Barbacena

City, southeastern Minas Gerais estado (“state”), Brazil. It is situated in the Serra da Mantiquera, at 3,727 feet (1,136 m) above sea level. The settlement was made the seat of a municipality in 1791 and elevated to city rank in 1840. It is now the trade and manufacturing centre for an agricultural region that raises corn (maize), feijão (beans), rice, coffee, and various fruits and vegetables. The largest

Leaf-nosed Bat

Any of the bats belonging to the families Phyllostomatidae and Hipposideridae (qq.v.).

Dietrich, Marlene

Marie Magdalene was the daughter of Ludwig Dietrich, a Royal Prussian police officer. Her father died when she was very young, and her mother remarried a cavalry officer, Edouard von Losch.

Ford, Richard

Ford attended Michigan State University (B.A., 1966), Washington University Law School, and the University of California, Irvine (M.A., 1970), and subsequently taught at several American colleges and universities. His first novel, A Piece of My Heart (1976), is set on an island in the southern Mississippi

West Berlin

The western half of the German city of Berlin (q.v.), which until the reunification of the German state in 1990 was treated as a city and Land (state) of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), though it was not constitutionally part of that nation.

Pet

While a pet is generally kept for the pleasure that it can give to its owner, often, especially with horses, dogs, and cats, as well as with some other animals, this pleasure appears to be mutual. Thus, pet keeping can be described as a symbiotic relationship, one that benefits both animals and human

Sea Robin

Also called  gurnard  any of the slim, bottom-dwelling fish of the family Triglidae, found in warm and temperate seas of the world. Sea robins are elongated fish with armoured, bony heads and two dorsal fins. Their pectoral fins are fan-shaped, with the bottom few rays each forming separate feelers. These feelers are used by the fishes in “walking” on the bottom and in sensing mollusks, crustaceans,

Architecture, African, Nomads and pastoralists

A hunting and gathering economy obliges the San of the Kalahari to move camp frequently. Some San scherms (shelters) may be little more than depressions in the ground, but groups such as the !Kung build light-framed shelters of sticks and saplings covered with grass. Other hunter-gatherers, such as the Hadza of Tanzania, live amid relative plenty; their dry savanna territory

Shirk

The Qur'an (Islamic scripture) stresses in many verses that God does not share his powers with any partner (sharik). It warns those who believe their idols will intercede for them that they, together with the idols, will become fuel for hellfire on the Day of Judgment

Reuben

After the Exodus out of Egypt, Joshua led the Israelites into the Promised Land and divided the territory among the 12 tribes. The tribe of Reuben apparently settled east of

Encyclopaedia

For more than 2,000 years encyclopaedias have existed as summaries of extant scholarship in forms comprehensible to their readers. The word at first meant a circle or a complete system of learning—that is, an all-around education.