World Water Crisis: Is There A Way Out?

According to British hydrologist J.A. Allan, a country that imports food crops is essentially importing the water that was used to grow the crops in the exporting country. This virtual water can amount to as much as 1,000 to 5,000 tons of water per ton of crop imported. Virtual water, acquired as food and agricultural products through global food trade, can actually help to overcome

Saladin

Saladin was born into a prominent Kurdish

Kaiser, Georg

Kaiser went to Argentina as a clerk, but ill health forced him to return to Germany. During a long convalescence he wrote his first plays, mainly satirical comedies that attracted little attention. His first success was Die B�rger von Calais (1914; The Burghers of Calais). Produced in 1917 at the height

Fibre Optics

Also spelled �Fiber Optics, � the science of transmitting data, voice, and images by the passage of light through thin, transparent fibres. In telecommunications, fibre optic technology has virtually replaced copper wire in long-distance telephone lines, and it is used to link computers within local area networks. Fibre optics is also the basis of the fibrescopes used in examining internal

Culverwel, Nathanael

Details of Culverwel's life are obscure. Though it is known that he was elected to a fellowship at the University of Cambridge in 1642, he is thought to have suffered a mental breakdown in his last years. His writings

Alapayevsk

Also spelled �Alapaevsk, � city, Sverdlovsk oblast (province), west-central Russia, on the Neyva River. It is one of the oldest centres of the iron and steel industry in the Urals (an ironworks was established there in 1704). It also has machine-tool, timbering, and metalworking industries. Pop. (1991 est.) 50,300.

France, History Of, The Roman conquest

In the 2nd century BC Rome intervened on the side of Massilia in its struggle against the tribes of the hinterland, its main aim being the protection of the route from Italy to its new possessions in Spain. The result was the formation, in 121 BC, of �The Province� (Provincia, whence Provence), an area spanning from the Mediterranean to Lake Geneva, with its capital at Narbo (Narbonne).

Bala

Welsh �Y Bala� market town, Gwynedd county, historic county of Merioneth (Meirionnydd), Wales, in Snowdonia National Park at the northern end of mountain-girt Bala Lake (Llyn Tegid), the largest natural lake in Wales. The town was founded under a charter of 1324. In the 18th century it became famous both for its knitted stockings and for its huge Methodist revival meetings; it was the home of the

Ficino, Marsilio

Ficino was the son of a physician who was acquainted

Ma, Yo-yo

Born to Chinese parents, Ma was a child prodigy and at age five gave his first public recital. He later moved to New York

Indian Philosophy, Origin of the concept of Brahman and atman

The Upanisads answer the question �Who is that one Being?� by establishing the equation Brahman = atman. Brahman - meaning now that which is the greatest, than which there is nothing greater, and also that which bursts forth into the manifested world, the one Being of which the hymn of creation spoke - is viewed as nothing but atman, identifiable as the innermost self in man but

Asceticism

In all strictly ascetic movements, celibacy (q.v.) has been regarded as the first commandment. Virgins and celibates emerged among the earliest Christian communities and came to occupy a prominent status. Among the earliest Mesopotamian Christian communities, only the celibates were accepted as full members of the church, and in some religions only celibates have

Cancellaresca Corsiva

Also called �cancellaresca, �littera da brevi�, or �chancery cursive� in calligraphy, script that in the 16th century became the vehicle of the New Learning throughout Christendom. It developed during the preceding century out of the antica corsiva, which had been perfected by the scribes of the papal chancery. As written by the calligrapher and printer Lodovico degli Arrighi of Vicenza in the early decades of the 16th century, the cancellaresca

Raaff, Anton

Raaff received some vocal experience while being trained for the priesthood as a young man, then in 1736 he began studying with Giovanni Battista Ferrandini in Munich and later with Antonio Bernacchi of Bologna. His career over the next several years took him to Florence, Venice, Bonn,

Managerial Economics

Application of economic principles to decision-making in business firms or of other management units. The basic concepts are derived mainly from microeconomic theory, which studies the behaviour of individual consumers, firms, and industries, but new tools of analysis have been added. Statistical methods, for example, are becoming increasingly important in

Denmark, Flag Of

According to tradition, the Danish flag fell from heaven on June 15, 1219, during the Battle of Lyndanisse (near modern Tallinn, Estonia) as a sign from God of his support for King Valdemar II against the pagan Estonians. Contemporary references to this flag date from a century later, and evidence suggests that the flag was not unique to Denmark. Many small states in the Holy Roman

