data mining: Descriptive modeling: Descriptive modeling, or clustering, also divides data into groups. With clustering, however, the proper groups are not known in advance; the patterns discovered by analyzing the data are used to determine the groups. For example, an advertiser could analyze a general population in…

phonology: Synchronic (descriptive) phonology investigates sounds at a single stage in the development of a language, to discover the sound patterns that can occur. For example, in English, nt and dm can appear within or at the end of words (“rent,” “admit”) but not at the…

Herbert Spencer: Life and works: …a series of works called Descriptive Sociology, in which information was provided about the social institutions of various societies, both “primitive” and “civilized.” The series was interrupted in 1881 because of a lack of public support. Spencer was a friend and adviser of the social reformer Beatrice Potter, later Beatrice…

statistics: Descriptive statistics: Descriptive statistics are tabular, graphical, and numerical summaries of data. The purpose of descriptive statistics is to facilitate the presentation and interpretation of data. Most of the statistical presentations appearing in newspapers and magazines are descriptive in nature. Univariate methods of descriptive statistics…

Desdemona, fictional character, the wife of Othello and the object of his unwarranted jealousy, in William Shakespeare’s tragic drama Othello (written 1603–04). The daughter of a Venetian senator, Desdemona is greatly loved by Othello, an honoured and heroic Moorish general in the service of

Agustín Moreto: His masterpiece, El desdén con el desdén (“Contempt with Contempt”), based on parts of four plays of Lope de Vega, is marked, as are all his best plays, by its elegance and faithfulness to real life.

Jim Crow law: Challenging the Separate Car Act: On February 24, 1892, 21-year-old Daniel Desdunes purchased a first-class ticket on the Louisville & Nashville from New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama, and took a seat in the whites-only car. He was arrested according to the plan and charged with a criminal violation of the Separate Car Act. Tourgée, Martinet,…

Dese, town, central Ethiopia, situated on the western escarpment of the Great Rift Valley at an elevation of 7,500 feet (2,300 metres). Dese (Amharic: “My Joy”) is a commercial and communications centre, 16 miles (25 km) northwest of Kembolcha, which is at the junction of roads to Addis Ababa and

Deseado River, river in southern Argentina, rising in Lake Buenos Aires in the Andes of southern Chile and Argentina. It flows generally eastward and southeastward through Santa Cruz province. Near Koluel Kayke and Jaramillo it sometimes disappears into the dry soils of Patagonia, but it reemerges

sacrilege, originally, the theft of something sacred; as early as the 1st century bc, however, the Latin term for sacrilege came to mean any injury, violation, or profanation of sacred things. Legal punishment for such acts was already sanctioned, in the Levitical code of ancient Israel. The

busing, in the United States, the practice of transporting students to schools within or outside their local school districts as a means of rectifying racial segregation. Although American schools were technically desegregated in 1954 by the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision handed down in Brown

baseball: Integration: Several major league teams either discussed or attempted the racial integration of professional baseball in the 1940s. The interest in integration in the 1940s was sparked by several factors—the increasing economic and political influence of Black people in urban areas, the success of Black…

Cuba: Plant and animal life: Desembarco del Granma National Park features a series of verdant limestone terraces that range from 1,180 feet (360 metres) above sea level to 590 feet (180 metres) below. Both Desembarco del Granma and Viñales were designated UNESCO World Heritage sites in 1999.

mental disorder: Behavioral psychotherapy: …can be gradual (sometimes called desensitization) or rapid (sometimes known as flooding). Contrary to popular belief, the anxiety that is produced during such controlled exposure is not usually harmful. Even if severe panic initially strikes the sufferer, it will gradually diminish and will be less likely to return in the…

Utah: Mormon settlement and territorial growth: …as the intermountain empire, or Deseret, the latter the name of a proposed state that incorporated most of present-day Arizona and Nevada, portions of Idaho, Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, and approximately one-third of California. Immigrant converts continued to stream into Utah from Europe (especially from Scandinavia and the United…

The Deseret News, daily newspaper published in Salt Lake City, Utah, by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). It was founded as a biweekly in 1850. The word Deseret means “Land of the Honey Bee,” according to the Book of Mormon, and was to have been the name of the anticipated

University of Utah, public, coeducational institution of higher education in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S. It is a comprehensive university with many research opportunities and academic programs. Through 16 colleges and schools it offers some 75 undergraduate degree programs and more than 90 graduate

