All articles starting with B
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Birth tourism
Birth tourism: traveling to another country, mainly the United States or Canada, to give birth so the child gains citizenship there. Legal via jus soli, but visa fraud if concealed; targeted by 2026 U.S. executive orders.
Birth weight
Birth weight is a newborn's first weight measured after birth; WHO defines low birth weight as below 2,500 g. In 2020, 19.8 million babies (14.7% globally) were born low birthweight, driving over 80% of neonatal deaths.
Birth–death process
A birth–death process, also called a birth and death process, is a continuous-time Markov chain where a count changes only by single births or deaths.
Birthday
Birthday: the annual anniversary of a person's birth. Also called dies natalis (Latin). Ancient Persians and Romans celebrated it; Kinderfest created the candle cake; modern birthdays act as rites of temporality with milestones like the quinceañera.
Birthday attack
The birthday attack is a generic cryptographic attack that exploits the birthday paradox to find two inputs with the same hash output in about 2^(n/2) trials.
Birthday Blizzard '26
Birthday Blizzard '26 is J. Cole's surprise four-freestyle mixtape, hosted by DJ Clue and released around his 41st birthday in late 2026 over classic Bad Boy and LOX beats as a prelude to The Fall-Off.
Birthday cake
Birthday cake: frosted celebration cake with lit candles, one per year of life, blown out with a wish. Originated in 18th-century Germany's Kinderfest; also a vanilla-sprinkle flavor.
Birthday Girl (2001 film)
Birthday Girl (2001 film) is a British-American comedy-crime-thriller directed by Jez Butterworth. It stars Nicole Kidman as Sophia, a lonely bank clerk's Russian mail-order bride.
Birthday Letters
Birthday Letters is a 1998 poetry collection by Ted Hughes, 88 poems addressed to his first wife, Sylvia Plath, ending decades of public silence about their marriage.
Birthday problem
The birthday problem, often called the birthday paradox, asks how large a group must be before two people likely share a birthday; the answer is 23.
Birthing (album)
Birthing is the seventeenth studio album by experimental rock band Swans, released May 30, 2025 on Young God/Mute. Seven tracks, about 1 hour 55 minutes; developed on the 2023–2024 tour; final album of the Big Sound era.
Birthmark
Birthmark: a colored or raised skin mark present at birth or shortly after, in vascular (salmon patch, hemangioma, port-wine stain) and pigmented (cafe-au-lait spot, congenital nevus, dermal melanocytosis) types, mostly benign but some signaling syndromes or melanoma risk.
Birthplace of Jesus: Church of the Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route, Bethlehem
UNESCO World Heritage Site (2012) in Bethlehem, 10 km south of Jerusalem, covering the Church of the Nativity, built AD 339 and rebuilt in the 6th century over the cave venerated as Jesus's birthplace, plus convents and the Pilgrimage Route.
Birthright citizenship in the United States
Birthright citizenship in the United States grants U.S. citizenship at birth to nearly everyone born on American soil under the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause, confirmed by Wong Kim Ark (1898) and Trump v. Barbara (2026), with narrow exceptions for diplomats' children, hostile-occupation births, and tribal Indians.
Birthright Israel (תגלית)
Birthright Israel (Taglit, תגלית) is a philanthropic program founded in 1999 by Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt offering free 10-day educational trips to Israel for Jewish young adults ages 18-26, with over 900,000 participants from 70 countries.
Birthstone
A birthstone is a gemstone assigned to a person's month of birth, worn as jewelry or given as a gift; the modern American list was standardized in 1912.
Birutė Galdikas
Birutė Mary Galdikas was a Canadian primatologist and conservationist who began the longest continuous study of wild orangutans at Camp Leakey, Borneo, in 1971, and founded Orangutan Foundation International.
Birute Zalogaityte
Birute Zalogaityte (Birutė Zalogaitytė-Kalėdienė, born 2 November 1934) is a Lithuanian javelin thrower who set a 57.49 m world record in 1958 and won 1960 Olympic bronze for the USSR.
Biryani
Biryani (बिरयानी) is a layered South Asian rice dish of basmati rice with spiced meat or vegetables, sealed and finished by dum cooking; distinct from one-pot pulao, with kachchi and pakki schools and many regional styles.
Biryawaza
Biryawaza, also known as Birjawaza, was a dignitary of the mid-14th century BC Amarna age who served as an agent of Egyptian rule in Syria-Palestine and is linked with Damascus.
Birzhan Sal
Birzhan Sal (Біржан сал, Birzhan Kozhagululy) was a nineteenth-century Kazakh singer, composer, and improvising poet, best known for his 1871 poetic contest with Sara Tastanbekkyzy.
BIS hallmark
The BIS hallmark, or BIS mark, is an official mark by India's Bureau of Indian Standards certifying gold and silver purity, mandatory for gold jewelry since 2021.
Bis oxide
Bis oxide: a nomenclature prefix for two oxide ions, and the catalog name of bis(tributyltin) oxide (TBTO, CAS 56-35-9), an organotin biocide formerly used in antifouling paints and wood preservation, now EU-unapproved and REACH SVHC-listed.
Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate
Bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, commonly abbreviated DEHP, is a synthetic phthalate ester used chiefly as a plasticizer that softens PVC in products like flooring, tubing, and blood bags.
Bis(pinacolato)diboron
Bis(pinacolato)diboron (B2pin2) is a white to off-white solid diboron reagent joining two pinacolato boron units, and the standard reagent for palladium-catalyzed Miyaura borylation of aryl and vinyl halides.
Bis(trimethylsilyl)amine
Bis(trimethylsilyl)amine, better known as hexamethyldisilazane or HMDS, is an organosilicon compound with the formula [(CH3)3Si]2NH, used as a silylating reagent and photoresist adhesion promoter in chipmaking.
Bisa Kdei
Bisa Kdei, born Ronald Kwaku Dei Appiah in 1986, is a Ghanaian highlife singer-songwriter and producer who leads his own label, Black Legendary Music, and modernized the genre.
Bisabolene
Bisabolene is a monocyclic sesquiterpene hydrocarbon with the formula C15H24, occurring as α, β, and γ isomers in essential oils of plants such as ginger, turmeric, and conifers.
Bisacodyl
Bisacodyl, a diphenylmethane stimulant laxative sold since the 1950s, is a prodrug converted by intestinal mucosal enzymes to BHPM; it treats constipation via dual prokinetic and secretory action, orally (6-12 h onset) or rectally (15-60 min).
Bisan Owda (بيسان عودة)
Bisan Owda (بيسان عودة), also Bisan Atef Owda, born 1997 or 1998, is a Palestinian journalist and filmmaker from Gaza whose AJ+ video series 'It's Bisan from Gaza and I'm Still Alive' won a Peabody, an Emmy, and a Murrow Award, after an Emmy-nomination controversy over alleged PFLP ties that NATAS could not corroborate.