Port Harcourt

Port town and capital of Rivers state, southern Nigeria. It lies along the Bonny River (an eastern distributary of the Niger River) 41 miles (66 km) upstream from the Gulf of Guinea. Founded in 1912 in an area traditionally inhabited by the Ijo people, it began to serve as a port (named for Lewis Harcourt, then colonial secretary) after the opening of the rail link to the Enugu coalfields

Visscher, Roemer (pieterszoon)

Poet and moralist of the early Dutch Renaissance who was at the centre of the cultural circle that included the young poets Pieter C. Hooft, Joost van den Vondel, and Gerbrand Bredero. A friend of Henric L. Spieghel and Dirck Coornhert, he was foremost in the movement for the purification and standardization

Mathematics, Foundations Of, The axiomatic method

The idea is this: there are a number of basic

Yaizu

City, Shizuoka ken (prefecture), Honshu, Japan, on the west coast of Suruga Bay. Since the Tokugawa era (1603 - 1867), Yaizu has been one of the important coastal fishing ports for tuna, bonito, skipjack, and mackerel. Canning and freezing plants operate there. Deep-sea fishing developed in the early 20th century. Pop. (1989 est.) 111,728.

Riverina

Predominantly rural region, south-central New South Wales, Australia. Occupying 26,509 square miles (68,658 square km), it is bounded on the north and northwest by the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee rivers, on the south by the Murray River, and on the east by an imaginary line connecting the towns of Condobolin, Junee, and Albury. Most of the Riverina comprises level alluvial plains laced

Stereoscopy

Science and technology dealing with two-dimensional drawings or photographs that when viewed by both eyes appear to exist in three dimensions in space. A popular term for stereoscopy is 3-D. Stereoscopic pictures are produced in pairs, the members of a pair showing the same scene or object from slightly different angles that correspond to the angles of vision of

Alexander Island

Also called �Alexander Land, � large island in the Bellingshausen Sea, separated from the Antarctica mainland by the George VI Sound. An extremely rugged region with peaks up to 9,800 feet (2,987 m) above sea level, it is 270 miles (435 km) long and up to 125 miles (200 km) wide and has an area of about 16,700 square miles (43,250 square km). The Russian explorers Bellingshausen and Lazarev discovered the land in 1821 and named it after the Russian tsar.

Kiefer, Anselm

Kiefer abandoned his law studies at the University of Freiburg in 1966 to pursue art. He subsequently studied at art academies in Freiburg, Karlsruhe, and Dusseldorf. In the latter city in 1970 he became a student of the conceptual

Earth Sciences, The rise of subterranean water

Ren� Descartes supposed that the seawater diffused through subterranean channels into large caverns below the tops of mountains. The Jesuit philosopher Athanasius Kircher in his Mundus subterraneus (1664; �Subterranean World�) suggested that the tides pump seawater through hidden channels to points of outlet at springs. To explain the rise of subterranean water

Tacitus

In the 40 years before Tacitus assumed power the empire was ruled by a succession of usurpers and emperors who had been career army officers. On the murder of the emperor Aurelian in 275, the army council invited the Senate to select a nobleman as head of state. The Senate delayed six months before choosing (September

Macdowell, Edward (alexander)

MacDowell first studied in New York with Teresa Carre�o and then at the Conservatoire (1876 - 78) in Paris. In 1878 he went to Germany to study composition

Aqa Mirak

A descendant of the Prophet Muhammad and a native of Esfahan, he worked mostly in Tabriz, the capital of the Safavid empire. He knew the Persian painter Behzad, who was director of the royal library and its manager of manuscript illustration. Aqa Mirak, as one of the senior

Wabar Craters

Group of meteorite craters discovered in 1932 in the Rub' al-Khali desert of Saudi Arabia. The largest crater is 330 feet (100 m) in diameter, 40 feet (12 m) deep, partially filled with sand, and thought to be an explosion crater (formed from an explosion on impact). A crater located 0.6 mile (1 km) northwest is about half the size of the main crater and is thought to be two partially superimposed craters.

Parakramabahu I

The son of Manabharana (one of Ceylon's four regional lords), who controlled the south and who died while Parakrama was still a boy, Parakrama succeeded his father's successor, Siri Megha,

Germanic Religion And Mythology, The gods

Old Norse sources name a great number of deities. The evidence of place-names suggests that one cult succeeded another. Names, especially those in southeastern Norway and southern Sweden, suggest that there was once widespread worship of a god Ull (Ullr). Indeed, an early poem reports an oath on the ring of Ull, suggesting that he was once one of the highest gods, at least