Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Palade, George E. ... Palermo

Palade, George E.: Romanian-born American cell biologist who developed tissue-preparation methods, advanced centrifuging techniques, and conducted electron microscopy studies that resulted in the discovery of several cellular structures. With Albert Claude and Christian de Duve he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology ...
Palaeologus family: Byzantine family that became prominent in the 11th century, the members of which married into the imperial houses of Comnenus, Ducas, and Angelus. Michael VIII Palaeologus, emperor at Nicaea in 1259, founded the dynasty of the Palaeologi in Constantinople in ...
Palaeospondylus: genus of enigmatic fossil vertebrates that were very fishlike in appearance but of uncertain relationships. Palaeospondylus, from the Middle Devonian epoch (387 to 374 million years ago), has been found in the Old Red Sandstone rocks in the region of ...
Palaic language: ancient Indo-European language of northwest Anatolia. Modern knowledge of the language comes from 21 passages dealing with the cult of the deity Ziparwa that appear in the cuneiform tablets found in the ruins of the Hittite archives at Bogazkoy (the ...
Palais-Royal Theatre: Paris playhouse most noted for 17th-century productions by Moliere.
Palamas, Kostis: Greek poet who was important in the evolution of modern Greek literature.
Palamas, Saint Gregory: Orthodox monk, theologian, and intellectual leader of Hesychasm, an ascetical method of mystical prayer that integrates repetitive prayer formulas with bodily postures and controlled breathing. He was appointed bishop of Thessalonica in 1347. In 1368 he was acclaimed a saint ...
Palamedes: in Greek legend, the son of Nauplius, king of Euboea, and a hero of the Trojan War. Palamedes is a prominent figure in post-Homeric legends about the siege of Troy. Before the war he exposed the trickery of Odysseus, who ...
Palana: urban settlement and administrative centre of Koryak autonomous okrug (district), Kamchatka oblast (province), far eastern Russia. The settlement is situated on the western coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula and lies along the Palana River, 5 miles (8 km) from its ...
Palangkaraya: kotamadya (municipality), capital of Kalimantan Tengah provinsi ("province"), Borneo, Indonesia. Palangkaraya lies west of the Kahayan River. It was occupied by the Japanese during World War II and was the principal city of Great Dayak, an autonomous state (one of ...
Palanpur: city, Gujarat state, west-central India. It lies in the lowlands between the Aravalli Range and the Kathiawar Peninsula. The former capital of the princely state of Palanpur, the city is now a trade and processing centre for agricultural produce and ...
Palar River: river in southern India. It rises near the Ponnaiyar River, southwest of Chintamani, in Karnataka state, and flows 183 miles (295 km) southeastward through Tamil Nadu state to the Bay of Bengal, south of Madras. Its major tributaries are the ...
palas: pileless, handwoven floor covering made in most of the rug-weaving areas of the Middle East. The term is used variously as a label for rugs woven in different techniques, and usage varies with the location. While slit-tapestry kilims are described ...
palatal: in phonetics, a consonant sound produced by raising the blade, or front, of the tongue toward or against the hard palate just behind the alveolar ridge (the gums). The German ch sound in ich and the French gn (pronounced ny) ...
palatalization: in phonetics, the production of consonants with the blade, or front, of the tongue drawn up farther toward the roof of the mouth (hard palate) than in their normal pronunciation. Palatalized consonants in Russian are pronounced as if attempting simultaneously ...
palate: in vertebrate anatomy, the roof of the mouth, separating the oral and nasal cavities. It consists of an anterior hard palate of bone and, in mammals, a posterior soft palate that has no skeletal support and terminates in a fleshy, ...
Palatinate: in German history, the lands of the count palatine, a title held by a leading secular prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Geographically, the Palatinate was divided between two small territorial clusters: the Rhenish, or Lower, Palatinate and the Upper ...
palatine: any of diverse officials found in numerous countries of medieval and early modern Europe. Originally the term was applied to the chamberlains and troops guarding the palace of the Roman emperor. In Constantine's time (early 4th century), the designation was ...
Palatine: village, Cook county, northeastern Illinois, U.S. Palatine is a suburb of Chicago, lying about 30 miles (50 km) northwest of the city. The community, established in 1855 when a Chicago and North Western Railway siding and depot was built, was ...
Palatine Chapel: imperial chapel of Charlemagne, now forming the central component of the cathedral in Aachen, Germany. Considered a masterpiece of Carolingian architecture because of its intricately designed core, Aachen Cathedral also exhibits notable elements of the Gothic style. The cathedral was ...
Palatine Hill: four-sided plateau rising 131 feet (40 m) south of the Forum in Rome and 168 feet (51 m) above sea level. It has a circumference of 5,700 feet (1,740 m). The city of Rome was founded on the Palatine, where ...
Palatka: city, seat (1849) of Putnam county, northeastern Florida, U.S., on the broad St. Johns River, about 50 miles (80 km) south of Jacksonville. Beginning in the 17th century the area was used for cattle ranching, and the city site was ...
Palau: country in the western Pacific Ocean. It consists of some 340 coral and volcanic islands perched on the Kyushu-Palau Ridge. The Palau archipelago lies in the southwest corner of Micronesia, with the Philippines 550 miles (885 km) to the west, ...
Palauan language: major language of Palau, in the western Pacific Ocean. It is classified as belonging to the eastern branch of the Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) family of languages. Like Chamorro, which is spoken in the Mariana Islands, it is considered to be of ...
Palaung: hill people of the Shan region and adjacent areas of eastern Myanmar (Burma), as well as southwestern Yunnan province of China. They numbered about 240,000 in the late 20th century and speak dialects of the Palaungic branch of Austro-Asiatic languages. ...
