evolution: Convergent and parallel evolution: This has been called serial homology. There is serial homology, for example, between the arms and legs of humans, between the seven cervical vertebrae of mammals, and between the branches or leaves of a tree. The jointed appendages of arthropods are elaborate examples of serial homology. Crayfish have 19…

serial murder, the unlawful homicide of at least two people carried out by the same person (or persons) in separate events occurring at different times. Although this definition is widely accepted, the crime is not formally recognized in any legal code, including that of the United States. Serial

serial murder, the unlawful homicide of at least two people carried out by the same person (or persons) in separate events occurring at different times. Although this definition is widely accepted, the crime is not formally recognized in any legal code, including that of the United States. Serial

Kathleen Turner: …a private investigator; the comedy Serial Mom (1994); The Virgin Suicides (1999), the feature-film directorial debut of Sofia Coppola; and Marley & Me (2008), a comedy starring Jennifer Aniston. One of Turner’s best-known performances was off-camera, when she provided the husky alluring voice for the cartoon sexpot Jessica Rabbit in…

monogamy: …repeatedly, a practice sometimes called serial monogamy.

serial murder, the unlawful homicide of at least two people carried out by the same person (or persons) in separate events occurring at different times. Although this definition is widely accepted, the crime is not formally recognized in any legal code, including that of the United States. Serial

animal social behaviour: Social interactions involving sex: …may be referred to as serial polyandry, sequential polyandry, or serial monogamy, depending on whether the focus is on mate-switching behaviour or the number of mates at a given time. Serial monogamy can be used to describe species such as the milkweed leaf beetle (Labidomera clivicollis), in which males and…

computer science: Information management: Many file systems are sequential, meaning that successive records are processed in the order in which they are stored, starting from the beginning and proceeding to the end. This file structure was particularly popular in the early days of computing, when files were stored on reels of magnetic tape…

human intelligence: Cognitive theories: …what psychologists call the “serial processing of information,” meaning that in these examples, cognitive processes are executed in series, one after another. Yet the assumption that people process chunks of information one at a time may be incorrect. Many psychologists have suggested instead that cognitive processing is primarily parallel.…

information processing: Recording media: …of its location, while in serial-access media the access time depends on the data’s location and the position of the read-write head. The typical serial-access medium is magnetic tape. The storage density of magnetic tape has increased considerably over the years, mainly by increases in the number of tracks packed…

serialism, in music, technique that has been used in some musical compositions roughly since World War I. Strictly speaking, a serial pattern in music is merely one that repeats over and over for a significant stretch of a composition. In this sense, some medieval composers wrote serial music,

igneous rock: Fabric: …generally characterized either by a seriate fabric, in which the variation in grain size is gradual and essentially continuous, or by a porphyritic fabric, involving more than one distinct range of grain sizes. Both of these kinds of texture are common. The relatively large crystals in a porphyritic rock ordinarily…

human behaviour: Cognitive development: This ability is called seriation. A seven-year-old can arrange eight sticks of different lengths in order from shortest to longest, indicating that the child appreciates a relation among the different sizes of the objects. Seriation is crucial to understanding the relations between numbers and hence to learning arithmetic. Children…

history of technology: The mastery of iron: …steel in Roman times was Seric steel, brought into the Western world from India, where it was produced in blocks a few inches in diameter by a crucible process, melting the ingredients in an enclosed vessel to achieve purity and consistency in the chemical combination.

lespedeza: Sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata) is widely used in American agriculture as a pasture crop. Because of its great root system, its dense growth canopy, and its ability to grow on badly eroded soils, the sericea lespedeza is also extremely useful in soil conservation. Some shrublike…

sericulture: …second pair of glands secretes sericin, a gummy substance that cements the two filaments together. Because an emerging moth would break the cocoon filament, the larva is killed in the cocoon by steam or hot air at the chrysalis stage.