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio: …protagonist of his acclaimed novel Désert (1980; Desert), is a North African Berber separated from her past and her cultural inheritance when she was forced to flee her desert homeland; she returns pregnant and resolved both to perpetuate her tribal inheritance and to embrace her legacy of memory and transcendence.…

desert, any large, extremely dry area of land with sparse vegetation. It is one of Earth’s major types of ecosystems, supporting a community of distinctive plants and animals specially adapted to the harsh environment. For a list of selected deserts of the world, see below. Desert environments are

Native American: Desert Archaic cultures: Ancient peoples in the present-day Plateau and Great Basin culture areas created distinctive cultural adaptations to the dry, relatively impoverished environments of these regions. The Cochise or Desert Archaic culture began by about 7000 bce and persisted until the

Canning Basin, arid sedimentary basin in northwestern Western Australia. Occupying a largely unexplored area of about 150,000 square miles (400,000 square km), it extends south from the Fitzroy River to the De Grey River and from the coast southeast almost to 128° E longitude. The basin underlies

bird-of-paradise flower: Other species: The desert bird-of-paradise, or bird-of-paradise bush (Erythrostemon gilliesii), is an unrelated shrub of the pea family (Fabaceae) native to South America and naturalized elsewhere. The dwarf poinciana (Caesalpinia pulcherrima), a showy tree grown throughout the American tropics and subtropics, is sometimes known as the Mexican bird-of-paradise…

desert tarantula, (Aphonopelma chalcodes), large hairy North American spider native to arid regions of Arizona, New Mexico, California, and northern Mexico. The taxonomy of the genus is contentious, and some experts limit this species to the populations in the Arizona region of the Sonoran Desert.

Casey Affleck: …in such small films as Desert Blue (1998), 200 Cigarettes (1999), and Michael Almereyda’s modern-day adaptation of Hamlet (2000) before being cast as a member of the crew in the commercially successful caper comedy Ocean’s Eleven (2001), a role he repeated in Ocean’s Twelve (2004) and Ocean’s

cardinal: The desert cardinal (C. sinuatus) is common to the thorn scrub of the American Southwest. Less showy than the northern cardinal, this gray bird with a red mask is also called pyrrhuloxia (formerly part of the bird’s scientific name, combining the Latin name for the bullfinch…

cholla: The desert Christmas cactus, or tasajillo (C. leptocaulis), holds its bright red fruits through the winter. Teddy bear cholla, or jumping cholla (C. bigelovii), is native to northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States and is sometimes cultivated as a desert ornamental for its showy golden…

Lennooideae: sonorae) and desert Christmas tree (P. arenarium). The succulent underground stems of sand food were used as food by Native Americans in what is now Arizona.

Africa: Climatic regions: These are the hot desert, semiarid, tropical wet-and-dry, equatorial (tropical wet), Mediterranean, humid subtropical marine, warm temperate upland, and mountain regions.

West African crocodile, (Crocodylus suchus), large species of crocodile inhabiting forested swamps, marshes, freshwater rivers and streams, and even some arid regions of western and central Africa. The West African crocodile is found from Senegal and The Gambia eastward to Somalia and from Chad,

Desert cultures, in North America, ancient cultures centred on the Great Basin in the area of Nevada, Utah, and Arizona; they lasted from about 7000 or 8000 bc to about 2000 bc. Subsistence was based on gathering wild seeds and plants and on hunting small game; social groups were probably small and

desert dormouse, (Selevinia betpakdalaensis), a rarely seen or captured small rodent of Central Asia. Weighing less than 28 grams (1 ounce), the desert dormouse has a stout rounded body 8 to 10 cm (3.1 to 3.9 inches) long and a slightly shorter fine-haired tail of 6 to 8 cm. Its gray fur is long,

Desert Fathers, early Christian hermits whose practice of asceticism in the Egyptian desert, beginning in the 3rd century, formed the basis of Christian monasticism. Following the example of Jesus’ life of poverty, service, and self-denial, these early monks devoted themselves to vows of austerity,

Waris Dirie: …fashion model, in her autobiography Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad (1998).

Iraq War: Prelude to war: …several Iraqi military installations (code-named Operation Desert Fox). After the bombing, however, Iraq refused to allow inspectors to reenter the country, and during the next several years the economic sanctions slowly began to erode as neighboring countries sought to reopen trade with Iraq.

