Word: ammonias
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...considering the possibility of life on earth's planetary neighbors, astronomers have regularly passed up that distant giant Jupiter (1,312 times larger than earth). Jupiter drifts in a suffocating yellow cloud of ammonia and methane, 483 million miles from the sun, and scientists have reached the conclusion that the temperature of its cloud layer is a deathly cold -207° F. Its shroud is believed by some to conceal an ice layer 17,000 miles thick. But last week, writing in Radiation Research Magazine, a University of California astronomer raised the possibility that Jupiter's cloud cover...
...ultraviolet infiltrating the atmosphere produces simple organic molecules. At the same time, the sun's rays penetrate to the planet's surface, inducing infra-red radiation. The cloud cover traps this heat, forming the oceans of water or ammonia into which the falling molecules (formed at the impressive rate of ten pounds per square mile per year) dissolve. This process, says Sagan, "would create the conditions necessary for complex pre-biological organic reactions." By his reckoning, Jupiter's rind may not be icy at all, and its surface temperature (70° F.) may be balmy enough...
Wilma won her first heat by 10 yds. Before the semifinal, she whiffed spirits of ammonia to clear her head ("Cigar smoke always gives me a headache, and there's lots of cigars here") and again won by 10 yds. In the final. Wilma came off the blocks a split second behind the field. Then, as an appreciative, hoarse male bellow swept through the Garden, Wilma turned on her speed with 30 yds. to go and won as she pleased. Her time of 6.9 sec. tied the world record she herself had set last month in Los Angeles...
...pondered a problem in physics: how to produce microwaves shorter than any that had previously been generated. Before he got to breakfast, Townes thought he had the answer?and four years later he completed a device that proved he was correct. It was a maser, in which hopped-up ammonia molecules were made to serve as an atomic clock of unequaled accuracy. Since then, Townes's maser has been used to check Einstein's theory of relativity. It may soon revolutionize radar and open up new channels for communication. Townes is currently on leave from Columbia University to work...
Gases to Protein. Astronomers believe that the atmosphere of the early, lifeless earth had no free oxygen in it, but was made of gases like methane, hydrogen and ammonia. Scientists have also proved that when this gaseous mixture is put in a flask with a little water in the bottom, and an electric discharge is passed through it, the chemical reaction produces an accumulation of amino acids in the water. Since amino acids are the building blocks out of which proteins are made, and proteins are the chemical framework of all life on earth, the first chemical step toward life...