Word: carbonizing
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...hypothesis by detecting trace amounts of rare noble gases, like neon and xenon, in the layer of Cretaceous clay deposited during roughly the same period that the dinosaurs became extinct. They were seeking to identify the nature of the object responsible for the impact. Because noble gases collect in carbon particles, the scientists isolated the carbon in Cretaceous sediment taken from Denmark, Spain and New Zealand. To their surprise, all three samples contained carbon that had been deposited at a rate 10,000 times as great as carbon in the layers immediately above and below them. It was bunched together...
...circulate around the globe. What is more, because soot does not rain out as easily as dust, the protonuclear winter would have lasted much longer than it would through obscuring dust alone. Most plants and large animals that survived the blast, the fire and the lethal clouds of carbon monoxide would have succumbed to the climatic changes. But smaller creatures could have slipped into caves and hibernated until sunlight returned and they emerged to repopulate the earth...
...developed microbes that eat PCBs, creosote and pentachlorophenol. Microbiologist Ananda Chakrabarty of the University of Illinois in Chicago has used a patented "molecular breeding" process to achieve the evolution of a bug that can convert the chief ingredient of the herbicide Agent Orange, 2,4,5-T, into carbon dioxide and chloride. In laboratory tests, his bacteria are so dependent upon the chemical that once they have consumed whatever is available they...
Only belatedly did U.S. producers try to modernize and become more efficient. Man hours per ton of carbon steel produced by large mills fell from 7.8 in 1978 to 5.4 in the second quarter of this year. So far, however, the Administration's effort to buy the industry some breathing space with voluntary quotas on imports has not produced results. Even if shipments from the major exporters can be slowed, the industry fears smaller producers will step in to take up the slack. So far, only one-third of the 76 steel-producing nations have agreed to limit their exports...
...astronomer, Gold approached the puzzle with a fresh perspective. He knew that carbon is the fourth most abundant element in the solar system, appearing in planets, asteroids, meteors and comets, often in the form of hydrocarbons. Gold believes that when the primordial gaseous swirl condensed into the sun and its satellites, large amounts of hydrocarbons settled in the earth's interior. Some of those compounds seeped upward into porous rocks and sediments, says Gold, and became such accessible pockets of riches as the oil fields of the Arabian Peninsula. He predicts that if greater depths were mined, fuel reserves...