Henry Hathaway: Film noirs: Just as exciting was The Desert Fox (1951), which included a noteworthy turn by James Mason as German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. Hathaway’s success continued in 1952 with Diplomatic Courier, which starred Power as an American up against communist agents, and O. Henry’s Full House, to which he contributed…

Erwin Rommel was a German field marshal who became the most popular general at home and gained the open respect of his enemies with his spectacular victories as commander of the Afrika Korps in World War II. Rommel’s father was a teacher, as his grandfather had been, and his mother was the daughter

Lewis Allen: …London, and the crime yarn Desert Fury, in which a police officer (Burt Lancaster) wrests his former girlfriend (Lizabeth Scott) away from a compulsive gambler (John Hodiak). The suspenseful So Evil My Love (1948) featured Milland as a con man who seduces a widow (Ann Todd) and manipulates her into…

John G. Avildsen: …the thriller genre again with Desert Heat (also released as Inferno), which starred Jean-Claude Van Damme; the film was loosely based on the 1961 classic Yojimbo by Kurosawa Akira.

hedgehog: …African hedgehogs (genus Atelerix), six desert hedgehogs (genus Hemiechinus), and two steppe hedgehogs (genus Mesechinus). European hedgehogs are kept as pets, as is the African pygmy hedgehog (Atelerix albiventris).

Las Vegas: Emergence of the contemporary city: …Clark, the owner of the Desert Inn, who proposed that the federal government retire its World War II–era debts by holding a national lottery, and Howard Hughes, who kept a suite at the Desert Inn throughout the 1950s and lived there permanently from 1966 to 1970. Some of the investments…

Ironwood Forest National Monument: …preserves a significant stand of desert ironwood trees (Olneya tesota), a species endemic to the Sonoran Desert. The ironwood was named for the extreme density of its wood; it can reach 45 feet (14 metres) in height and live for more than 800 years. It serves as a “nurse plant,”…

locust: The desert locust (Schistocerca gregaria) inhabits dry grasslands and deserts from Africa to the Punjab and can fly upward to about 1,500 metres (5,000 feet) in huge towers of individuals. The smaller Italian and Moroccan locusts (Calliptamus italicus and Dociostaurus maroccanus) cause extensive plant damage in…

Henry de Montherlant: …la Rose de Sable (1954; Desert Love); this book is also highly critical of French colonial rule in North Africa.

caracal, (Caracal caracal), short-tailed cat (family Felidae) found in hills, deserts, and plains of Africa, the Middle East, and central and southwestern Asia. The caracal is a sleek short-haired cat with a reddish brown coat and long tufts of black hairs on the tips of its pointed ears.

night lizard: The desert night lizard (X. vigilis) lives underneath decaying Joshua trees in the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. Among the smallest night lizards, X. vigilis is less than 4 cm (1.6 inches) from snout to vent. It eats small insects and termites that live under logs. A…

Rick Joy: …House (2000), Tubac, Arizona; and Desert Nomad House (2006), Tucson. His designs made generous use of locally available materials, especially adobe bricks and rammed earth, and of the region’s abundant sun and sky, with plays of light and shadow. Outside the region, he designed resorts, homes, lofts, and a railway…

Barry Lopez: …wrote such fictional narratives as Desert Notes: Reflections in the Eye of a Raven (1976) and River Notes: The Dance of Herons (1979). Among his short-story volumes were Winter Count (1981), Light Action in the Caribbean (2000), and Outside (2014). Other notable works included the essay collections Crossing Open Ground

E.H. Palmer: Both journeys he described in The Desert of the Exodus, 2 vol. (1871). The same year he published Jerusalem, the City of Herod and of Saladin, a Muslim view of the history of the city. He was professor of Arabic at Cambridge during 1871–81. In 1882 he was asked by…

Jane Rule: Desert of the Heart (1964; filmed as Desert Hearts, 1984), Rule’s first, best-known novel, is considered a classic of lesbian literature; it traces the lives of two women, separated by age and background, who meet at a boardinghouse and fall in love. In contrast, This…

desert palace, any country dwelling built in Syria, Jordan, and Palestine by Umayyad (661–750 ce) rulers and aristocrats. At one time the complexes were thought to be rural retreats for nomadic rulers and members of ruling families who tired of city life, but, because all of these desert residences

desert pavement, surface of angular, interlocking fragments of pebbles, gravel, or boulders in arid areas. Desert pavement forms on level or gently sloping desert flats, fans, or bajadas and lake and river terraces dating to the Pleistocene Epoch (2.6 million to 11,700 years ago). The percolation