sericite, fine-grained variety of either of the silicate minerals muscovite and paragonite

sericulture, the production of raw silk by means of raising caterpillars (larvae), particularly those of the domesticated silkworm (Bombyx mori). The production of silk generally involves two processes: The silkworm caterpillar builds its cocoon by producing and surrounding itself with a long,

bowerbird: …satin bowerbird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus); the regent bowerbird (Sericulus chrysocephalus) and its relatives; and the spotted bowerbird (Chlamydera maculata) and its relatives. Satin and regent bowerbirds make a paint of vegetable pulp, charcoal, and saliva and apply it to the interior walls; a daub of green leaves may be used—a rare…

Gaston Gallimard: …1933) as well as the Série Noire, a series of some 2,000 thrillers, detective novels, and spy stories.

seriema, South American bird of grasslands, constituting the family Cariamidae (order Gruiformes). There are two species, both restricted to southern-central South America. The red-legged, or crested, seriema (Cariama cristata), with long legs and neck, stands about 60 cm (2 feet) tall. The beak

series circuit, any electrically conducting pathway comprising an electric circuit along which the whole current flows through each component. The total current in a series circuit is equal to the current through any resistor in the series. This can be illustrated by the equation below:Itotal = I1

spectral line series: …the shortest wavelength, called the series limit. Hydrogen displays five of these series in various parts of the spectrum, the best-known being the Balmer series in the visible region. Johann Balmer, a Swiss mathematician, discovered (1885) that the wavelengths of the visible hydrogen lines can be expressed by a simple…

magnetic circuit: …the circuit is called a series magnetic circuit.

electric motor: Direct-current commutator motors: …of commutator motor is the series motor in which the field coils, with relatively few turns, carry the same current as does the armature. With a high value of current, the flux is high, making the torque high and the speed low. As the current is reduced, the torque is…

Lawrence Weiner: He renamed it A Series of Stakes Set in the Ground at Regular Intervals to Form a Rectangle—Twine Strung from Stake to Stake to Demark a Grid—a Rectangle Removed from This Rectangle (1968).

Daniel Handler: …author best known for his A Series of Unfortunate Events, a 13-book collection of unhappy morality tales for older children that was published between 1999 and 2006. Handler wrote the series under the pen name Lemony Snicket.

Daniel Handler: …novels for the Netflix show A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017–19), starring Neil Patrick Harris.

ohmmeter: If in series (series ohmmeter), current will decrease as resistance rises. Ratio meters measure the ratio of the voltage across the resistance to the current flowing through it. For high resistances, the scale is usually graduated in megohms (106 ohms), and the instrument is called a megohmmeter, or…

Max Klinger: …two series of pen-and-ink drawings—Series upon the Theme of Christ and Fantasies upon the Finding of a Glove. Their daring originality caused an outburst of indignation; nonetheless, the Glove series, on which Klinger’s contemporary reputation is based, was bought by the Berlin National Gallery. These 10 drawings (engraved in…

typography: Typography as a useful art: …the lowercase “n” rest are serifs, as is the backward pointing slab atop the lowercase “i” or “l,” and sans serif types are those in which such embellishments are lacking [T I]). But the difficulty is that almost every study ever completed has indicated that sans serif type is less…

silkscreen, sophisticated stenciling technique for surface printing, in which a design is cut out of paper or another thin, strong material and then printed by rubbing, rolling, or spraying paint or ink through the cut out areas. It was developed about 1900 and originally used in advertising and

Italian literature: The Enlightenment (Illuminismo): …philosophical novel by the Venetian Zaccaria Seriman, which tells of an imaginary voyage in the manner of Jonathan Swift and Voltaire, was the most all-embracing satire of the time.

