surveying, mapping, and aerial photography agency of the Overseas Development Administration (ODA) of the United Kingdom, founded in 1946 to provide advice to the ODA and foreign governments and organizations on technical matters concerning all aspects of surveying and mapping. ...
in acoustics, tone sounding above the fundamental tone when a string or air column vibrates as a whole, producing the fundamental, or first harmonic. If it vibrates in sections, it produces overtones, or harmonics. The listener normally hears the fundamental ...
musical composition, usually the orchestral introduction to a musical work (often dramatic), but also an independent instrumental work. Early operas opened with a sung prologue or a short instrumental flourish, such as the trumpet "Toccata" that opens Claudio Monteverdi's Orfeo ...
German geologist, astronomer, and traveler who was the first European to circumnavigate and map Lake Chad. Overweg was also a member of a pioneering mission to open the Central African interior to regular trade routes from the north coast of ...
British athlete, who, along with his great rival, Sebastian Coe, dominated middle-distance running in the early 1980s. The winner of gold and bronze medals at the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, Ovett set six world records.
Roman poet noted especially for his Ars amatoria and Metamorphoses. His verse had immense influence both by its imaginative interpretations of classical myth and as an example of supreme technical accomplishment.
city, Asturias provincia and comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), northern Spain. Oviedo lies on a hill surrounded by mountains and a fertile plain and is situated 18 miles (29 km) southwest of Gijon. Founded as ...
people inhabiting the tree-studded grasslands of the Bie Plateau in Angola. They speak Umbundu, a Bantu language of the Niger-Congo language family. They numbered about four million at the turn of the 21st century.
American civil rights activist, one of the white reformers who joined blacks in founding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
expulsion of undeveloped eggs rather than live young. The eggs may have been fertilized before release, as in birds and some reptiles, or are to be fertilized externally, as in amphibians and many lower forms. In general, the number of ...
small, lightly built predatory or omnivorous dinosaur that brooded its eggs in a manner similar to birds. Found as fossils in deposits from the Late Cretaceous Period (99 million to 65 million years ago) of eastern Asia and North America, ...
West African ruler who was the last independent oba (king) of the 500-year-old kingdom of Benin (in present-day Nigeria). Ovonramwen tried to maintain his independence in the face of increasing British pressure but was able to delay for only a ...
national park in the southeastern Finnmark Plateau region, northern Norway, bordering the Lemmen River National Park of Finland. One of the largest of Norway's national parks, it covers an area of 537 square miles (1,390 square km). Low hills covered ...
national park in the eastern part of the Divi valley, Troms county, northern Norway. With an area of 286 square miles (741 square km), it was established in 1971. The landscape varies from lowland forests of pine and birch to ...
release of a mature egg from the female ovary; the release enables the egg to be fertilized by the male sperm cells. Normally, in humans, only one egg is released at one time; occasionally, two or more erupt during the ...
plant structure that develops into a seed when fertilized. In gymnosperms (conifers and allies) the ovules lie uncovered on the scales of the cone. In angiosperms (flowering plants), one or more ovules are enclosed by the ovary (portion of the ...
in human physiology, single cell released from either of the female reproductive organs, the ovaries, which is capable of developing into a new organism when fertilized (united) with a sperm cell.
geographic region, northern Namibia. Owambo is bordered by the Kaokoland (Kaokoveld) region on the west and by the Kavango region on the east. The border with Angola lies to the north. Most of semiarid Owambo is an extremely flat plain ...
city, seat (1856) of Steele county, southern Minnesota, U.S. It lies astride the Straight River, known to the Sioux as Owatonna (meaning "straight"), about 65 miles (105 km) south of Minneapolis. Founded in 1854, the city soon became a stopping ...
waterfall on the Victoria Nile at Jinja, Uganda, below the river's outlet from Lake Victoria. The falls are the site of Owen Falls Dam, 2,726 feet (831 m) long and 102 feet (31 m) high, which was completed in 1954, ...
segment of the central highlands of New Guinea, occupying the southeastern "tail" of the island. The range rises abruptly from the coastal plain to a height of 9,000 feet (2,750 m) and extends for 200 miles (300 km). The massif ...
writer, considered the national novelist of Wales. He was a natural storyteller whose works, set in his own time, introduced a wealth of vivid and memorable characters that have given him a place in Welsh literature comparable to that of ...
clergyman and poet who revived the bardic tradition in 18th-century Welsh literature. He breathed new life into two moribund bardic meters, cywydd and the awdl, using them as vehicles for the expression of classic ideals rather than in praise of ...
