Word: alloy
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Extinction also awaits the pound note (current worth: $1.25). First issued in 1797, it is being replaced by a thick metal-alloy coin. Like the Susan B. Anthony dollar in the U.S., the heavy coin has been unpopular. But since the useful life of a paper pound is ten months, vs. 40 years for the coin, the Royal Mint expects to save $3.75 million a year. The British have already dubbed the new coin the Maggie, after Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, because it is hard, rough around the edges and, says one Member of Parliament, "pretends to be a sovereign...
McGrath feared that LTV and Republic would dominate the market for sheet stainless steel and for hot-and cold-rolled carbon and alloy sheet steel, products used in automobiles, small appliances, ranges and refrigerators. Together, the companies would have become the largest domestic producer of those types of steel. In the area of stainless sheet, the new firm would have controlled almost half of U.S. production capacity. Said McGrath: "We concluded that the increased concentration would be unacceptably high...
...water, which is essential for life. Scanning the skies, Spacelab's telescopes sighted at least two puzzling sources of X rays. These could not be observed under the earth's obscuring atmosphere. In a bit of zero-g alchemy, the astronauts succeeded in creating an entirely new alloy. Under the benevolent influence of microgravity, they were able to form a mix of aluminum and zinc, two metals that cannot easily be combined on earth. Extremely strong yet lightweight, the alloy, if it could be produced in mass quantities in space, might be useful for superstructures of airplanes...
Other experiments on ST57 demand no more than a throw of a switch. Six are contained in a joint U.S.-West German package called OSTA-2 (after NASA'S old Office of Space and Terrestrial Applications), which will test such technologies as glass forming, alloy making and crystal growing in weightlessness. Two other experiments are repeat efforts aimed at producing superpure pharmaceuticals and precisely shaped latex particles for use in medical tasks like blood-flow measurement...
...THEIR ART, the English have always had a knack for electroplating the basest metal with silvery gentility and presenting it like the finest tea service. This wonderful alloy of nastiness and reserve is the stuff of such typical British products as Alec Guinness classic Kind Hearts and Coronets, Agatha Christie's drawing room whodunits. Monty Python, and Evelyn Waugh, Brimstone and Treadestems from this tradition of black comedy, but departs from it by crossing over the boundary between laughter and darkness once too often. The result, while disturbing and thought-provoking, is ultimately unsatisfactory...