Taxco \'tas-ko\ in full Taxco de Alarcon Town (pop., 2000: 50,488), Guerrero state, south-central Mexico. A silver-mining site in pre- Columbian times, it became one of the first mining centres to be inhab¬ ited by Spaniards. It prospered in the colonial period and is still renowned for its silver. Because of its colonial character, with its cobblestone streets and the baroque Church of Santa Prisca, it has been declared a national landmark.
taxidermy Practice of creating lifelike representations of animals by using their prepared skins and various supporting structures. Taxidermy began with the ancient custom of keeping trophies of the hunt. Beginning in the 18th century, a growing interest in natural history resulted in col¬ lections and exhibits of birds, beasts, and curiosities. Chemically preserv¬ ing skins, hair, and feathers made it possible to recreate the appearance of live animals by stuffing the sewed-up skin with straw or hay. Con¬ structing and sculpting anatomically correct manikins of clay and plaster are the basis of modem taxidermy.
Taxila \'tak-so-b\ Ancient city, northwestern Pakistan. Its ruins, includ¬ ing temples and a fortress, lie just northwest of Rawalpindi. It was the capital of the Buddhist kingdom of Gandhara and a centre of learning. Founded by Bharata, the younger brother of Rama, it came under Persian rule and in 326 bc was surrendered to Alexander the Great. Ruled by a succession of conquerors, including Bactrians and Scythians, the city became an important Buddhist centre under King Ashoka (c. 261 bc). The apostle Thomas reputedly visited it in the 1st century ad. Taxila’ s pros¬ perity in ancient times resulted from its position at the junction of three great trade routes. When they declined, the city sank into insignificance; it was finally destroyed by the Huns in the 5th century.
taxol \'taks-ol\ Organic compound with a complex multi-ring molecule that occurs in the bark of Pacific yew trees ( Taxus brevifolia). It is active against certain cancers of the lung, ovary, breast, head, and neck, disrupt¬ ing cell division and interfering with separation of the nuclear chromo¬ somes. A semisynthetic process to make it from yew needles and twigs eliminated the prospect of widespread destruction of yew forests, and total synthesis methods were later developed.
taxonomy \tak-'sa-n3-me\ In biology, the classification of organisms into a hierarchy of groupings, from the general to the particular, that reflect evolutionary and usually morphological relationships: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species. The black-capped chickadee, for example, is an animal (kingdom Animalia) with a dorsal nerve cord (phy¬ lum Chordata) and feathers (class Aves: birds) that perches (order Passe¬ riformes: perching birds) and is small with a short bill (family Paridae), a song that sounds like “chik-a-dee” (genus Parus ), and a black-capped head (species atricapillus ). Most authorities recognize five kingdoms: monerans (prokaryotes), protists, fungi (see fungus), plants, and animals. Carolus Linnaeus established the scheme of using Latin generic and spe¬ cific names in the mid-18th century; his work was extensively revised by later biologists.
Tay, River Longest river in Scotland. It rises on the northern slopes of Ben Lui and flows through Loch Tay to enter the North Sea below Dundee after a course of 120 mi (193 km). It drains 2,400 sq mi (6,200 sq km), the largest drainage area in Scotland.
Tay-Sachs \'ta-'saks\ disease Recessive hereditary metabolic disor¬ der, mostly in Ashkenazi Jews, causing progressive mental and neurologic deterioration and death by age five. A lipid, ganglioside GM 2 , accumulates in the brain (because of inadequate activity of the enzyme that breaks it
© 2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Taylor ► Taymyr Peninsula I 1879
down), with devastating neurological effects. Infants appear normal at birth but soon become listless and inattentive, lose motor abilities, and develop seizures. Blindness and general paralysis usually precede death. Tests can detect the disease in fetuses and the Tay-Sachs gene in carriers. There is no treatment.
Taylor, Dame Elizabeth (Rosemond) (b. Feb. 27, 1932, London, Eng.) U.S. film actress. She left London for Los Angeles with her Ameri¬ can parents at the outset of World War II. Noted for her exceptional beauty from childhood, she was discovered by a talent scout in Beverly Hills. She made her screen debut in 1942, appeared in Lassie Come Home in 1943, and became a star with National Velvet in 1944. She was a glam¬ orous adult star in A Place in the Sun (1951), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and Butterfield 8 (1960, Academy Award). In Who’s Afraid of Vir¬ ginia Woolf (1966, Academy Award) and other films, she starred opposite her husband, Richard Burton. After the mid-1970s, she appeared only intermittently in films, Broadway plays, and television films. Taylor’s personal life (she was married eight times) was exceptionally well pub¬ licized and often tended to overshadow her acting career.
Taylor, Frederick W(inslow) (b. March 20, 1856, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.—d. March 21, 1915, Philadelphia) U.S. inventor and engineer. He worked at Midvale Steel Co. (1878-90), where he introduced time-and- motion study in order to systematize shop management and reduce manu¬ facturing costs. Though his system provoked resentment and opposition from labour when carried to extremes, it had an immense impact on the development of mass production techniques and has influenced the devel¬ opment of virtually every modern industrial country. Taylor is regarded as the father of scientific management. See also production management; Taylorism.
Taylor, Sir Geoffrey Ingram (b. March 7, 1886, London, Eng.—d. June 27, 1975, Cambridge) British physicist. He taught at Cambridge Uni¬ versity from 1911 to 1952. He made important discoveries in fluid mechan¬ ics, as well as significant contributions to the theory of the elastostatic stress and displacement fields created by dislocating solids, the quantum theory of radiation, and the interference and diffraction of photons.
Taylor, John known as John Taylor of Caroline (b. Dec. 19?, 1753, Caroline county, Va.—d. Aug. 21, 1824, Caroline county, Va., U.S.) U.S. politician. He served in the Continental Army (1775-79) and the Virginia militia (1781) in the American Revolution. A strong advocate of states' rights, he opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution. He was a member of the U.S. Senate (1792-94, 1803, 1822-24), and he introduced the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions in the Virginia legislature (1798). A supporter of Thomas Jefferson, he wrote essays on the importance of main¬ taining an agrarian democracy as a defense against the development of an overly powerful central government.
Taylor, Joseph H(ooton), Jr. (b. March 24, 1941, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.) U.S. physicist. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. While teaching at the University of Massachusetts (1968-81), he and Russell Alan Hulse discovered the first binary pulsar (1974). Their discov¬ ery provided evidence in support of Albert Einstein’s relativistic theory of gravitation, which predicts that objects accelerated in a strong gravita¬ tional field will emit gravitational waves. With its enormous interacting gravitational fields, the binary pulsar should emit such waves, draining energy and reducing the orbital distance between the two stars. In 1978 they showed, on the basis of tiny variations in the pulsar’s radio emission, that the two stars are revolving ever faster and closer around each other at a rate agreeing precisely with Einstein’s prediction. Their discoveries won the two men a 1993 Nobel Prize.