Word: culprit
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Life is supposed to get easier with new technology. Donald Norman wishes it were really so. Instead, he says, as devices evolve, people wind up befuddled and annoyed. The culprit: bad design, a longtime target of the Northwestern University professor. In his seminal 1990 book, The Design of Everyday Things, Norman explained why, for example, people so often switch on the wrong burner of an oven range--in a person's mind, a straight row of control knobs doesn't logically map onto a square stove...
Brick and Masonry homes with metal framing do not burn. Wood is the culprit--the fuel for fire. Building-permit rules should disallow the use of wood in all new construction. Communities in fire-prone areas should also think about stocking forested and undeveloped lands with goats. These creatures could devour the underbrush that dries and fuels firestorms. Firefighters could better spend their time tending the goats than periodically risking their lives on uncontrolled fires. The goats could become part of the firefighters' arsenal, as important as trucks, hoses and protective gear. As Californians rebuild, incentives from insurance companies could...
...identified key impediments to the work of MI5. One culprit in his view is short-term thinking. "We know that the strategic thinking of our enemies is long-term. But public discourse in the U.K. works to a much shorter timescale, whether the electoral cycle or the media deadline. We cannot view this challenge in such timescales. If we only react tactically while our enemies plan strategically, we shall be hard put to win this," he said...
...Kong on Friday night, as a crew of Kirkland ladies jostled with townies in the upstairs room. Final tally: townies booted out, students stayed. Cambridge 0, Harvard KO...Rumor has it there was a fight in Lowell, though our sources tell us that rap music was the culprit...
...August, a team of scientists at Northwestern University were the first to show why the brain's "memory function" fails in the face of an insulin shortage. The group's prior research had already pinpointed the culprit: toxic proteins called amyloid beta-derived diffusible ligands (ADDLs, for short), which are known to pile up in the brains of people with Alzheimer's. Scientists also knew that Alzheimer's patients' brains have lower levels of insulin and are insulin resistant. But what the Northwestern team discovered is the molecular mechanism behind that resistance: when ADDLs bind to neurons at synapses, they...