Robert Frost: Works: …private demons, as in “Desert Places,” which could serve to illustrate Frost’s celebrated definition of poetry as a “momentary stay against confusion”:

quail: …Gambel’s, or desert, quail (Lophortyx gambelii). Both species have a head plume (larger in males) curling forward.

quandong, (Santalum acuminatum), small hemiparasitic tree of the sandalwood family (Santalaceae), useful for its edible fruit and seeds. The plant is native to Australia and has a long history of use by Aboriginal peoples. The nutritious red pulpy flesh of the fruit has a distinctive flavour and is

Desert Rats, group of British soldiers who helped defeat the Germans in North Africa during World War II. The Desert Rats, led by Gen. John Harding, were especially noted for a hard-fought three-month campaign against the more-experienced German Afrika Korps, led by Gen. Erwin Rommel (“The Desert

Robert Wise: Films of the 1950s: , lobbyists; The Desert Rats (1953), a sequel to Henry Hathaway’s The Desert Fox (1951), with James Mason repeating his role as German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel; Destination Gobi (1953), another World War II drama; and So Big (1953), an adaptation of Edna Ferber’s

Sting: Solo career: …album’s title song and “Desert Rose,” which featured Algerian rai singer Cheb Mami. That album also went triple platinum and in 1999 won the Grammys for best pop album and for best male pop vocal performance for the single “Brand New Day.”

Larry McMurtry: …Molly, 1974), Cadillac Jack (1982), The Desert Rose (1983), Buffalo Girls (1990; television miniseries 1995), The Evening Star (1992; film 1996), Zeke and Ned (1997), Sin Killer (2002), Loop Group (2004), and The Last Kind Words Saloon (2014). With Diana Ossana he won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay

Persian Gulf War: The coalition air offensive and Iraqi Scud attacks: …and a ground offensive dubbed Operation Desert Sabre (February 24–28). Allied forces had three main objectives during the air campaign: to establish air supremacy, to destroy strategic targets, and to degrade Iraqi ground forces. Coalition pilots had gained air supremacy by January 28. The Iraqi air defense system of aircraft,…

Persian Gulf War: Operation Desert Shield: …military buildup that was designated Operation Desert Shield. On November 29, 1990, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 678 by a vote of 12 to 2, sanctioning the use of force if the Iraqis had not left Kuwait by January 15, 1991. Only Cuba and Yemen voted against the resolution,…

Edward Abbey: His book Desert Solitaire (1968), considered by many to be his best, is an extended meditation on the sublime and forbidding wilderness of southeastern Utah and the human incursions into it. He husbanded his extensive knowledge of the region, admitting “I have written much about a good…

Sigmund Romberg: …My Heart” and “Drinking Song”; The Desert Song (1926), remembered for the title song and “One Alone”; and The New Moon (1928), with “Lover, Come Back to Me” (melody adapted in part from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s June: Barcarolle).

Roy Del Ruth: Early films: …the first all-talking, all-singing operetta, The Desert Song, as well as Gold Diggers of Broadway, which established the studio’s cottage industry of “Gold Diggers” pictures and also unveiled the pop standard “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.”

Persian Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm: Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander in chief of U.S. Central Command(CENTCOM), directed the coalition military campaign, and his staff had devised a two-part operation that was designed to wear down Iraqi defenses before rapidly enveloping…

desert tarantula, (Aphonopelma chalcodes), large hairy North American spider native to arid regions of Arizona, New Mexico, California, and northern Mexico. The taxonomy of the genus is contentious, and some experts limit this species to the populations in the Arizona region of the Sonoran Desert.

ephedra: Major species and uses: …tealike preparation known variously as Mormon tea, Mexican tea, and desert tea.

desert varnish, thin, dark red to black mineral coating (generally iron and manganese oxides and silica) deposited on pebbles and rocks on the surface of desert regions. As dew and soil moisture brought to the surface by capillarity evaporate, their dissolved minerals are deposited on the surface;

wheatgrass: Several species, including desert wheatgrass (Agropyron desertorum) and crested wheatgrass (A. cristatum), are good forage plants and are often used as soil binders in the western United States. Wheatgrass is also the name of juice derived from seedlings of true wheat (Triticum aestivum), sometimes consumed as a health…

woodrat: Some populations of the desert woodrat (N. lepida) and the white-throated woodrat (N. albigula) are black (melanistic).

