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Any member of the grass family (Poaceae or Gramineae) that produces edible grains usable as food by humans and livestock. Cereals are important cultivated crops. Common cereals include rice, wheat, barley, oats, maize (corn), sorghum, rye, and…

An evergreen shrub or small tree, particularly Cinnamomum verum, and the spice obtained from the plant's bark. The cinnamon plant (see illustration) is a member of the laurel family (Lauraceae) in the order Laurales. Native to Sri Lanka, the…

Planets beyond our solar system. For millennia, humankind has known about most of the major planets in our solar system because these worlds are visible to the naked eye. Exoplanets, however, were not indisputably known until 1995, when astronomers…

A space telescope mission dedicated to detecting exoplanets. The tenth mission launched under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA's) Discovery Program, Kepler was the agency’s first mission dedicated to the search for planets…

The planet fourth outward from the Sun and the planet most like Earth in terms of geology, climate, and suitability for life. Mars is nicknamed the "Red Planet" for its reddish hue (Fig. 1). Besides Earth, Mars is the most-studied world in the solar…

A cereal grass plant (× Triticosecale) obtained from the hybridization of wheat with rye. Triticale (Fig. 1) is a crop plant with a small-seeded cereal grain that is used for human food and livestock feed. Plant breeders developed triticale by…