WINTER SOLSTICE SONGS. In Europe the celebration of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, is a heritage that goes back to prehistoric times. The classical Greek and Latin authors, as well as the fathers of the church, attest ...

As defined by geophysicists, the half-life (or half-value period) of a substance is the time required for one-half of the atoms in any size sample to radioactively decay. Radioactive elements have different isotopes that decay at different...

Although the term is of recent origin as used in connection with alcohol or drug treatment, the basic idea of the halfway house is almost two hundred years old. It designates a residential facility that provides a drug-free environment for...

Bad breath, sometimes called halitosis, is an unpleasant odor of the breath. It is likely to be experienced by most adults at least occasionally. Bad breath, either real or imagined, can have a significant impact on a person's social and p...

Hallie Flanagan (1890-1969) was a director, playwright, and educator who headed the Federal Theater Project, America's first national, federally-funded theater organization, from 1935 to 1939. Born in South Dakota on August 27, 1890, and r...

HALLOWEEN, or Allhallows Eve, is a festival celebrated on October 31, the evening prior to the Christian Feast of All Saints (All Saints' Day). Halloween is the name for the eve of Samhain, a celebration marking the beginning of win...

NIMBUS. The nimbus, or halo, usually pictured as a luminous figure around the head of a god or holy person, is clearly related in some instances to the sun and solar divinities. Among the native civilizations of Central America, agrarian g...

The halogens are a group of chemical elements that includes fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine, and astatine. Halogen comes from Greek terms meaning to produce sea salt. None of the halogens occur naturally in the form of elements, but, e...

Halophytes (salt plants) are organisms that require elevated amounts of sodium up to or exceeding seawater strength (approximately 33 parts of sodium per thousand) for optimal growth. In contrast, most crops cease to produce with sodium at...

The halting problem is the prototypical example of an undecidable problem, or a well posed problem that requires a yes or no answer that is impossible to solve. It should be stressed that the class of undecidable problems are impossible to...

(2002 pop. 409,000). Hamadan (once called Ecbatana), an ancient city in western Iran, was the capital of Media; after the Persians overthrew their Median overlords, the city became the Persian royal summer residence. Alexander of Macedon c...

Hamid KarzaiPresident of the Afghan Transitional Authority (pronounced "HA-mehd CAHRZ-eye") "Having experienced the ravages of war for 23 years and having been taken hostage by a group of terrorists, we are once a...

A critical assessment of two appropriations/adaptions of Hamlet. Many of Shakespeare's works have been transposed from stage to screen, none so more than Hamlet. Two of the most unique film appropriations of the play are to be found in Ro...

The Han are the majority people among China's fifty-six state-recognized nationalities, and comprise the people usually known worldwide as the Chinese. They are the most numerous of the world's nationalities, approaching 1.2 ...

The Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE), which was founded by Liu Bang (256–195 BCE), or Han Gaozu, marks an era of consolidated imperial institutions in Chinese history. After the short-lived Qin regime (221–206 BCE), the Ha...

The Han River flows about 514 kilometers through Seoul, capital of the Republic of Korea (South Korea), rising from a spring in Odae Mountain in Kangwon Province and emptying into the Yellow Sea. Several prehistoric human settlements have ...

ḤANᾹBILAH (sg., Ḥanbālī) is the name used to denote the followers of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, just as the names Shāfiʿīyah, Mālikīyah, and Ḥanafīyah...

Hand-foot-mouth disease is an infection of young children in which characteristic fluid-filled blisters appear on the hands, feet, and inside the mouth. Coxsackie viruses belong to a family of viruses called Enteroviruses. These viruses li...

Devices for shackling the hands, legs, and torso have existed since ancient times. Handcuffs can be distinguished from earlier forms of shackles and manacles in that they are portable. The first handcuffs took the shape of a figure eight. ...

Handheld Computers Handheld computers Business Week, 6 September 2004....

Handshaking refers to the process by which two devices, typically modems, lay the groundwork to establish communications between them. Hardware handshaking uses voltage levels or pulses on the wires that connect the devices. Software hands...

The Hanford Engineering Works was conceived in June 1942 under the direction of Major General Leslie R. Groves, head of the famous Manhattan Project, to produce plutonium and other materials for use in the development of nuclear weapons....

Hangul is a script used in writing Korean, a language of 72 million speakers. It is, like the Roman alphabet, an alphabetical writing, consisting of 24 basic alphabet letters, 14 for consonants and 10 for vowels. Unlike the Roman alphabet ...

Henry Louis (Hank) Aaron (born 1934) was major league baseball's leading homerun hitter with a career total of 755 upon his retirement in 1976. He broke ground for the participation of African Americans in professional sports. Henry (Hank)...

Noted as the first Jewish baseball star, Hank Greenberg became a hero to a generation of Jewish fans and led the way for greater Jewish opportunities in baseball. Greenberg debuted at first base for the Detroit Tigers in 1933 and faced ant...