Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Asian carp, term for several large, hardy freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae (the minnow family) that are native to E Asia and have become invasive species in the United States. The fish, which ...

(Encyclopedia) Ford, Ford Madox, 1873–1939, English author; grandson of Ford Madox Brown. He changed his name legally from Ford Madox Hueffer in 1919. The author of over 60 works including novels, poems, criticism...

(Encyclopedia) Ford, Richard, 1944–, American novelist, b. Jackson, Miss.; grad. Michigan State Univ. (B.A., 1966), Univ. of California, Irvine (M.F.A., 1970). Ford's concerns are those of a moralist who displays ...

(Encyclopedia) beet, biennial or annual root vegetable of the family Chenopodiaceae (goosefoot family). The beet (Beta vulgaris) has been cultivated since pre-Christian times. Among its numerous varieties are the re...

(Encyclopedia) Scottsboro Case. In 1931 nine black youths were indicted at Scottsboro, Ala., on charges of having raped two white women in a freight car passing through Alabama. In a series of trials the youths were...

(Encyclopedia) Shannon, Claude Elwood, 1916–2001, American applied mathematician, b. Gaylord, Michigan. A student of Vannevar Bush at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), he was the first to propose th...

(Encyclopedia) peat, soil material consisting of partially decomposed organic matter, found mainly in swamps and bogs in various parts of the northern temperate zone but also in some semitropical and tropical region...

(Encyclopedia) Madonna (Madonna Louise Ciccone) mədŏnˈə, chĭkōˈnē [key], 1958–, American p...

(Encyclopedia) Shiller, Robert James, 1946–, American economist, b. Detroit, grad. Univ. of Michigan (B.A., 1967), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (S.M., 1968; Ph.D., 1972). A professor at Yale since 1982, S...