Hiram Bingham was an American archaeologist and politician who in 1911 initiated the scientific study of Machu Picchu, an ancient Inca site in a remote part of the Peruvian Andes. Bingham may have been preceded by the German adventurer Augusto Berns, who, some scholars believe, visited the site in

T Bone Burnett: …circuit, as songwriters Burnett and Ryan Bingham collected an Academy Award, a Golden Globe (2010), and a Grammy (2011). Burnett earned additional Grammys for his production work on the Crazy Heart sound track and for having cowritten a song performed by Taylor Swift on the sound track of the movie…

Binghamton, city, seat (1806) of Broome county, south-central New York, U.S. It lies at the confluence of the Chenango and Susquehanna rivers, near the Pennsylvania border, 75 miles (121 km) south of Syracuse. With Johnson City and Endicott, it forms the Triple Cities. Settled in 1787 at the site

Bingen, city, Rhineland-Palatinate Land (state), southwestern Germany. Bingen is a port at the confluence of the Rhine and Nahe rivers, near the whirlpool known as Binger Loch. It originated as the Roman fortress of Bingium and later became an imperial free city, joining the Hanseatic League in

bingo, game of chance using cards on which there is a grid of numbers, a row of which constitute a win when they have been chosen at random. Bingo is one of the most popular forms of low-priced gambling in the world. To play bingo, which is a form of lottery, each player purchases one or more cards

Louise Erdrich: Novels: …Queen (1986), Tracks (1988), and The Bingo Palace (1994), about Native families living on or near an Ojibwe reservation in the fictional town of Argus, North Dakota, and the white people they encounter. Tales of Burning Love (1996) and The Antelope Wife (1998) detail tumultuous relationships between men and women…

Bingöl, city in eastern Turkey. It lies along the Göniksuyu River, a tributary of the Murat River. The city takes its name (bin, “thousand,” and göl, “lakes”) from numerous small lakes that dot the Bingöl Mountains to the northeast. Once part of the Assyrian empire, the region was added to the

Bingxin was a Chinese writer of gentle, melancholy poems, stories, and essays that enjoyed great popularity. Bingxin studied the Chinese classics and began writing traditional Chinese stories as a child, but her conversion to Christianity and her attendance at an American school in Beijing soon

Cam Ranh Bay: The Binh Ba Bay, or outer bay, with Binh Ba Island lying off the tip of Point Cam Linh, offers some protection to ships at anchor, but the 1-mile- (1.6-kilometre-) wide strait that opens into the inner bay of Cam Linh provides year-round protection from monsoons…

Southeast Asian arts: Art of the southern capital: 11th–15th century: …Cham capital was established at Binh Dinh in 1069, the kings maintained a gradually diminishing splendour. After the Khmer attack of 1145 they could claim little in the way of royal glory.

Le Loi was a Vietnamese general and emperor who won back independence for Vietnam from China in 1428, founded the Later Le dynasty, and became the most honoured Vietnamese hero of the medieval period. A wealthy upper-class landowner, Le Loi despised the Vietnamese aristocrats who collaborated with

Edo, people of southern Nigeria who speak a language of the Benue-Congo branch of the Niger-Congo language family. The Edo numbered about 3.8 million at the turn of the 21st century. Their territory is west of the Niger River and extends from hilly country in the north to swamps in the Niger Delta.

Benue-Congo languages: Edoid: …which the principal one is Edo (1,000,000 speakers); and northwestern Edoid, seven languages.

mental disorder: Development of physical and pharmacological treatments: …Italian psychiatrists Ugo Cerletti and Lucio Bini in 1938. Electroconvulsive treatment was more successful in alleviating states of severe depression than in treating symptoms of schizophrenia. Psychosurgery, or surgery performed to treat mental illness, was introduced by Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz in the 1930s. The

Tashkent, capital of Uzbekistan and the largest city in Central Asia. Tashkent lies in the northeastern part of the country. It is situated at an elevation of 1,475 to 1,575 feet (450 to 480 metres) in the Chirchiq River valley west of the Chatkal Mountains and is intersected by a series of canals

