RegularWing: October 2004

Sunday, October 31, 2004

Kubu

Contact of the Kubu with their neighbours had traditionally been primarily through �silent trade�; i.e., goods for barter were put where traders could look them over. They, in turn,

Saturday, October 30, 2004

Asanga

Asanga was the eldest of three brothers who were the sons of a Brahman, a court priest at Purusapura, and who all became monks in the Sarvastivada order (which held the doctrine that �all is real�). Dissatisfied with the Hinayana concepts of sunyata (�emptiness

Friday, October 29, 2004

Rackets

Also spelled �Racquets, � game played with a ball and a strung racket in an enclosed court, all four walls of which are used in play. Rackets is played with a hard ball in a relatively large court, usually about 18 m (60 ft) long by 9 m wide - unlike the related game of squash rackets (q.v.), which is played with a soft ball on a smaller court.

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Plum

Fruit of the genus Prunus of the rose family (Rosaceae). Like the peach and cherry, it is a stone, or drupe, fruit. Trees of some plum species reach a height from 6 to 10 metres (20 to 33 feet), while others are much smaller; some species are small shrubs with drooping branches. The flower buds on most varieties are borne on short spurs or along the terminal shoots of the main branches. Each

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Wolf Creek Crater

Huge meteorite crater 65 miles (105 km) south of Halls Creek, Western Australia. The crater is on the edge of a little-explored desert and was first sighted from an airplane in 1937. It is 2,799 feet (853 m) in diameter and 151 feet (46 m) deep, with a rim standing 60 - 100 feet (18 - 30 m) above ground level. Only decayed meteoritic fragments have been found. It is considered an explosion crater because of its size. The crater

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Osiris

Also called �Usiri, � one of the most important gods of ancient Egypt. The origin of Osiris is obscure; he was a local god of Busiris, in Lower Egypt, and may have been a personification of chthonic (underworld) fertility, or possibly a deified hero. By about 2400 BC, however, Osiris clearly played a double role: he was both a god of fertility and the embodiment of the dead and resurrected king. This dual

Monday, October 25, 2004

Plymouth Company

The Plymouth Company was less successful than its twin, the London Company (q.v.). In 1606 it established two colonies, and in 1607 settlers landed at the mouth of the

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Colemanite

Borate mineral, hydrated calcium borate (Ca2B6O11�5H2O) that was the principal source of borax until the 1930s. It typically occurs as colourless, brilliant crystals and masses in Tertiary sediments (those formed 66.4 to 1.6 million years ago), where it has been derived from ulexite and borax. The chief localities are the Kramer district, Death Valley, and Daggett, Calif. Colemanite is an

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Cloud Forest

Also called �montane rainforest, � vegetation of tropical mountainous regions in which the rainfall is often heavy and persistent condensation occurs because of cooling of moisture-laden air currents deflected upward by the mountains. The trees in a cloud forest are typically short and crooked. Mosses, climbing ferns, lichens, and epiphytes (air plants, such as orchids) form thick blankets on the

Friday, October 22, 2004

Holly

Any of the shrubs and trees of the genus Ilex, in the family Aquifoliaceae, comprising about 400 species of red- or black-berried plants, including the popular Christmas hollies. They have alternate, simple leaves and single or clustered, small, usually greenish flowers (male and female being usually on separate plants). English holly (I. aquifolium), a tree growing

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Australian Alps

Mountain mass, a segment of the Great Dividing Range (Eastern Uplands), occupying the southeasternmost corner of Australia, in eastern Victoria and southeastern New South Wales. In a more local sense, the term denotes the ranges on the states' border forming the divide between the watersheds of the Murray River system, flowing west, and the Snowy and other streams flowing

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Profit Sharing

System by which employees are paid a share of the profits of the business enterprise in which they are employed, in accordance with a scheme defined in advance. Such payments, which may vary according to salary or wage, are distinct from and additional to regular earnings. Profit-sharing plans were probably first developed in France before the middle of the 19th century

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Amorphous Solid, Polymeric structural materials

Polystyrene, the organic polymer listed in the Table, is a prototypical example of a polymeric glass. These glasses, whose atomic-scale structure has been discussed in connection with Figure 7B, make up a broad class of lightweight structural materials important in the automotive, aerospace, and construction industries. These materials are also ubiquitous in everyday

Monday, October 18, 2004

Respiration

The process by which animal organisms take up oxygen and discharge carbon dioxide in order to satisfy their energy requirements. In the living organism, energy is liberated, along with carbon dioxide, through the oxidation of molecules containing carbon. The term respiration also denotes the exchange of the respiratory gases (oxygen and carbon dioxide) between

Sunday, October 17, 2004

Antietam, Battle Of

Also called �Battle of Sharpsburg� (September 17, 1862), a decisive engagement in the American Civil War (1861 - 65) that halted the Confederate advance on Maryland for the purpose of gaining military supplies. The advance was also regarded as one of the greatest Confederate threats to Washington, D.C. The battle took its name from Antietam Creek, which flows south from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to the Potomac River near

Saturday, October 16, 2004

Abu

Also called �Mount Abu, � city, southwestern Rajasthan state, northwestern India. It is situated on the slopes of Mount Abu, an isolated feature of the Aravali Range. The city is a noted hill resort, and the Jaina temples at nearby Dilwara, built of white marble, are famous. Tejpal temple, built about AD 1200, is known for the delicacy and richness of its carving, especially for that on the underside of its dome.

