Word: borax
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...into a sticky, greyish substance at the bottom of a quarter-mile-wide, 137-ft.-deep crater in the desert floor. In the past year huge machines had scraped off 7,000,000 tons of earth to expose this mineral prize: the world's largest known deposit of borax. To the housewife, borax is merely a household cleanser, 'but to industry it is the chief source of boron, a new wonder element and Jack-of-all-trades that can be used in everything from drugs and plastics to the super-powered rocket fuels of the future...
...meet the rapidly expanding demand for borax. U.S. Borax & Chemical Corp., the world's largest borax producer, last week began operating a huge new plant perched on the edge of the crater at Boron, Calif. It will process ore straight from the open-mine pit, thus cut transportation costs, eventually replace facilities elsewhere. U.S. Borax intends to boost production 30% through its $20 million expansion program at Boron, knows now that it will have no trouble selling all it can turn...
...most exciting new use for boron is in exotic fuels (TIME, April 1), in which it is joined with hydrogen or other elements to generate infinitely greater power with less volume than present fuels.* The U.S. Defense Department has already invested $100 million in high-energy fuel development. U.S. Borax & Chemical is negotiating with top chemical firms to commit part of its borax production (70% of U.S. output) to making high-energy fuels. Should boron become the key element in the fuels of the future, the industry estimates that demand for borax, which has already doubled in ten years, would...
...took a lot of education to convince most citizens (including T.R.) that good food could turn to poison. One such educator was a testy Department of Agriculture chemist. Dr. Harvey Washington ("Old Borax") Wiley, who got a volunteer "poison squad" to eat spoiling food, triumphantly proved that it made them miserably sick. In The Jungle, Muckraker Upton Sinclair rubbed the nation's nose in the filth of Chicago packing plants. On June 30, 1906, Teddy Roosevelt rode to the Capitol and ceremoniously signed the first U.S. Food and Drugs Act, to protect the people's stomach from willful...
...town has briefly been supplied all its electricity by a small atomic reactor. In a special test, Arco, Idaho (pop. 1,200) was cut off from its regular power supply for an hour last July 17, drew its current solely from a 2,000-kw. boiling-water-type "Borax" reactor at the AEC's testing station 20 miles away...