Kazys Binkis was a poet who led the “Four Winds” literary movement, which introduced Futurism into Lithuania. From 1920 to 1923 Binkis studied literature and philosophy in Berlin, where he became acquainted with the newest trends in western European literature. The poems he wrote during his

compass: …compasses are usually mounted in binnacles, cylindrical pedestals with provision for illuminating the compass face from below. Each binnacle contains specially placed magnets and pieces of steel that cancel the magnetic effects of the metal of the ship. Much the same kind of device is used aboard aircraft, except that,…

Alster River: …lake’s southern portion is called Binnenalster (“Inner Alster”) and the northern, Aussenalster (“Outer Alster”).

The Hague: These buildings now form the Binnenhof (“Inner Courtyard”) in the old quarter of the city. Among the great halls around this courtyard are the Ridderzaal (Knight’s Hall; c. 1280) and the Armistice or Truce Hall, designed by Daniel Marot in 1697. An artificial lake, the Hofvijver, just to the north…

Easton: The company Binney & Smith Inc. established a factory in Easton at the beginning of the 20th century to make slate pencils but quickly began manufacturing crayons; its world-famous Crayola crayons are still made there. Other factories in the locality produce pipe couplings, plastic and paper food…

Horace Binney was an American lawyer and politician who established the legality of charitable trusts in the United States. Binney graduated from Harvard in 1797 and was admitted to the bar in 1800. He became an expert on marine-insurance and land-title law, and from 1809 to 1814 he published six

Thomas Binney was an English Congregational minister who actively sought reunion with the Church of England. He brought his chapel services closer to those of the established church by introducing the chanting of psalms taken from the Authorized Version of the

Decadentism: …reputation was somewhat restored by Walter Binni after World War II, only to fall again under the attack of the Marxist critic Carlo Salinari in the 1960s.

SpaceShipOne: American test pilot Brian Binnie was at the controls as the SS1-mounted rocket was first ignited for a burn lasting 15 seconds. Reaching an altitude of 67,800 feet (20,700 metres) and supersonic speeds, SS1 had a fairly smooth trip until landing. Upon touchdown the left landing gear collapsed,…

Gerd Binnig is a German-born physicist who shared with Heinrich Rohrer (q.v.) half of the 1986 Nobel Prize for Physics for their invention of the scanning tunneling microscope. (Ernst Ruska won the other half of the prize.) Binnig graduated from Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt and

St. Louis Blues: …stellar play from rookie goaltender Jordan Binnington to finish the season in second place in their division. The team then won three closely contested postseason series, none of which lasted fewer than six games, to reach the Stanley Cup finals for the first time in 49 years. There the Blues…

pottery: The United States: …was started soon afterward, with Charles F. Binns as its director. Binns was a member of an English family connected with the manufacture of porcelain at Worcester and Derby during the 19th century and had himself held a supervisory position at Worcester. Similar departments were added to other universities soon…

Binnya Dala was the last king (reigned 1747–57) of Pegu in southern Myanmar (Burma), whose independence from the northern Burmans was revived briefly between 1740 and 1757. In 1747 Binnya Dala succeeded Smim Htaw Buddhaketi, who had seven years earlier been set up as king of the Mon in the new

Indian cobra, (Naja naja), species of highly venomous snake in the cobra family (Elapidae). It is one of the so-called “big four” species of snakes that inflict the majority of snakebites in India, the other three being the common krait (Bungarus caeruleus), the saw-scaled viper (Echis carinatus),

Juliette Binoche is a French actress widely regarded as one of film’s most-respected performers for the intelligence she brought to her complex and varied roles. Binoche’s father was a sculptor and a theatre director, and her mother was a teacher and an actress. After completing her general

double vision: Binocular diplopia occurs when the eyes are not properly aligned, and the image of an object that projects onto one retina does not fall spatially to the matching point on the other retina. In such a situation, the double image is eliminated when either eye…

space perception: Visual cues: …and depth depend on so-called binocular disparity. Because the eyes are imbedded at different points in the skull, they receive slightly different images of any given object. The two retinal images of the same object are apparently perceived by the brain as a three-dimensional experience. The degree of disparity between…

