Word: cobalt
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...better or worse, the driving force behind that revolution is pure economics. Gamma-radiation knives, wondrous devices that focus tiny cobalt beams precisely on microscopic brain malignancies and malformations, cost $3 million each but may ultimately reduce the need for other costly therapies and thus afford a net saving to society. Sophisticated scanning devices--computerized axial tomography (CAT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and nuclear-imaging systems--cost hospitals millions of dollars, and patients (or their insurers) are typically charged thousands for their use. But by pinpointing hard-to-find tumors and other signs of disease, these machines save invaluable time...
...economic potential is equally enormous. Majestically swirling ocean currents influence much of the world's weather patterns; figuring out how they operate could save trillions of dollars in weather-related disasters. The oceans also have vast reserves of commercially valuable minerals, including nickel, iron, manganese, copper and cobalt. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are already analyzing deep-sea bacteria, fish and marine plants looking for substances that they might someday turn into miracle drugs. Says Bruce Robison, of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California: "I can guarantee you that the discoveries beneficial to mankind will far outweigh those...
...from the planet's interior and concentrating them in convenient locations. Oceanographers have long known that parts of the Pacific sea floor at depths between 14,000 ft. and 17,000 ft. are carpeted with so-called manganese nodules, potato-size chunks of manganese mixed with iron, nickel, cobalt and other useful metals. In the 1970s, Howard Hughes used the search for nodules as a cover for building the ship Glomar Explorer, which was used to salvage a sunken Soviet sub. Now several mining companies are drawing up plans to do with more up-to-date equipment what Hughes only...
Bunyan, once the greatest logger of them all, and his emotionally delicate cobalt-blue ox, Babe, have fled from the industrialization of logging in the Northwest to the California redwoods. Swathed in fringed and beaded leather, his beard tied with a thong and the ensemble topped with a fur hat, he resembles a strange kind of bear. His hilarious bouts of self-pity and childishness make Bunyan the perfect counterpart to his more serious companions...
Rothenberg has a gift for mulling over diffuse impressions and suddenly pulling them together in one piercing image of near hieroglyphic force. A recent example is Blue U-Turn, 1989: an androgynous body, huge in scale and bent into an inverted arch, vibrant with sparkles and detonations of cobalt and ultramarine, swimming in deep marine space. It seems powerful and benign, dispelling the angst of her earlier work. It transcends Expressionism. Only a major talent could have produced...