Palaungic languages: branch of the Mon-Khmer group of the Austroasiatic languages. Palaungic languages are spoken primarily in Myanmar (Burma) and secondarily in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Yunnan province in China. The members of the Palaungic branch are somewhat controversial but are generally ...
Palawan: island, the southwesternmost large island of the Philippines. Palawan is long and narrow and trends northeast-southwest between the South China and Sulu seas. It has an area of 4,550 square miles (11,785 square km), a maximum width of 24 miles ...
Palayankottai: city, southern Tamil Nadu state, southeastern India. It lies across the Tambraparni River from its twin city of Tirunelveli. Palayankottai is a residential and educational centre in the Tirunelveli urban agglomeration. It is a major centre of Christian missions in ...
Palazzolo Acreide: town, Siracusa provincia, southeastern Sicily, Italy. It lies in the Iblei Mountains, west of Syracuse. The successor to the Syracusan colony of Acrae (founded nearby in 663 BC), which was ravaged by the Muslims in the 9th century, the town ...
pale: (from Latin palus, "stake"), district separated from the surrounding country by defined boundaries or distinguished by a different administrative and legal system. It is this definition of pale from which the phrase "beyond the pale" is derived.
Palembang: kotamadya (municipality) and capital, Sumatera Selatan provinsi ("province"), Indonesia. It lies on both banks of the Musi River, there spanned by the Ampera Bridge. Sumatra's second largest city (after Medan), it was long the chief town of the Palembang sultanate. ...
Palencia: inland provincia, in the Castile-Leon comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), northern Spain. It is bounded by the autonomous community (and province) of Cantabria (north) and by the provinces of Burgos (east), Valladolid (south), and Valladolid and Leon (west). It was formed ...
Palencia: capital of Palencia provincia, in the Castile-Leon comunidad autonoma ("autonomous community"), north-central Spain. It lies on the Campos Plain southwest of Burgos. Called the Pallantia by the ancient Greek geographers Strabo and Ptolemy, it was the chief town of the ...
Palenque: Indian tribe of northern Venezuela at the time of the Spanish conquest (16th century). The Palenque were closely related to the neighbouring Cumanagoto (q.v.); their language probably belonged to the Arawakan family. They were a tropical-forest people known to eat ...
Palenque: ruined ancient Mayan city of the Late Classic Period (c. AD 600-900) in what is now Chiapas state, Mexico, about 80 miles (130 km) south of Ciudad del Carmen. Its original name is speculative; the site now shares the name ...
Paleo-Siberian: any member of those peoples of northeastern Siberia who are believed to be remnants of earlier and more extensive populations pushed into this area by later Neosiberians. The Paleo-Siberians include the Chukchi, Koryak, Itelmen (Kamchadal), Nivkh (Gilyak), Yukaghir, and Ket ...
Paleo-Siberian languages: languages spoken in Asian Russia (Siberia) that belong to four genetically unrelated groups-Yeniseian, Luorawetlan, Yukaghir, and Nivkh.
paleoanthropology: interdisciplinary branch of anthropology concerned with the origins and development of early humans. Fossils are assessed by the techniques of physical anthropology, comparative anatomy, and the theory of evolution. Artifacts, such as bone and stone tools, are identified and their ...
Paleocene Epoch: major worldwide division of Early Tertiary rocks and time that began 66.4 million years ago and ended 57.8 million years ago. The earliest division of the Tertiary Period, it precedes the Eocene Epoch and follows the Cretaceous Period. Because marine ...
paleoclimatology: scientific study of the extended climatic conditions of past geologic ages. Paleoclimatologists seek to explain climate variations for all parts of the Earth during any given geologic period, beginning with the time of the Earth's formation. Many related fields contribute ...
Paleogene Period: older of the two stratigraphic divisions of the Cenozoic Era (the Cenozoic Era began about 66.4 million years ago and extends to the present). The Paleogene, whose beginning coincides with that of the Cenozoic Era, ended 23.7 million years ago ...
paleogeography: the geography of selected portions of the Earth's surface at specific times in the geologic past. This geography consists of interpreted reconstructions, produced in map form, which represent visual summaries of a wide variety of complex geologic information. The maps ...
paleogeology: the geology of a region at any given time in the distant past. Paleogeologic reconstructions in map form show not only the ancient topography of a region but also the distribution of rocks beneath the surface and such structural features ...
paleography: study of ancient and medieval handwriting. The term is derived from the Greek palaios ("old") and graphein ("to write").
paleography: study of ancient and medieval handwriting. The primary tasks of the paleographer are to read the writings of the past and to assign them a date and a place of origin. As a rule, paleography deals with Greek and Latin ...
paleohydrology: science concerned with hydrologic systems as they existed during previous periods of Earth history. Changing hydrologic conditions are inferred from the evidence of the alteration, deposition, and erosion in rocks from these periods. Paleohydrology also deals with the changes in ...
Paleolithic Period: ancient cultural stage, or level, of human development, characterized by the use of rudimentary chipped stone tools.
Paleologue, Maurice-Georges: French diplomat and writer who encouraged the Franco-Russian alliance before and during World War I.
paleontology: scientific study of life of the geologic past that involves the analysis of plant and animal fossils, including those of microscopic size, preserved in rocks. It is concerned with all aspects of the biology of ancient life forms: their shape ...
Paleozoic Era: major interval of geologic time that began about 540 million years ago with an extraordinary diversification of marine animals and ended about 245 million years ago with the greatest extinction event in Earth history. The major divisions of the Paleozoic ...
Palermo: city, capital of Palermo provincia and of the island regione of Sicily in Italy. It lies on Sicily's northwestern coast at the head of the Bay of Palermo, facing east. Inland the city is enclosed by a fertile plain known ...