Stanley brothers U.S. bluegrass duo. The duo consisted of Ralph (Edmund) Stanley (b. Feb. 25, 1927, Stratton, Va., U.S.) on banjo and Carter (Glen) Stanley (b. Aug. 27, 1925, McClure, Va.—d. Dec. 1, 1966, Bristol, Va.) on lead guitar. The brothers rose to fame performing tradi¬ tional religious songs in a traditional Appalachian bluegrass style marked by tight, high-pitched harmonies and strongly influenced by Bill Monroe. With their band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, they had several hit record¬ ings. After Carter’s death, Ralph reorganized the band. He has recorded more than 150 albums.
Stanley Cup Trophy awarded annually to the winning team of the National Hockey League championship. Named for its donor, the Canadian governor-general Frederick Arthur Stanley, Lord Stanley of Preston (1841-1908), the Stanley Cup was first awarded in the 1893-94 season. It is the oldest trophy that can be won by professional athletes in North America.
Stanleyville See Kisangani
Stanovoy \,sta-n3-'v6i\ Mountains Mountain range, eastern Russia, in Asia. It is part of the watershed between the Pacific and Arctic oceans. The mountains are generally not high, although they reach about 8,000 ft (2,400 m) in the east. They contain deposits of gold, coal, and mica.
Stanton, Edwin M(cMasters) (b. Dec. 19, 1814, Steubenville, Ohio, U.S.—d. Dec. 24, 1869, Washington, D.C.) U.S. secretary of war (1862— 68). A lawyer and abolitionist, he was appointed U.S. attorney general in 1861 and secretary of war in 1862. He ably administered the Union mili¬ tary effort in the American Civil War, and he later helped lead the inves¬ tigation of Pres. Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Conflict with Pres. Andrew Johnson over Reconstruction policy and his alliance with the Radical Republicans led to Stanton’s dismissal by Johnson, in deliberate violation of the Tenure of Office Act. Stanton refused to leave office, but he resigned after Johnson was acquitted in the impeachment trial.
Stanton, Elizabeth Cady orig. Elizabeth Cady (b. Nov. 12,1815, Johnstown, N.Y., U.S.—d. Oct. 26, 1902, New York, N.Y.) U.S. social reformer and women’s suffrage leader. She graduated from Troy Female Seminary (1832), and in 1840 she married the abolitionist Henry B. Stan¬ ton and began working to secure passage of a New York law giving prop¬ erty rights to married women. She and Lucretia Mott organized the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention. She joined forces in 1850 with Susan B. Anthony in the woman suffrage movement, and later she coedited the women’s- rights newspaper The Revolution (1868-70). In 1869 she became the founding president of the National Woman Suffrage Association.
Stanwyck, Barbara orig. Ruby Stevens (b. July 16, 1907, Brook¬ lyn, N.Y., U.S.—d. Jan. 20, 1990, Santa Monica, Calif.) U.S. film actress. She made her screen debut in 1927 and went on to appear in over 80 films, often portraying strong-willed, independent women. Her movies include Stella Dallas (1937), Union Pacific (1939), Ball of Fire (1942), Double Indemnity (1944), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), and Executive Suite (1954). She later starred in the television series The Big Valley (1965-69), and she appealed in the popular miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983). She received several Academy Award nominations, but she failed to win an award until she was granted an honorary award in 1981.
staphylococcus X.sta-fo-lo-'ka-kosX Any of the spherical bacteria that make up the genus Staphylococcus. The best-known species are present in great numbers on the mucous membranes and skin of all humans and other warm-blooded animals. The cells characteristically group together in grapelike clusters. Staphylococci are gram-positive (see gram stain) and stationary and do not require oxygen. Of significance to humans is the species S. aureus, an important agent of wound infections, boils, and other human skin infections, and one of the most common causes of food poi¬ soning. It also causes udder inflammation in domestic animals and breast infections in women. The largest cause of hospital infections (accounting for almost 15%), “staph” is often difficult to treat because of its increas¬ ing resistance to antibiotics.
star Any massive celestial body of gas that shines by radiant energy generated inside it. The Milky Way Galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars; only a very small fraction are visible to the unaided eye. The closest star is about 4.2 light-years from the Sun; the most distant are in galaxies billions of light-years away. Single stars such as the Sun are the minority; most stars occur in pairs, multiple systems, or clusters (see BINARY STAR; GLOBULAR CLUSTER; OPEN CLUSTER). CONSTELLATIONS Consist not of such groupings but of stars in the same direction as seen from Earth. Stars vary greatly in brightness (magnitude), colour, temperature, mass, size, chemical composition, and age. In nearly all, hydrogen is the most abun¬ dant element. Stars are classified by their spectra (see spectrum), from blue-white to red, as O, B, A, F, G, K, or M; the Sun is a spectral type G star. Generalizations on the nature and evolution of stars can be made from correlations between certain properties and from statistical results (see Hertzsprung-Russell diagram). A star forms when a portion of a dense inter¬ stellar cloud of hydrogen and dust grains collapses from its own gravity. As the cloud condenses, its density and internal temperature increase until
Sir Henry Morton Stanley, detail of a portrait by Sir Hubert von Herkomer; in the City Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol, Gloucestershire, England.
COURTESY OF THE CITY MUSEUM & ART GALLERY, BRISTOL, ENGLAND
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Star Chamber ► Starr I 1813
it is hot enough to trigger nuclear fusion in its core (if not, it becomes a brown dwarf). After hydrogen is exhausted in the core from nuclear burn¬ ing, the core shrinks and heats up while the star’s outer layers expand significantly and cool, and the star becomes a red giant. The final stages of a star’s evolution, when it no longer produces enough energy to coun¬ teract its own gravity, depend largely on its mass and whether it is a com¬ ponent of a close binary system (see black hole; neutron star; nova; pulsar; supernova; white dwarf star). Some stars other than the Sun are known to have one or more planets (see planets of other stars). See also Cepheid vari¬ able; DWARF star; ECLIPSING VARIABLE STAR; FLARE STAR; GIANT STAR; POPULATIONS I AND II; SUPERGIANT STAR; T TAURI STAR; VARIABLE STAR.
Star Chamber British prerogative court that exercised wide civil and criminal jurisdiction and was marked by secrecy, the absence of juries, and an inquisitorial rather than accusatorial system of justice. It met in a room in the palace of Westminster whose ceiling was decorated with stars. It was employed extensively under Henry VIII because of its ability to enforce the law when other courts were unable to do so because of cor¬ ruption and influence. When Charles I used it to enforce unpopular politi¬ cal and ecclesiastical policies, it became a symbol of oppression to his and Archbishop William Laud’s parliamentary and Puritan opponents (though it never imposed the death penalty), and it was abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641.
Star of David See Star of David Star Wars See Strategic Defense Initiative
starch Any of several white, granular organic compounds produced by all green plants. They are polysaccharides with the general chemical for¬ mula (C 6 H 10 O 5 ) n , where n may range from 100 to several thousand; the constituent monosaccharides are glucose units made in photosynthesis. The glucose chains are unbranched in amylose and branched in amylopectin, which occur mixed in starches. Starch consumed by animals is broken down into glucose by enzymes during digestion. Commercial starch is made mainly from corn, though wheat, tapioca, rice, and potato starch are also used. Starch has many uses in foods and the food industry, as well as in the paper, textile, and personal-care products industries and in adhesives, explosives, and oil-well drilling fluids and as a mold-release agent. Ani¬ mal starch is another name for glycogen. See also carbohydrate.