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All articles starting with B

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Balloon enteroscopy

Balloon enteroscopy is an endoscopic technique that uses a balloon-tipped overtube to advance a long enteroscope deep into the small intestine, diagnosing and treating small-bowel disease without surgery.

Balloon Kid

Balloon Kid (バルーンファイトGB) is a 1990 Game Boy platformer by Pax Softonica and Nintendo, sequel to Balloon Fight; Alice floats through eight auto-scrolling stages to rescue her brother Jim.

Balloon mail

Balloon mail, also called balloon post, is the transport of postal items by free balloon. During the siege of Paris in 1870–1871 it carried mail out of the encircled city.

Balloon occlusion

Balloon occlusion is an endovascular technique in which an inflatable catheter balloon is inflated inside a blood vessel to stop or reduce blood flow, for hemorrhage control.

Balloon pulmonary angioplasty

Balloon pulmonary angioplasty (BPA), also called percutaneous transluminal pulmonary angioplasty, is a staged catheter procedure dilating obstructed pulmonary arteries in chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension; revived by Japanese centers after 2012, it is guideline-recommended for inoperable CTEPH with 92% 3-year survival.

Balloon valvuloplasty

Balloon valvuloplasty is a catheter procedure that inflates a balloon across a narrowed heart valve to widen it, first-line for pulmonary and rheumatic mitral stenosis.

Balloon-occluded retrograde transvenous obliteration

Balloon-occluded retrograde transvenous obliteration (BRTO) is a percutaneous procedure that treats gastric fundal varices in portal hypertension, introduced by Hiroshi Kanagawa in 1996 as an alternative to TIPS.

Balloonerism

Balloonerism, also styled Balloonerism (Mac Miller album), is the second posthumous studio album by Mac Miller, recorded in 2014 between Watching Movies with the Sound Off and Faces and released January 17, 2025 by his estate via Warner Records with a companion animated short film.

Balloonfest '86

Balloonfest '86: United Way of Greater Cleveland's September 27, 1986 release of about 1.5 million helium balloons from Public Square, a Guinness record, undone when a storm dropped the still-inflated balloons over the city and Lake Erie.

Ballooning (spider)

Ballooning (spider), also called aeronautic behavior or aerial dispersal, is spider flight on fine silk threads carried by wind and possibly atmospheric electric fields. Stages are take-off, flight, and setting; web-builders like Erigone balloon most.

Ballooning instability

The ballooning instability, also called the ballooning mode or explosive instability, is a pressure-driven plasma instability that sets the beta limit on pressure in tokamaks.

Ballot

The Australian ballot, a design change from South Australia, used an 'X' mark instead of crossing out names. This secret voting method was adopted globally after its 1856 invention.

Ballot box

Ballot box: sealed container into which voters deposit marked ballots, from Italian ballotta ("little ball"). Covers the 1858 Jollie glass patent, the 1882 eight-box law, statutory sealing requirements, chain of custody, and modern ballot drop boxes.

Ballota

Ballota (horehound) is a Lamiaceae genus of about 30 perennial herbs and shrubs native to Macaronesia, Europe, the Mediterranean, and West Asia; type species Ballota nigra, black horehound; split from Pseudodictamnus in 2018.

Ballpoint pen

A ballpoint pen, also called a Biro, is a writing instrument that delivers thick ink through a rolling ball; it is the world's most popular handwriting tool.

Ballroom dance

Ballroom dance is partner dancing in a shared hold, from the waltz, quadrille, and minuet of European ballrooms to DanceSport's ten-dance Standard and Latin competition system and modern social styles.

Balls Mahoney

Balls Mahoney (Jonathan Rechner, 1972–2016), American hardcore wrestler, ECW chair-swinging "Freak", three-time ECW tag champion, later WWE ECW brand 2006–2008; died of a heart attack at 44.

Balls of Fury

Balls of Fury is a 2007 American sports comedy directed by Robert Ben Garant. It stars Dan Fogler as an FBI agent entering an underground table tennis tournament.

Balls Up

Balls Up is a 2026 American action comedy directed by Peter Farrelly, starring Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser as condom marketers who spark a World Cup scandal in Brazil; released on Prime Video April 15, 2026, to poor reviews (23% Tomatometer, Metascore 34).

Ballsbridge

Ballsbridge is an affluent Dublin 4 district on the River Dodder, named for Nicholas Ball's 17th-century bridge (stone bridge 1791, rebuilt 1835, widened 1904), home to the RDS, Aviva Stadium, embassies, and Ireland's costliest streets.

Balluff

Balluff is a German family-owned manufacturer of industrial sensors, identification systems, and automation technology, founded in 1921 and headquartered in Neuhausen auf den Fildern near Stuttgart.

Ballute

A ballute is an inflatable drag device, named from "balloon" and "parachute", that slows vehicles at hypersonic speeds where conventional parachutes are unsuitable; Goodyear coined the term in 1962.

Bally Technologies

Bally Technologies, also known as Alliance Gaming and Bally Gaming, was a Las Vegas-based American gaming company that made casino devices and systems until its 2014 acquisition by Scientific Games.

Ballyhaunis

Ballyhaunis (Beal Átha hAmhnais) is a market town in east Mayo, Ireland, at the N60/N83 junction on the Dublin–Westport rail line. Population 2,366 (2016); home to Ireland's first purpose-built mosque and St Mary's Augustinian friary.

Ballykissangel

Ballykissangel: BBC Northern Ireland comedy-drama (1996-2001, six series) created by Kieran Prendiville, about Father Peter Clifford, an English priest in a fictional Irish village, starring Stephen Tompkinson and Dervla Kirwan.

Ballymena

Ballymena (Ballymenagh, "middle town") is a principal town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, population about 31,250; market charter 1626, historic linen industry, Mid and East Antrim council, site of June 2025 anti-immigrant riots.

Ballymore (oil field)

Ballymore is a Chevron-operated deepwater oil field in the Gulf of Mexico, producing from the Jurassic Norphlet Formation as a subsea tieback to the Blind Faith platform since April 2025.

Ballymurphy massacre

Ballymurphy massacre: killing of ten unarmed civilians by British soldiers in west Belfast, 9-11 August 1971, at the start of internment (Operation Demetrius); 2021 inquest ruled all victims innocent and the force unjustified.

Ballynahinch, County Down

Ballynahinch, County Down: market town in parish of Magheradroll, founded by Sir George Rawdon after 1641; site of the 13 June 1798 defeat of Henry Monro's United Irishmen by General Nugent; later a BCDR branch terminus.

Ballynahone Bog

Ballynahone Bog is a lowland raised bog near Maghera in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, protected as a Special Area of Conservation, Ramsar site, and National Nature Reserve.