Word: detectable
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Since the law went into effect, however, researchers have developed exquisitely sensitive techniques for sniffing out compounds. Today these tests can detect one part per quintillion -- roughly the same as a tablespoon of liquid in all the Great Lakes combined. At that level of analysis, laboratory studies would probably reveal that virtually all food contains dioxin, for example, because small amounts of the toxic substance are released by volcanoes and picked up through the soil. Yet there is no flexibility in the Delaney Clause to compensate for such a phenomenal increase in scientific capability...
PREGNANT WOMEN WHO HARBOR THE AIDS VIRUS have a 30% chance of passing the infection on to their unborn children. But conventional tests, which detect the presence of antibodies to the virus, cannot determine which babies are infected and thus need immediate treatment. The ambiguity occurs because the mother's own antibodies cross the placenta, causing the newborn to test positive even if it is not infected...
...provides a much earlier window to detect and treat breast cancer," Folkman said. "They're going back even earlier than when there's a lump...
...them in 25 years. And while the survey was hunting its larger prey, it would also spot many of the estimated 300,000 ECAs larger than 100 m (330 ft.), which could cause regional, but not global, disaster. One proposal, to use orbiting sensors and lasers for detecting smaller objects, was rejected by the panel as unneeded, prohibitively expensive and probably futile. Astronomer Gehrels estimates that 100 million asteroids larger than 20 m in diameter are on paths that can cross Earth's orbit. "So," he says "There is no way in the foreseeable future you could detect...
Proceedings at the interception workshop were tumultuous. But there was general agreement about the basic strategy: detect the threatening object and dispatch a warhead-tipped rocket to intercept it and explode, nudging it into a new orbit that would carry it safely past Earth. For a small asteroid detected years and many orbits before its destined collision, the solution would be straightforward. "You apply some modest impulse to it at its perihelion, or closest point to the sun, using conventional explosives," explains Gregory Canavan, a senior scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. "The slight deflection that results will amplify during...