mad cow disease

Fatal neurodegenerative disease of cattle. Symptoms include behavioral changes (e.g., agitation), gradual loss of coordination and locomotive function, and, in advanced stages, weight loss, fine muscular contractions, and abnormal gait. Brain tissue becomes pitted with holes and spongy. Death usually follows within a year. The disease is similar to the neurodegenerative disease of sheep called scrapie. No treatment is known. A BSE epidemic in Britain that began in the mid-1980s is believed to have been caused by the use of cattle feed containing supplements made from ruminant carcasses and trimmings. Hundreds of thousands of infected cattle were slaughtered and the use of animal-derived protein supplements ended. The cause of both BSE and scrapie is attributed to an infectious aberrant protein called a prion. The unusual occurrence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, another prion-related illness, in young people beginning in the mid-1990s may be linked to eating meat from cattle with BSE.

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(born 915, Al-Kūfah, Iraq—died Sept. 23, 965, near Dayr al-aynAmacrqūl) Poet regarded by many as the greatest in the Arabic language. Al-Mutanabbī received an education, unusual for his time and rank, because of his poetic talent. He lived among the Bedouin and, claiming to be a prophet, led an unsuccessful Muslim revolt in Syria. After two years' imprisonment he recanted and became a wandering poet, eventually leaving Syria for Egypt and Iran. He primarily wrote panegyrics in a flowery, bombastic style marked by improbable metaphors. His poetic voice is proud and arrogant in tone, and his verse is crafted with consummate skill and artistry. His powerful influence on Arabic poetry persisted into modern times.

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• Anger
• Madness, the state of being irrational or suffering from mental illness
• Mad (magazine), an American humor magazine and its various spinoffs:
• MADtv, a sketch comedy television series
• Mad Magazine Card Game
• The Mad Magazine Game
• Mad River, various rivers
• Mad (village), a village in the Dunajská Streda District of Slovakia
• Mad (band), a rock band from Buenos Aires, Argentina

MAD may be an acronym for:

• Mutual assured destruction, a doctrine of military strategy
• Madrid Barajas International Airport, the IATA airport code
• MAD TV (Greece), a Greek music channel
• MAD (poem), a poem by the World War I poet Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
• MAD Studio, an architectural firm
• MAD Movie, a Japanese fan-made video, much like an Anime Music Video. MAD can also describe the Japanese AMV community
• MAD programming language (short for Michigan Algorithm Decoder)
• MAD Multiply and Add in computer science, a low level instruction for the GPU
• Magnetic airborne detector
• Magnetic anomaly detector, a scientific instrument and anti-submarine warfare detection device
• Malevolent Agency of Destruction, a fictional evil organization led by Dr. Claw from the cartoon series Inspector Gadget
• Mandibular advancement device, an appliance worn in the mouth to treat obstructive sleep apnea or snoring
• Maximal areal density
• Mean absolute deviation, a statistical measure of variability
• Median absolute deviation, a statistical measure of variability, more resistant to outliers
• Mean absolute distance, a mathematical function
• Meg and Dia, American indie rock band
• Methodical Accelerator Design, Particle accelerator simulation tool
• Militärischer Abschirmdienst, the Military Counterintelligence division of the German Army
• Moroccan dirham, the ISO 4217 code for the currency of Morocco
• MPEG Audio Decoder, an audio decompression software
• Multi-wavelength anomalous dispersion, a technique used in X-ray crystallography
• Multiple Access Dialer, a dialer developed by Compuspec that can access a variety of telecom networks in case one service is not available
• Museum of Arts & Design, located in New York City