Friday, October 15, 2004

Arts, South Asian, North India

The most common vocal form in North Indian classical music at the present time is the khyal, a Muslim word meaning �imagination.� The khyal is contrasted with the dhruvapada (now known as dhrupad), which means �fixed words.� The two forms existed side by side in the Islamic period, and it is only in the last century or two that khyal has achieved ascendancy. There are two types of

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Maui

Volcanic island, Maui county, Hawaii, U.S., separated from Molokai (northwest) and Hawaii (southeast) islands by the Pailolo and Alenuihaha channels. With an area of 728 square miles (1,886 square km), the island is the second largest of the Hawaiian chain (after Hawaii Island). It takes its name from a Polynesian demigod and was created by two volcanoes, Puu Kukui and Haleakala, which

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Henry Viii

King of England (1509 - 47), who presided over the beginnings of the English Renaissance and the English Reformation. His six wives were, successively, Catherine of Aragon (the mother of the future queen Mary I), Anne Boleyn (the mother of the future queen Elizabeth I), Jane Seymour (the mother of Henry's successor, Edward VI), Anne of Cleves, Catherine

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Uvarov, Sergey Semyonovich, Count

Uvarov served as a diplomat (1806 - 10), head of the St. Petersburg educational district (1811 - 22), and deputy minister of education (1832) before being named minister of education in 1833. In an important report to the tsar in 1833 he declared

Monday, October 11, 2004

Bradley, Joseph P.

Associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1870. Bradley was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Electoral Commission of 1877, and his vote elected Rutherford B. Hayes president of the United States. As a justice he emphasized the power of the federal government to regulate commerce. His decisions reflecting this view, rendered during

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Ya-lung River

Wade - Giles romanization �Ya-lung Chiang�, Pinyin �Yalong Jiang� long secondary tributary of the Yangtze River in central and southern China. The Ya-lung rises in the Pa-yen-k'a-la Mountains in Tsinghai Province at an elevation of nearly 16,500 feet (5,000 m). The upper stream flows southeastward to the south of the Pa-yen-k'a-la Mountains into northwestern Szechwan Province. Below Kan-tzu it swings southward to flow along the western side of the

Saturday, October 09, 2004

Anti-fascist Council For The National Liberation Of Yugoslavia

AVNOJ was first convened at the Bosnian town of Bihac (Nov. 26 - 27, 1942). The participation of noncommunists allowed a National Liberation Movement

Friday, October 08, 2004

Mercy D'argenteau, Florimund, Graf (count)

Entering the diplomatic service in 1751, Mercy served at the Sardinian court, as ambassador to Russia, and, from 1766, as ambassador in Paris. An adviser

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Canastra Mountains

Portuguese �Serra Da Canastra, � mountain range on the Planalto Central (Brazilian Highlands) in western Minas Gerais estado (�state�), southeastern Brazil. Extending 150 miles (240 km) from the Go�as state border in the north to the upper Grande River in the south, the Canastra Mountains rise to an average elevation of 6,000 feet (1,800 m) and form the eastern border of the Tri�ngulo Mineiro, a grassland region between the

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Ranc�, Armand-jean Le Bouthillier De

Of noble birth, Ranc� became commendatory

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Novella

Short and well-structured narrative, often realistic and satiric in tone, that influenced the development of the short story and the novel throughout Europe. Originating in Italy during the Middle Ages, the novella was based on local events that were humorous, political, or amorous in nature; the individual tales often were gathered into collections along with

Monday, October 04, 2004

Ansbach

Formerly �Anspach, � city, Bayern Land (state), southern Germany, on the Rezat River, southwest of N�rnberg. It originated around the Benedictine monastery of Onolzbach (founded 748) and was sold to a Franconian branch of the Hohenzollern line (later margraves of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Bayreuth) in 1331. It passed to Prussia in 1791 and to Bavaria in 1806. Queen Caroline, consort of George II of Great Britain, was

Sunday, October 03, 2004

France, History Of, Religious tensions

But it was religious policy that most divided French society and generated opposition to the Revolution. Most priests had initially hoped that sweeping reform might return Roman Catholicism to its basic ideals, shorn of aristocratic trappings and superfluous privileges, but they assumed that the church itself would collaborate in the process. In the Assembly's

Saturday, October 02, 2004

Euro

The euro's origins lay in

Friday, October 01, 2004

Caboolture

Town, southeastern Queensland, Australia, on the Caboolture River. The town was originally a livestock station. Its name was derived from cabul-tur, the Aboriginal word for the carpet snake. To relieve shortages brought about by the American Civil War in the 1860s, Caboolture became a cotton-farming centre. Today, citrus fruits, tobacco, and vegetables are grown, and dairy

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