cold desert, any large arid area of land that typically receives scant amounts of annual precipitation, which occurs mainly in the form of snow or fog. (The upper limit of mean annual precipitation is often considered to be fewer than 25 cm [9.8 inches]; however, sources vary.) Cold deserts are

Félicien-César David: …he produced his “symphonic ode” Le Désert. Resembling an oratorio bordering on opera and embodying Arabic melodies, it was a highly evocative, enormously successful work. Of his five operas, Lalla Roukh (1862) maintained its popularity for 40 years. David also wrote other symphonic odes, songs, and chamber works. His music,…

Albert Memmi: …tale of psychological introspection; and Le Désert (1977), in which violence and injustice are seen as age-old responses to the pain and uncertainty of the human condition.

Portugal: Wildlife of Portugal: …seal is native to Madeira’s Desertas Islands, which were designated a nature reserve in 1990. Some 40 species of birds breed there, including the Madeira laurel pigeon and the Zino’s petrel. The variety of beetles (nearly 700 species, many indigenous) and moths (more than 100 species, about one-fourth of which…

The Deserted Village, pastoral elegy by Oliver Goldsmith, published in 1770. Considered to be one of his major poems, it idealizes a rural way of life that was being destroyed by the displacement of agrarian villagers, the greed of landlords, and economic and political change. In response to the

Louis-Sébastien Mercier: …False Friend”) and the antimilitarist Le Déserteur (published 1770, performed 1782; “The Deserter”); and two historical dramas about the French religious wars, Jean Hennuyer évêque de Lisieux (1772; “Jean Hennuyer, Bishop of Lisieux”) and La Destruction de la ligue (1782; “The Destruction of the League”), which were so anticlerical and…

Moçâmedes Desert, desert, southwestern Africa, extending north along the Atlantic coast of Angola from the Angola-Namibia border for about 275 miles (450 km) and constituting the northernmost extension of the Namib Desert. Fronting the Atlantic Ocean to the west, it gradually ascends in elevation

desertification, the process by which natural or human causes reduce the biological productivity of drylands (arid and semiarid lands). Declines in productivity may be the result of climate change, deforestation, overgrazing, poverty, political instability, unsustainable irrigation practices, or

Abdulrazak Gurnah: Novels: In Desertion (2005) Gurnah illustrates the impact colonialism had on love and various relationships, opening with the story of Martin, an English scholar visiting in East Africa and his affair with Rehana; the tale begins in the late 19th century and continues through multiple generations. In…

Vietnam War: De-escalation, negotiation, and Vietnamization: …Vietnam received dishonourable discharges for desertion (though only a small number of desertions actually took place on the battlefield). Another 10,000 deserters were still at large when the United States withdrew from the war in 1973; most of these took advantage of clemency programs offered under Pres. Gerald R. Ford…

desertification, the process by which natural or human causes reduce the biological productivity of drylands (arid and semiarid lands). Declines in productivity may be the result of climate change, deforestation, overgrazing, poverty, political instability, unsustainable irrigation practices, or

Dino Buzzati: …Il deserto dei Tartari (1940; The Tartar Steppe, also translated as The Stronghold), is a powerful and ironic tale of garrison troops at a frontier military post, poised in expectancy for an enemy who never comes and unable to go forward or retreat.

electronic music: Establishment of electronic studios: Varèse’s Déserts is an early example of this. It is scored for a group of 15 musicians and a two-channel tape and consists of four instrumental episodes interrupted by three tape interludes. In other works the tape recorder is “performed” together with the remaining instruments rather…

Desert—any large, extremely dry area of land with sparse vegetation—is one of Earth’s major types of ecosystems. Deserts are found throughout the world, especially in Africa and Australia. The world’s largest desert is the Sahara, which covers nearly all of northern Africa. The following list

Léon Bloy: His autobiographical novels, Le Désespéré (1886; The Desperate Man) and La Femme pauvre (1897; The Woman Who Was Poor), express his mystical conception of woman as the Holy Spirit and of love as a devouring fire. The eight volumes of his Journal (written 1892–1917; complete edition published 1939)…

