Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) rinderpest or cattle plague, an acute and highly infectious viral disease of cattle. It less frequently affects other ruminants, such as sheep, goats, and wild game. After an incubation period of thre...

(Encyclopedia) Szostak, Jack William, 1952–, American molecular biologist, b. London, England, Ph.D. Cornell, 1977. Szostak has been a professor at Harvard Medical School and a researcher at Massachusetts General ...

(Encyclopedia) enteritis ĕnˌtərīˈtĭs [key], inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. Acute enteritis is not usually serious except in infants and older people, in whom the accompanying diarrhea can cause de...

(Encyclopedia) gluten, mixture of proteins present in the cereal grains. The long molecules of gluten, insoluble in water, are strong and flexible and form many cross linkages. This gives flour its characteristic ch...

(Encyclopedia) alcoholism, 04/00 disease characterized by impaired control over the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Alcoholism is a serious problem worldwide; in the United States the wide availability of alcoho...

(Encyclopedia) Marburg virus: see Marburg virus disease; hemorrhagic fever. ...

(Encyclopedia) embryo screening, procedure (see genetic testing) in which a single cell is removed from an embryo two or three days after it has been conceived through in vitro fertilization and tested for genetic a...

(Encyclopedia) pharmacology, study of the changes produced in living animals by chemical substances, especially the actions of drugs, substances used to treat disease. Systematic investigation of the effects of drug...

(Encyclopedia) Blackburn, Elizabeth Helen, 1948–, Australian-American molecular biologist, b. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1975. Blackburn was a professor at the Univ. of California, Berkeley, fro...

(Encyclopedia) Colorado tick fever or mountain tick fever, acute disease caused by infection with a double-stranded RNA virus (a Coltvirus) that is transmitted to humans by Rocky Mountain wood ticks (Dermacentor and...