Asia: Chronological summary: The North Tarim fragment is really a thin sliver caught up in younger orogenic belts. Its Precambrian history is not entirely dissimilar to that of the Yangtze paraplatform, although not all major breaks in their sedimentary and structural evolution or the details in their sedimentary successions…

serine, an amino acid obtainable by hydrolysis of most common proteins, sometimes constituting 5 to 10 percent by weight of the total product. First isolated in 1865 from sericin, a silk protein, serine is one of several so-called nonessential amino acids for mammals; i.e., they can synthesize it

Shrirangapattana, town, south-central Karnataka state, southern India. It is situated at the western end of an island in the Kaveri (Cauvery) River, just north of Mysore. The town is named for its 12th-century temple dedicated to Shri Ranga (the Hindu god Vishnu). It was fortified in the 15th

Chico Mendes: …defended the interests of the seringueiros, or rubber tree tappers, in the Amazonian state of Acre, calling for land reform and preservation of the Amazon Rainforest. His activism won him recognition throughout Brazil and internationally but also provoked the enmity of local ranchers, who eventually arranged his murder.

canary, (species Serinus canaria), popular cage bird of the family Fringillidae (order Passeriformes). It owes its coloration and sustained vocal powers to 400 years of selective breeding by humans. Varieties called rollers trill almost continuously, the notes running together; choppers have a loud

amberjack, any of several popular sport fishes. See

carangid: The greater amberjack (Seriola dumerili), for example, reaches a length and weight of about 1.8 m (6 feet) and 70 kg (150 pounds). The members of the family are known by various common names. There are the moonfish, pompano, pilot fish, runner, jack (qq.v.), and others.…

David Storey: …Child (1982), Present Times (1984), A Serious Man (1998), As It Happened (2002), and Thin-Ice Skater (2004).

Coen brothers: …Pitt, and the dark comedy A Serious Man (2009), which centred on a Jewish family in the late 1960s and earned Academy Award nominations for best picture and best original screenplay.

Caryl Churchill: Serious Money (1987) is a comedy about excesses in the financial world, and Icecream (1989) investigates Anglo-American stereotypes. The former received an Obie for best new American play.

Meg Ryan: Later work: …well as the 2009 film Serious Moonlight. Ryan also appeared on TV, including Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm in 2009 and Lisa Kudrow’s Web Therapy in 2013. For most of the 2010s and early 2020s, however, she acted only occasionally. In 2015 Ryan directed her first movie, Ithaca, a World…

feminism: The ancient world: …a more reasoned rejoinder in A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694, 1697). The two-volume work suggested that women inclined neither toward marriage nor a religious vocation should set up secular convents where they might live, study, and teach.

Stanley Middleton: …great joy in his creativity; A Serious Woman (1961) and Two’s Company (1963), both of which explore compelling sexual attraction as the sole basis for a relationship; and Holiday (1974; cowinner of a Booker Prize), which concerns remembered childhood summer vacations and a hiatus taken from a marriage. Middleton’s other…

Sapindales: Distribution and abundance: …genera in the family are Serjania (215 species), which occurs from the southern United States to tropical South America and has a main centre of diversity in southeastern Brazil, and Paullinia (195 species) in the American tropics and subtropics. Both are lianas or vines. Allophylus is a tropical and subtropical…

legal profession: England after the Conquest: More particularly, they could become serjeants—the most dignified of the advocates, from whom alone after about 1300 the royal judges were appointed. Various agents for litigation resembling procurators also became known. The “attorneys,” authorized by legislation, at first shared the life of the Inns with the “apprentices” in advocacy, who…

John Arden: …followed by his best-known work, Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance (1959), set in a colliery town in 1860–80. Both plays caused controversy.

sergeanty, in European feudal society, a form of land tenure granted in return for the performance of a specific service to the lord, whether the king or another. Sergeants included artisans, bailiffs within the lord’s realm, domestic servants, and sometimes those who provided the lord with some

sergeanty, in European feudal society, a form of land tenure granted in return for the performance of a specific service to the lord, whether the king or another. Sergeants included artisans, bailiffs within the lord’s realm, domestic servants, and sometimes those who provided the lord with some

Peter Serkin was an American pianist noted for his performances of classical and contemporary works. A son of pianist Rudolf Serkin, Peter was a prodigy who by the age of 12 played concertos by W.A. Mozart and F.J. Haydn in concert with American orchestras. He attended the Curtis Institute in