English Puritan minister, prolific writer, and controversialist. He was an advocate of Congregationalism and an aide to Oliver Cromwell, the lord protector of England (1653-58).
Welsh manufacturer turned reformer, one of the most influential early 19th-century advocates of utopian socialism. His New Lanark mills in Lanarkshire, Scotland, with their social and industrial welfare programs, became a place of pilgrimage for statesmen and social reformers. He ...
American social reformer and politician. The son of the English reformer Robert Owen, Robert Dale Owen was steeped in his father's socialist philosophy while growing up at New Lanark in Scotland-the elder Owen's model industrial community. In 1825 father and ...
British anatomist and paleontologist who is remembered for his contributions to the study of fossil animals, especially dinosaurs. He was the first to recognize them as different from today's reptiles and classified them in a group he called Dinosauria. Owen ...
English poet noted for his anger at the cruelty and waste of war and his pity for its victims. He also is significant for his technical experiments in assonance, which were particularly influential in the 1930s.
deepwater port, northwestern Gabon, on the north shore of the Gabon Estuary; it serves the national capital, Libreville (9 miles [15 km] north-northwest), and was designed to handle ore vessels. It has a seaplane base and road connections with Libreville, ...
river, eastern California, U.S. Located in Mono and Inyo counties, it rises in the Sierra Nevada southeast of Yosemite National Park and flows about 120 miles (200 km) generally west-southwest to Owens Lake (now dry). The river was among the ...
American track-and-field athlete, who set a world record in the running broad jump (also called long jump) that stood for 25 years and who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. His four Olympic victories were ...
city, seat (1815) of Daviess county, on the Ohio River in western Kentucky, U.S., 32 miles (51 km) southeast of Evansville, Indiana. Founded about 1800, it was known to early flatboat men as Yellow Banks, from the colour of the ...
town, capital of Imo state, southern Nigeria, at the intersection of roads from Aba, Onitsha, Port Harcourt, and Umuahia. It is the chief trade centre (yams, cassava [manioc], taro, corn [maize], and palm products) for a region of modified rainforest ...
arboreal guenon found in tropical forests east of the Congo basin. The owl-faced monkey is greenish gray with black underparts and forelimbs; the lower back and base of the tail are silver-gray. It is named for the white streak running ...
large neuropteran fly of the family Ascalaphidae, having membranous wings and long, clubbed antennae. The larva camouflages itself with debris or hides beneath bark to await prey. The adults are found mainly in the tropics but are quite common in ...
commonly, any young owl; the term is also used as the general name for several diminutive African and Southeast Asian species of Glaucidium (see pygmy owl) and two little owls (Athene) of southern Asia (see little owl).
any of seven or eight species of shy and solitary night birds belonging to the genus Aegotheles and comprising the family Aegothelidae. They are closely related to frogmouths, in the order Caprimulgiformes. These inhabitants of forests resemble small owls with ...
any of the more than 20,000 species in the cosmopolitan insect family Noctuidae (order Lepidoptera), having powdery, dusky wings. This large group is divided by some authorities into many families.
the legal relation between a person (individual, group, corporation, or government) and an object. The object may be corporeal, such as furniture, or completely the creature of law, such as a patent, copyright, or annuity; it may be movable, such ...
town, Ondo state, southwestern Nigeria, at the southern edge of the Yoruba Hills (elevation 1,130 feet [344 m]) and at the intersection of roads from Akure, Kabba, Benin City, and Siluko. A major collecting point for cocoa, it also serves ...
river formed by the junction of several forks in the southwestern corner of Idaho, U.S. It flows northwest across the Oregon boundary and north through Malheur county and empties into the Snake River south of Nyssa, Ore., after a course ...
(Bos taurus, or B. taurus primigenius), a domesticated form of the large horned mammals that once moved in herds across North America and Europe (whence they have disappeared) and Asia and Africa, where some still exist in the wild state. ...