microscope: Stereoscopic microscopes: Binocular stereomicroscopes are a matched pair of microscopes mounted side by side with a small angle between the optical axes. The object is imaged independently to each eye, and the stereoscopic effect, which permits discrimination of relief on the object, is retained. The…

stereoscopy: …is possible only because of binocular vision, which requires that the left-eye view and the right-eye view of an object be perceived from different angles. In the brain the separate perceptions of the eyes are combined and interpreted in terms of depth, of different distances to points and objects seen.…

binoculars, optical instrument, usually handheld, for providing a magnified stereoscopic view of distant objects. It consists of two similar telescopes, one for each eye, mounted on a single frame. A single thumbwheel may control the focus of both telescopes simultaneously, and provision may be

pinochle: …German variety of bezique called binokel (French binocle). All these names mean “eyeglasses” (literally “two-eyes”) and refer to the scoring combination of queen of spades and jack of diamonds, allegedly because the game originated with a deck of cards in which these courtly characters were depicted in profile, exhibiting one…

binomial coefficients, positive integers that are the numerical coefficients of the binomial theorem, which expresses the expansion of (a + b)n. The nth power of the sum of two numbers a and b may be expressed as the sum of n + 1 terms of the form in the sequence of terms, the index r takes on the

binomial distribution, in statistics, a common distribution function for discrete processes in which a fixed probability prevails for each independently generated value. First studied in connection with games of pure chance, the binomial distribution is now widely used to analyze data in virtually

genus: …the first word of a binomial scientific name (the species name is the second word) and is always capitalized.

binomial theorem, statement that for any positive integer n, the nth power of the sum of two numbers a and b may be expressed as the sum of n + 1 terms of the form in the sequence of terms, the index r takes on the successive values 0, 1, 2,…, n. The coefficients, called the binomial coefficients,

Manila: Manufacturing: …the railroad and truck terminals), Binondo, and Santa Cruz. Heavy industries are located in the districts of Paco, Pandacan, and Santa Ana.

Binchois was a Flemish composer of church music and of secular chansons that were among the finest of their genre, being notable for their elegance of line and grave sweetness of expression. The upper voice in Binchois’s mostly three-part songs is considered to be particularly lyrical. Gilles’s

Ludwig Binswanger was a Swiss psychiatrist and writer who applied the principles of existential phenomenology, especially as expressed by Martin Heidegger, to psychotherapy. Diagnosing certain psychic abnormalities (e.g., elation fixation, eccentricity, and mannerism) to be the effect of the

Durriyyah Shafīq: …(1948) the Egyptian women’s organization Bint al-Nīl (“Daughter of the Nile”).

Gambia River: …the largest of these being Bintang Bolon, which flows into it from the south. The width of the river’s valley varies considerably along its course. The river valley is cut into a plateau of sandstone dating from Paleogene and Neogene times (i.e., about 65 to 2.6 million years ago).

Guinea Highlands: …the highest peaks are found: Mount Loma Mansa (Bintimani), 6,391 feet (1,948 metres), in the Loma Mountains and Sankanbiriwa, 6,080 feet (1,853 metres), in the Tingi Mountains.

computer programming language: Data structures: A bintree (binary tree) for example, either is empty or contains a root component with data and left and right bintree “children.” Such bintrees implement tables of information efficiently. Subroutines to operate on them are naturally recursive; the following routine prints out all the elements of…

binturong, (Arctictis binturong), catlike omnivore of the civet family (Viverridae), found in dense forests of Southeast Asia. Its range extends from Nepal, India, and Bhutan southward to the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java and eastward to Borneo. It has long shaggy hair, tufted ears, and a

Binxian, county town, southern Heilongjiang sheng (province), northeastern China. It is situated on the eastern outskirts of Harbin, about 12 miles (20 km) south of the Sungari (Songhua) River. It is a collecting centre of a prosperous and productive agricultural district that supplies a large part

Laurence Binyon was an English poet, dramatist, and art historian, a pioneer in the European study of Far Eastern painting. The son of a clergyman, Binyon was educated at St. Paul’s School, London. At Trinity College, Oxford, he won the Newdigate Prize for his poem Persephone (1890). He combined