Rudolf Serkin was an Austrian-born American pianist and teacher who concentrated on the music of J.S. Bach, W.A. Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, and Johannes Brahms. A student of Richard Robert (piano) and of Joseph Marx and Arnold Schoenberg (composition), Serkin made his debut with

Palladian window, in architecture, three-part window composed of a large, arched central section flanked by two narrower, shorter sections having square tops. This type of window, popular in 17th- and 18th-century English versions of Italian designs, was inspired by the so-called Palladian motif,

Rod Serling was an American writer and producer of television dramas and screenplays who was perhaps best known for his work on the series The Twilight Zone (1959–64). Serling served in the U.S. Army during World War II and began writing scripts for Cincinnati radio and television stations while a

Rod Serling was an American writer and producer of television dramas and screenplays who was perhaps best known for his work on the series The Twilight Zone (1959–64). Serling served in the U.S. Army during World War II and began writing scripts for Cincinnati radio and television stations while a

Sebastiano Serlio was an Italian Mannerist architect, painter, and theorist who wrote the influential architecture treatise Tutte l’opere d’architettura, et prospetiva (1537–75; “Complete Works on Architecture and Perspective”). Serlio originally trained as a painter, and in 1514 he went to Rome,

antiestrogen: Selective estrogen-receptor modulators (SERMs), such as tamoxifen and raloxifene, produce estrogen action in those tissues (e.g., bone, brain, liver) where that action is beneficial and have either no effect or an antagonistic effect in tissues, such as the breast and uterus, where estrogen action may…

Agustina Bessa-Luís: …manto (1961; “The Mantle”), and O sermão de fogo (1963; “The Sermon of Fire”). She remained a prolific novelist through the turn of the 21st century, and in 2004 she received the Camões Prize, the most prestigious prize for literature in Portuguese. In addition, several of her works were adapted…

Tennis Court Oath, (June 20, 1789), dramatic act of defiance by representatives of the nonprivileged classes of the French nation (the Third Estate) during the meeting of the Estates-General (traditional assembly) at the beginning of the French Revolution. The deputies of the Third Estate,

Claudin de Sermisy was a singer and composer who, with his contemporary Clément Janequin, was one of the leading composers of chansons (part-songs) in the early 16th century. His name was associated with that of the mid-13th-century Sainte-Chapelle, Louis IX’s magnificent palace chapel, as early as

Claudin de Sermisy was a singer and composer who, with his contemporary Clément Janequin, was one of the leading composers of chansons (part-songs) in the early 16th century. His name was associated with that of the mid-13th-century Sainte-Chapelle, Louis IX’s magnificent palace chapel, as early as

Wulfstan: His most famous work, the Sermo Lupi ad Anglos (“Sermon of Wolf to the English”), is an impassioned call to his countrymen to repentance and reform in 1014, after Aethelred had been driven out by the Danish invasions of King Sweyn.

liturgy of the Word: The priest then delivers the homily (a short sermon), which usually focuses on one of the readings or on that day’s special occasion. Then follows the public profession of faith, consisting of a recitation of either the Nicene Creed or the shorter Apostles’ Creed. The Nicene Creed is a succinct…

Cristóbal de Castillejo: …known for his erotic poetry, Sermón de amores (1542), which was suppressed in part by the Inquisition because of the levity with which it treated sacred texts.

Eustache Le Sueur: …among the most important being The Sermon of Saint Paul at Ephesus, and his famous series of 22 paintings of the Life of St. Bruno, executed in the cloister of the Chartreux. Stylistically dominated by the art of Nicolas Poussin, Raphael, and Vouet, Le Sueur had a graceful facility in…

Hilarion Of Kiev: Entitled “Sermon on Law and Grace,” the encomium not only rhetorically extolled the monarch for implanting the true religion in his country but also eulogized the Slavic people. Recalling the historical events by which Saint Vladimir uprooted the pre-Christian Slavic cults so that Christian worship and…

Sermon on the Mount, a biblical collection of religious teachings and ethical sayings of Jesus of Nazareth, as found in Matthew, chapters 5–7. The sermon was addressed to disciples and a large crowd of listeners to guide them in a life of discipline based on a new law of love, even to enemies, as

Italian literature: The Enlightenment (Illuminismo): …satire of the blank verse Sermoni (1763; “Sermons,” modeled on Horace) by the “melancholy” Gasparo Gozzi (elder brother of Carlo) is less pungent, though directed at similar ends, and in his two periodicals—La Gazzetta Veneta and L’Osservatore—he presented a lively chronicle of Venetian life and indicated

Carl Gustaf af Leopold: …is probably “Predikaren” (1794; “The Sermonizer”), notable for its cynical portrait of courtiers.

