Word: effect
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...dosing the atmosphere with silver iodide, a chemical solution either dropped from planes or shot up from the ground. (Other methods use salt or dry ice.) The silver iodide particles supercharge cloud formation, as they act as excellent condensation nuclei. Once clouds form, they also start a positive feedback effect. As droplets freeze and are added to the cloud, they release their heat, creating an updraft which draws additional moisture from the ground into the atmosphere...
...Fittingly, the initial discovery of the potentially neurotoxic effect of anesthesia occurred by accident. In the 1990s, scientists discovered that the brain cells of patients in the midst of a stroke were flooded with calcium. Doctors wishing to treat these patients hypothesized that blocking the receptor that enables calcium to enter cells could protect stroke patients from severe brain damage. But in the course of researching this possibility, they found that switching off the receptor in a healthy brain cell led to the death of that cell - an unexpected and troubling result, given that many common anesthetics block the same...
...Wake Forest University School of Medicine, witnessed out-of-control apoptosis in the brains of rats treated with drugs that mimicked the action of the general anesthetic ketamine. Starved of calcium, whole portions of the rats' brains died off - enough to cause significant cognitive impairment. In adult rats, the effect was much less severe. "There is something about the young brain that makes it exquisitely sensitive to the loss of calcium," says Turner, who was the first to propose that calcium depletion is a critical first step in drug-induced brain-cell injury...
...most dangerous city in Mexico—passed a resolution to open up dialogue on an end to drug prohibition in the United States. The resolution was vetoed by the mayor, partly because he was afraid of losing federal funds for the city, but nevertheless achieved the intended effect of raising awareness of the issue...
...decided to be more than a chronicler of other people. "You can't be an activist and a journalist," Pugh told TIME one recent morning, sitting in the living room of his home, which is filled with giraffe sculptures. "So maybe I was in the wrong industry to effect the kind of change I want." (See more on TIME's Detroit blog...