Word: decays
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Ever since its development in the 1940s, radiocarbon dating has been a vital tool for historians and paleontologists trying to pinpoint the ages of everything from ancient animal bones to prehistoric human settlements to Egyptian mummies. By measuring the decay of the natural radioactive isotope carbon 14, which almost all organisms ingest while they are alive, scientists can estimate how long it has been since an animal or plant died...
...Public Interest, finds it ironic that "the same companies that are making cereals with whole grain, lots of dried fruit, high fiber and few preservatives for adults are still using sugar and refined flour and artificial flavoring for kids." Most everyone agrees the sweet stuff promotes tooth decay. "I tell kids they should throw away the cereal and eat the boxes," says Richard Holstein, a New Jersey children's dentist. "At least they'd get some fiber...
Seth Morgan began writing this first novel during a prison term for armed robbery. The cuff marks show, and not just in detail that seems accurate. The novel is funny and fast moving, but its air stinks slightly of decay. As it should. A couple of Nelson Algren's low-life adventures come to mind, such as A Walk on the Wild Side and The Man with the Golden Arm. Algren was a better writer and a more lyrical artist, but Morgan is better acquainted with dead souls...
...heads -- literally. A fire-resistant plywood widely used in the roofs of nearly 1 million town houses during the past decade has turned out to have an unexpected vulnerability. Over just a few years, the heat of the sun triggers a chemical reaction that causes the wood to blacken, decay and eventually collapse. Result: a sudden epidemic of leaky buildings, expensive repairs and bitter lawsuits...
...neutrinos, which are fast-moving, virtually massless objects that are shot out of nuclear reactions. These particles of matter are, in turn, acted upon by four forces: the strong nuclear force, which binds quarks together in atomic nuclei; the weak nuclear force, which triggers some forms of radioactive decay; electromagnetism, which builds atoms into molecules and molecules into macroscopic matter; and gravity. An entirely separate set of particles -- the bosons -- are the agents that transmit these forces back and forth between particles, people and planets...