Laurence Binyon was an English poet, dramatist, and art historian, a pioneer in the European study of Far Eastern painting. The son of a clergyman, Binyon was educated at St. Paul’s School, London. At Trinity College, Oxford, he won the Newdigate Prize for his poem Persephone (1890). He combined

Binxian, county town, southern Heilongjiang sheng (province), northeastern China. It is situated on the eastern outskirts of Harbin, about 12 miles (20 km) south of the Sungari (Songhua) River. It is a collecting centre of a prosperous and productive agricultural district that supplies a large part

Eduardo Kac: …endeavours “bio art” or “transgenic art.”

Sierra Leone: Civil war: Julius Maada Bio briefly assumed control of the government with the pledge that elections would soon be held. The RUF, however, requested that elections be postponed until it could reach a peace agreement with the government; this request was rebuffed, and the RUF intensified its…

Ulysse Chevalier: …published in two parts: the Bio-bibliographie, 1877–88, and the Topo-bibliographie, 1894–1903. The former contains information on all historical personages alive between the years 1 and 1500 who are mentioned in printed books, and the latter contains place-names and other information. Chevalier was himself a professor at Lyon from 1887.

Biobío, región, central Chile, bordering Argentina to the east and fronting the Pacific Ocean to the west. It was given its present boundaries in 1974 and includes the provincias of Ñuble, Concepción, Arauco, and Biobío. The islands of Santa María, in the Bay of Arauco, and Mocha, 14 miles (23 km)

Biobío River, river in south-central Chile. It rises in the Icalma and Galletué lakes in the Andes on Chile’s eastern border and flows generally northwestward to enter the Pacific Ocean near Concepción after a course of 240 miles (380 km). After crossing the fertile Central Valley, it forms the

biochar, form of charcoal made from animal wastes and plant residues (such as wood chips, leaves, and husks) that undergo pyrolysis, a process that rapidly decomposes organic material through anaerobic heating. A technique practiced for many centuries by tribes of the Amazon Rainforest, the

Victor Ernest Shelford: Clements in 1939 he published Bio-ecology, in which he developed the concept of the biome for the predominant vegetation, with its animal inhabitants, that characterizes a large geographic area. His well-known book The Ecology of North America (1963) summarized the major biomes, which include tundra, coniferous forest, deciduous forest, grassland,…

ocean fertilization, untested geoengineering technique designed to increase the uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air by phytoplankton, microscopic plants that reside at or near the surface of the ocean. The premise is that the phytoplankton, after blooming, would die and sink to the ocean

DNA computing: Biochemistry-based information technology: Programmable information chemistry will allow the building of new types of biochemical systems that can sense their own surroundings, act on decisions, and perhaps even communicate with other similar forms. Although chemical reactions occur at the nanoscale, so-called biochemistry-based information technology (bio/chem…

anthropology: Bioarchaeology: Bioarchaeologists test hypotheses about relative mortality, population movements, wars, social status, political organization, and other demographic, epidemiological, and social phenomena in past societies by combining detailed knowledge of cultural features and artifacts, such as those related to mortuary practice, with an understanding of paleonutrition,…

regenerative medicine: Cell and bioartificial tissue transplantation: A variety of autogeneic and allogeneic cell and bioartificial tissue transplantations have been performed. Examples of autogeneic transplants using differentiated cells include blood transfusion with frozen stores of the patient’s own blood and repair of the articular cartilage

nanotechnology: Bioassays: A second area of intense study in nanomedicine is that of developing new diagnostic tools. Motivation for this work ranges from fundamental biomedical research at the level of single genes or cells to point-of-care applications for health delivery services. With advances in molecular biology,…

pharmaceutical industry: Pharmacokinetic investigation: Bioavailability (how completely the drug is absorbed from its dosage form) and pharmacokinetic studies in animals and humans also have become important to include in a drug development plan. Pharmacokinetics is the study of the rates and extent of drug absorption, distribution within the body,…