Hugh Blair: …professor, best known for his Sermons, which enjoyed an extraordinary popularity during his lifetime, and for his lectures on rhetoric and the fine arts.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux: Pillar of the church: His greatest literary endeavour, “Sermons on the Canticle of Canticles,” was written during this active time. It revealed his teaching, often described as “sweet as honey,” as in his later title doctor mellifluus. It was a love song supreme: “The Father is never fully known if He is not…

Che Guevara was a theoretician and tactician of guerrilla warfare, a prominent communist figure in the Cuban Revolution (1956–59), and a guerrilla leader in South America. After his execution by the Bolivian army, he was regarded as a martyred hero by generations of leftists worldwide, and his

Holocene Epoch: Floral change: …in Scandinavia by Axel Blytt, Johan Rutger Sernander, and E.J. Lennart von Post, in combination with a theory of Holocene climate changes. The so-called Blytt–Sernander system was soon tied to the archaeology and to the varve chronology of Gerard De Geer. It has been closely checked by radiocarbon dating, establishing…

Macchiaioli: …feeling for his subject; and Raffaello Sernesi (1838–66) and Giuseppe Abbati (1836–68), both of whom also used colour in a highly original manner.

PCP, hallucinogenic drug with anesthetic properties, having the chemical name 1-(1-phenylcyclohexyl)piperidine. PCP was first developed in 1956 by Parke Davis Laboratories of Detroit for use as an anesthetic in veterinary medicine, though it is no longer used in this capacity. Used for a brief time

Kazimierz Serocki was a Polish composer who was a founding member, with Jan Krenz and Tadeusz Baird, of the Group 49 movement, which helped gain international recognition for post-World War II Polish music. In 1956, Serocki participated with Tadeusz Baird in the foundation of the Warsaw Autumn

serological test, any of several laboratory procedures carried out on a sample of blood serum (the clear liquid that separates from the blood when it is allowed to clot) for the purpose of detecting antibodies or antibody-like substances that appear specifically in association with certain

bacteria: Biotypes of bacteria: …thousands of different strains (called serovars, for serological variants), which differ from one another mainly or solely in the antigenic identity of their lipopolysaccharide, flagella, or capsule. Different serovars of enteric bacteria—such as E. coli and Salmonella enterica, for example—are often found to be associated with the ability to inhabit…

Jules Bordet: …significantly to the foundation of serology, the study of immune reactions in body fluids. In 1895 he found that two components of blood serum are responsible for the rupture of bacterial cell walls (bacteriolysis): one is a heat-stable antibody found only in animals already immune to the bacterium; the other…

antibiotic: Antituberculosis antibiotics: Cycloserine, an antibiotic produced by Streptomyces orchidaceus, is also used in the treatment of tuberculosis. A structural analog of the amino acid d-alanine, it interferes with enzymes necessary for incorporation of d-alanine into the bacterial cell wall. It is rapidly absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract…

Isabelle de Charrière was a Swiss novelist whose work anticipated early 19th-century emancipated ideas. She married her brother’s Swiss tutor and settled at Colombier near Neuchâtel. Influenced by Denis Diderot and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, she expressed views critical of aristocratic privilege, moral

chorion, in reptiles, birds, and mammals, the outermost membrane around the embryo. It develops from an outer fold on the surface of the yolk sac. In insects the chorion is the outer shell of the insect egg. In vertebrates, the chorion is covered with ectoderm lined with mesoderm (both are germ

