of the world. Damselflies (suborder Zygoptera) are sometimes also called dragonflies in that both are odonates (order Odonata). The 2,500 dragonfly species (Anisoptera) are characterized by long bodies with two narrow pairs of intricately veined, membranous...
  • anisospory (botany)
    In anisosporous life histories, an unusual phenomenon in bryophytes, there is a size difference among spores produced in the same sporangium. Each meiotic division results in a tetrad of two small spores that produce male gametophytes and two larger spores that produce female gametophytes....
  • Anisotremus virginicus (fish)
    ...a usually pearl gray species of the western Atlantic; the pigfish (Orthopristis chrysoptera), a western Atlantic food fish, striped silvery and blue and about 38 cm (15 inches) long; the porkfish (Anisotremus virginicus), a western Atlantic reef fish that, when young, is marked with black and serves as a “cleaner,” picking parasites off larger fishes; several......
  • anisotropy (physics)
    in physics, the quality of exhibiting properties with different values when measured along axes in different directions. Anisotropy is most easily observed in single crystals of solid elements or compounds, in which atoms, ions, or molecules are arranged in regular lattices. In contrast, the random distribution of particles in liquids, and especially in gases, causes them rarely...
  • Aniston, Jennifer (American actress)
    American actress who achieved stardom on the popular television sitcom Friends (1994–2004) and launched a successful film career....
  • Aniston, Jennifer Joanna (American actress)
    American actress who achieved stardom on the popular television sitcom Friends (1994–2004) and launched a successful film career....
  • Anittas (king of Kussara)
    ...were in the lower city. The town extended up to Büyükkale, probably culminating in the palace of the local king. Both this town and the merchants’ houses were destroyed, probably by King Anittas of Kussara (after 1800). A Hittite text ascribed to Anittas tells of his conquests in Anatolia and how he defeated King Piyusti of Hattus, destroyed the city, and put a curse on the...
  • anitya (Buddhism)
    in Buddhism, the doctrine of impermanence. Anicca, anatta (the absence of an abiding self), and dukkha (“suffering”) together make up the ti-lakkhana, the three “marks...
  • Anius (Greek mythology)
    in Greek mythology, the son of the god Apollo and of Rhoeo, who was herself a descendant of the god Dionysus. Rhoeo, when pregnant, had been placed in a chest and cast into the sea by her father; floating to the island of Delos, the birthplace of Apollo, she gave birth to Anius, who became a seer and a pr...
  • Anjala League (Finnish-Swedish conspiracy)
    (1788–89), a conspiracy of Swedish and Finnish army officers that undermined the Swedish war effort in the Russo-Swedish War of 1788–90. Shortly after the outbreak of war, 113 officers in the Finnish town of Anjala dispatched a letter to Empress Catherine II the Great of Russia calling for peace on the basis of the pre-1743 sta...
  • añjali-mudra (Indian religion)
    ...figure illustrates some of the major mudras.) Although pictorial mudras are used most commonly in portraying the Buddha, they can also appear in representations of lesser personages. The añjali (“reverence”) mudra, for example, which has the suppliant or worshiper joining his two hands before him, palm to palm, slightly cupped, in a gesture of respectful......
  • Anjō (Japan)
    city, Aichi ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan, in the middle of the Hekkai Terrace. Irrigation was introduced into the area in the late 19th century, permitting cultivation of two crops of rice and wheat annually. In 1891 the Anjō station on the railroad between Tokyo and Kōbe was opened, and the new town...
  • Anjoman (mountain pass, Asia)
    ...poorly developed, but the mountain passes—which include Putsigrām (13,450 feet [5,000 metres]), Verān (15,400 feet [4,694 metres]), Rām Gol (15,400 feet [4,694 metres]), and Anjoman (13,850 feet [4,221 metres])—are high, making transmontane communications difficult....
  • Anjou (region, France)
    historical and cultural region encompassing the western French département of Maine-et-Loire and coextensive with the former province of Anjou. The former province of Anjou also encompassed the regions of La Flèche and Château-Gontier....
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