Word: briefness
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...giant "garden hose to the sky" that would pump liquefied sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. Scientists know that increasing SO2 in the air deflects sunlight, which cools down the earth; when Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines exploded in 1992, for instance, the SO2 sent into the atmosphere created a brief global cooling spell. Levitt and Dubner advocate pursuing this geoengineering scheme, which could potentially avert a hotter world for pennies on the dollar, compared with the long-term work of shifting to a low-carbon economy. (See pictures of the effects of global warming...
...rapprochement between warring parties seems unlikely. In a brief telephone interview, South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity called Saakashvili "psychologically unbalanced," "unstable" and a "liar." For his part, Saakashvili seems to like to taunt Putin, now Prime Minister of Russia. ("Putin pledged solemnly to hang me by the balls. He couldn't succeed in that," he says.) The Russians refuse to speak to Saakashvili at all. They continue to accuse him of genocide, a dubious description for a conflict that resulted in 358 South Ossetian deaths...
...lunacy of TV's avant-comic Ernie Kovacs to his own sunny personality, frequently telling his viewers, "I love you and give ya a big kiss." They returned the affection. Lunch with Soupy Sales soon gained converts of all ages and went national in 1959. For a brief spell in the early '60s, he was a prime-time star; Frank Sinatra showed up to get a pie in the face. (See a pictorial history of stand-up comedy...
...ability to act, becomes a symbol—thin though it may seem—for a world coming apart at its very fabric. “The Humbling,” Roth’s thirtieth book and his fourth novel in as many years, is a brief and anguished meditation on the social, physical, and mental decay of an individual whose identity is ripped out from beneath him. Axler’s life, constituted by ability to perform on and off the stage, proffers itself as transient. His only recourse is to cling to those who still have...
...going on," says Voss, who added that the crew's claim to be talking as they overflew Minneapolis "doesn't seem very credible." U.S. airlines should consider allowing a technique common in some parts of Europe called "controlled cockpit rest," Voss says, during which one pilot can take a brief nap to stay alert after notifying the rest of the crew. (Read "Surviving Crashes: How Airlines Prepare for the Worst...