Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) green flash or emerald flash, a refractive phenomenon of the atmosphere where the top edge of the setting (or, less frequently, rising) sun will momentarily turn emerald green. The green color lasts f...

(Encyclopedia) Whitewater, popular name for a failed 1970s Arkansas real estate venture by the Whitewater Development Corp., in which Gov. (later President) Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were pa...

(Encyclopedia) radium rāˈdēəm [key] [Lat. radius=ray], radioactive metallic chemical element; symbol Ra; at. no. 88; mass number of most stable isotope 226; m.p. 700℃; b.p. 1,140℃; sp. gr. about 6.0; valence...

(Encyclopedia) nux vomica nŭks vŏmˈəkə [key], bitter-tasting drug obtained from the poisonous seeds of Strychnos nux-vomica, a tree that grows in Sri Lanka, India, and N Australia. The dried seeds contain stryc...

(Encyclopedia) Palmares or Quilombo dos Palmares, former autonomous community of villages comprised of fugitive African slaves and indigenous peoples, present-day Pernambuco and Alagoas states, NE Brazil. Its capita...

(Encyclopedia) Billings, city (2020 pop. 117,116), seat of Yellowstone co., S Mont., on the Yellowstone River, in a valley surrounded by seven mountain ranges; inc. as...

(Encyclopedia) dispersion, in chemistry, mixture in which fine particles of one substance are scattered throughout another substance. A dispersion is classed as a suspension, colloid, or solution. Generally, the par...

(Encyclopedia) Houssay, Bernardo Alberto bārnärˈdō älbārˈtō ouˈsī [key], 1887–1971, Argentine physiologist, b. Buenos Aires. He was a child prodigy, entering college at the age of 9 and becoming a hospit...

(Encyclopedia) Idaho Falls, city (2020 pop. 64,818), seat of Bonneville co., SE Idaho, traversed by the Snake River; inc. 1900. The chief city of the extensively irrig...

(Encyclopedia) convulsion, sudden, violent, involuntary contraction of the muscles of the body, often accompanied by loss of consciousness. It is not known what causes the abnormal impulses from the brain that resul...