South Africa: …era the South African poet Mongane Wally Serote remarked,

serotine, (genus Eptesicus), any of 23 species of vesper bats (family Vespertilionidae). Frequently, the name serotine is used for Old World members of the genus, and brown bat is used for New World

brown bat: …North American species, and the serotine (E. serotinus) is a stoutly built Eurasian form.

serotonin, a chemical substance that is derived from the amino acid tryptophan. It occurs in the brain, intestinal tissue, blood platelets, and mast cells and is a constituent of many venoms, including wasp venom and toad venom. Serotonin is a potent vasoconstrictor and functions as a

nervous system: Serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine): Serotonin receptors, or 5HT receptors, activate calcium and potassium channels through linking proteins and the cAMP second-messenger systems. After acting on the postsynaptic receptors, the neurotransmitter is taken up by the presynaptic terminal and enzymatically degraded.

antidepressant: SSRIs were introduced in the 1980s, and shortly thereafter they became some of the most commonly used antidepressants, primarily because they have fewer side effects than tricyclics or MAOIs. SSRIs include fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), and sertraline (Zoloft). SSRIs are also used in the treatment…

trazodone: …levels, a condition known as serotonin syndrome may develop. If left untreated, severe serotonin syndrome can cause death; milder forms of the syndrome can be treated by stopping medications until serotonin decreases to a safe level.

salivary gland: Salivary glands may be predominantly serous, mucous, or mixed in secretion. Mucus is a thick, clear, and somewhat slimy substance. Serous secretion is a more liquid opalescent fluid composed of water and proteins, such as the digestive enzyme amylase. Depending on the types of cells present, the glands may be…

extracellular fluid: …in body cavities lined with serous (moisture-exuding) membrane, in the cavities and channels of the brain and spinal cord, and in muscular and other body tissues. It differs from intracellular fluid (fluid within the cells) in that it generally has a high concentration of sodium and low concentration of potassium,…

Serov, city, Sverdlovsk oblast (region), western Russia. It lies along the Kakva River, a tributary of the Sosva River. The city developed in the 1890s into the largest pre-Revolutionary ironworking centre in the Ural Mountains, producing rails for the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Today, with a large,

Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov was a Russian artist whose works reflect a turning point in the style and weltanschauung of Russian art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as the shift from realism by way of Impressionism to Art Nouveau. Serov himself seemed to manifest the link between

bacteria: Biotypes of bacteria: …thousands of different strains (called serovars, for serological variants), which differ from one another mainly or solely in the antigenic identity of their lipopolysaccharide, flagella, or capsule. Different serovars of enteric bacteria—such as E. coli and Salmonella enterica, for example—are often found to be associated with the ability to inhabit…

Stone Age: Asian cultures: (2) Serovo, characterized by thinner pottery, decorated by dentate stamping, boss, pit, and net impressions and by stone inventory of more regular forms; reinforced bows with bone backing and fish effigies of stone appear. A marked increase of population is indicated by settlements covering hundreds of…

serow, (genus Capricornis), any of five species of goatlike mammals that range from Japan and Taiwan to western India, through eastern China, Southeast Asia, and the Himalayan region. Serows belong either to the tribe Rupicaprini (goat antelopes) or, according to another view, to their own tribe

Serowe, village, east-central Botswana. It lies southwest of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, and 30 miles (50 km) northwest of the Cape-to-Zimbabwe railway. Most of the country’s inhabitants live in large centralized villages of from 500 to 25,000 inhabitants. Serowe, the largest of these, is the traditional

Itacoatiara, city and river port, northeastern Amazonas estado (state), northwestern Brazil. Formerly known as Serpa, the settlement lies on the left (north) bank of the Amazon River, downstream from its junction with the Madeira River and approximately 110 miles (180 km) east of Manaus, the state

Menongue, town, southeastern Angola. It was originally named for Alexandre Alberto da Rocha de Serpa Pinto, a late 19th-century Portuguese explorer of the interior of southern Africa. Located on the Cuebe River (a tributary of the Okavango [Kubango] River) at an elevation of 4,462 feet (1,360