Sergio Pitol: …played with cinematic conventions, while El desfile del amor (1984; “The Parade of Love”) used a murder mystery as a framework to experiment with narrative perspective. His later works included memoirs that pushed the boundaries of the genre. El arte de la fuga (1996; “The Art of Flight”) recounted Pitol’s…

Robert Desgabets was a French Benedictine monk, writer, philosopher, and scientist who applied the ideas and methods of René Descartes to theology and philosophy. Desgabets held that the bread of the Eucharist is penetrated by the soul of Christ in the same way that, according to Descartes, the

Magdeleine-Marie Desgarcins was one of the greatest of French tragediennes. Desgarcins made her debut at the Comédie-Française in Jean Racine’s Bajazet (1788) and was at once made a full member of the company. When the conflicts of the Revolution caused a split in the company in 1791, she and

Magdeleine-Marie Desgarcins was one of the greatest of French tragediennes. Desgarcins made her debut at the Comédie-Française in Jean Racine’s Bajazet (1788) and was at once made a full member of the company. When the conflicts of the Revolution caused a split in the company in 1791, she and

Tour de France: History, rules, and teams: Established in 1903 by Henri Desgrange (1865–1940), a French cyclist and journalist, the race has been run every year except during the World Wars. Desgrange’s newspaper, L’Auto (now L’Equipe), sponsored the Tour to boost circulation. Two events sparked spectator interest in the race: in 1910 the riders were sent,…

Affair of the Poisons: …to death, including the poisoner La Voisin (Catherine Deshayes, Madame Monvoisin), who was burned on Feb. 22, 1680.

geochronology: Early attempts at mapping and correlation: Further work by Lyell and Gérard-Paul Deshayes resulted in the term Tertiary being accepted as one of the fundamental divisions of geologic time.

Chittaranjan Das was an Indian politician, a leader of the Indian National Congress, a lawyer, and a poet. He was an integral part of the Indian Independence Movement and the founder of the Swaraj (“Self-Rule”) Party in Bengal under British rule. The people of India honored him with the title

South Asian arts: Further development of the grama-ragas: the two terms marga and deshi. The term marga (literally “the path”) apparently refers to the ancient traditional musical material, whereas deshi (literally “the vulgar dialect spoken in the provinces”) designates the musical practice that was evolving in the provinces, which may have had a more secular basis. Although the…

rangaku: …post on the island of Deshima in Nagasaki Harbour, Japan remained inaccessible to all European nations for some 150 years after 1639, when the Tokugawa government adopted a policy of severely restricted economic and cultural contact with the West. The Dutch language was therefore the only medium by which the…

Antoinette du Ligier de la Garde Deshoulières was a French poet who, from 1672 until her death, presided over a salon that was a meeting place for the prominent literary figures of her day. She was also a leader of the coterie that attacked Jean Racine’s Phèdre. Deshoulières’s poems, the first of

Spanish literature: Novecentismo: …La deshumanización del arte (1925; The Dehumanization of Art), which analyzed contemporary “depersonalized” (i.e., nonrepresentational) art. Ramón Pérez de Ayala made the novel a polished art form and a forum for philosophical discussion. Belarmino y Apolonio (1921; Belarmino and Apolonio) examines the age-old debate between faith and reason, utilizing symbolic…

desi, term broadly used to describe individuals, traditions, and products originating from the Indian subcontinent and its diaspora. Derived from the Sanskrit word desa, meaning “land” or “country,” the word desi has historically been used within the subcontinent to mean “local” or “indigenous.” In

life: Temperature and desiccation: Most familiar organisms on Earth are of course sensitive to extreme temperature in their surroundings. Mammals and birds have evolved internal regulation of their temperatures. Humans cannot tolerate body temperatures below 30 °C (86 °F) or above 40 °C (104 °F). Cold-climate organisms have special…

Desiderio da Settignano was a Florentine sculptor whose works, particularly his marble low reliefs, were unrivaled in the 15th century for subtlety and technical accomplishment. He is perhaps best known for having carved the funerary monument for the humanist Carlo Marsuppini. Desiderio was raised

Blessed Victor III ; beatified July 23, 1887) ; feast day September 16) was the pope from 1086 to 1087. Of noble birth, Dauferi entered the Benedictine monastery of Montecassino, where he changed his name to Desiderius and where in 1058 he succeeded Pope Stephen IX (X) as abbot. His rule at