Biobío, región, central Chile, bordering Argentina to the east and fronting the Pacific Ocean to the west. It was given its present boundaries in 1974 and includes the provincias of Ñuble, Concepción, Arauco, and Biobío. The islands of Santa María, in the Bay of Arauco, and Mocha, 14 miles (23 km)

Biobío River, river in south-central Chile. It rises in the Icalma and Galletué lakes in the Andes on Chile’s eastern border and flows generally northwestward to enter the Pacific Ocean near Concepción after a course of 240 miles (380 km). After crossing the fertile Central Valley, it forms the

synthetic biology: BioBricks and xeno-nucleic acids: …Endy, who founded the nonprofit BioBricks Foundation. Endy was developing a catalogue of information needed to synthesize basic biological parts, or “bricks,” from DNA and other molecules. Other scientists and engineers were able to use this information to build whatever biological products they wanted, knowing that certain “bricks” would consistently…

community ecology, study of the organization and functioning of communities, which are assemblages of interacting populations of the species living within a particular area or habitat. As populations of species interact with one another, they form biological communities. The number of interacting

biocentrism, ethical perspective holding that all life deserves equal moral consideration or has equal moral standing. Although elements of biocentrism can be found in several religious traditions, it was not until the late decades of the 20th century that philosophical ethics in the Western

bioceramics, ceramic products or components employed in medical and dental applications, mainly as implants and replacements. This article briefly describes the principal ceramic materials and surveys the uses to which they are put in medical and dental applications. For an explanation of important

biochar, form of charcoal made from animal wastes and plant residues (such as wood chips, leaves, and husks) that undergo pyrolysis, a process that rapidly decomposes organic material through anaerobic heating. A technique practiced for many centuries by tribes of the Amazon Rainforest, the

bioengineering: Branches of bioengineering: Britannica Publishing Partner)Biochemical engineering. Biochemical engineering includes fermentation engineering, application of engineering principles to microscopic biological systems that are used to create new products by synthesis, including the production of protein from suitable raw materials. Human-factors engineering. This concerns the application of engineering, physiology, and psychology to…

George Wells Beadle: …American geneticist who helped found biochemical genetics when he showed that genes affect heredity by determining enzyme structure. He shared the 1958 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Edward Tatum and Joshua Lederberg.

lesion: …only under a microscope), or biochemical (evident only by chemical analysis). A typical gross anatomic lesion might be the solid tumour of a carcinoma of the colon, while the corresponding histological lesion would be the atypical cells (dysplasia) that precede or surround the gross tumour; and a biochemical lesion associated…

biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), the amount of dissolved oxygen used by microorganisms in the biological process of metabolizing organic matter in water. The more organic matter there is (e.g., in sewage and polluted bodies of water), the greater the BOD; and the greater the BOD, the lower the

chemotaxy, method of biological classification based on similarities in the structures of certain compounds among the organisms being classified. Proponents of this taxonomic method argue that proteins, being more closely controlled by the genes and less directly subject to natural selection than

biochemistry, study of the chemical substances and processes that occur in plants, animals, and microorganisms and of the changes they undergo during development and life. It deals with the chemistry of life, and as such it draws on the techniques of analytical, organic, and physical chemistry, as

DNA computing: Biochemistry-based information technology: Programmable information chemistry will allow the building of new types of biochemical systems that can sense their own surroundings, act on decisions, and perhaps even communicate with other similar forms. Although chemical reactions occur at the nanoscale, so-called biochemistry-based information technology (bio/chem…

biochip, small-scale device, analogous to an integrated circuit, constructed of or used to analyze organic molecules associated with living organisms. One type of theoretical biochip is a small device constructed of large organic molecules, such as proteins, and capable of performing the functions

coloration: Pigments (biochromes): Plants and animals commonly possess characteristic pigments. They range in plants from those that impart the brilliant hues of many fungi, through those that give rise to the various browns, reds, and greens of species that can synthesize their food from inorganic substances (autotrophs),…

biozone: …to biozones and teilzones are biochrons and teilchrons, respectively. Biozone is also used synonymously with the terms zone and range zone in stratigraphy.

Triassic Period: Correlation of Triassic strata: …techniques of superposition, lithology, and biochronology—must be used for correlation. Of these three tools, biochronology, the dating of rock strata according to the known succession of fossilized life-forms found within them, has traditionally been regarded as the most accurate and reliable, although more modern methods of sequence stratigraphy are improving…

sedimentary rock: Textural components: Skeletal fragments, also known as bioclasts, can be whole fossils or broken fragments of organisms, depending on current and wave strength as well as depositional depth. The content and texture of the bioclast component in any carbonate will vary noticeably as a function of both age (due to evolution) and…

bioclimatology, branch of climatology that deals with the effects of the physical environment on living organisms over an extended period of time. Although Hippocrates touched on these matters 2,000 years ago in his treatise on Air, Waters, and Places, the science of bioclimatology is relatively

materials science: Materials for medicine: …of biomaterials are limited by biocompatibility, the problem of adverse interactions arising at the junction between the biomaterial and the host tissue. Optimizing the interactions that occur at the surface of implanted biomaterials represents the most significant key to further advances, and an excellent basis for these advances can be…

Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw: …managing director (1978– ) of Biocon India Group, led a pioneering enterprise that utilized India’s homegrown scientific talent to make breakthroughs in clinical research.

control theory: Biocontrol: The advancement of technology (artificial biology) and the deeper understanding of the processes of biology (natural technology) has given reason to hope that the two can be combined; man-made devices should be substituted for some natural functions. Examples are the artificial heart or kidney,…

ecosystem, the complex of living organisms, their physical environment, and all their interrelationships in a particular unit of space. A brief treatment of ecosystems follows. For full treatment, see biosphere. An ecosystem can be categorized into its abiotic constituents, including minerals,

Biodegradability is the capability of a material to be broken down by living organisms, such as bacteria, fungi, or water molds, and reabsorbed by the natural environment. The term usually refers to the natural breakdown of waste by microorganisms. All biodegradable materials are formed of organic

Biodegradability is the capability of a material to be broken down by living organisms, such as bacteria, fungi, or water molds, and reabsorbed by the natural environment. The term usually refers to the natural breakdown of waste by microorganisms. All biodegradable materials are formed of organic

eugenics: Eugenics organizations and legislation: …the United States by the American Eugenics Society.

biodegradability: Stages and rates of biodegradation:

biological determinism, the idea that most human characteristics, physical and mental, are determined at conception by hereditary factors passed from parent to offspring. Although all human traits ultimately are based in a material nature (e.g., memorizing a poem involves changing molecular

biodiesel, a biofuel made primarily from oily plants and algae and to a lesser extent from other oily sources (such as waste cooking fat from restaurant deep-frying). Biodiesel, which has found greatest acceptance in Europe, is used in diesel engines and is usually blended with petroleum diesel

biodiversity, the variety of life found in a place on Earth or, often, the total variety of life on Earth. A common measure of this variety, called species richness, is the count of species in an area. Colombia and Kenya, for example, each have more than 1,000 breeding species of birds, whereas the

Australia: Conservation: …2010 the government implemented Australia’s Biodiversity Conservation Strategy. Scheduled to continue until 2030, this strategy, a joint collaboration of the federal, state, territory, and local governments, provided a guiding framework for achieving conservation of the country’s biodiversity over two decades. Many other conservation projects were initiated across Australia, including the…

hot spot, any one of several biodiverse regions which requires protection on the grounds that it hosts a significant number of endangered species. There are currently 36 biodiversity hot spots worldwide, home to almost two billion people and covering two-thirds of the planet’s mammal, reptile,

biodiversity loss, a decrease in biodiversity within a species, an ecosystem, a given geographic area, or Earth as a whole. Biodiversity, or biological diversity, is a term that refers to the number of genes, species, individual organisms within a given species, and biological communities within a

Convention on Biological Diversity, international treaty designed to promote the conservation of biodiversity and to ensure the sustainable use and equitable sharing of genetic resources. Work on the treaty concluded in Nairobi in May 1992 with the adoption of the Nairobi Final Act by the Nairobi