Word: foehn
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Spindler could see that the body had been naturally mummified -- quickly dehydrated by icy winds or perhaps by the foehn, the warm, dry North African wind that sweeps across the Alps during winter. To prevent further damage, his team bathed the body in fungicide, wrapped it in a sterilized plastic sheet, covered it with chipped ice and moved it to a refrigerated room at the university. There, except for 30-minute intervals when it is removed for CAT scans and other scientific tests, the Iceman has been stored ever since at 98% humidity and -6 degrees C (21.2 degrees...
Safely tucked away in a deep "pool" in the glacial stream, protected from currents and preserved by the frigid -6 degrees C temperature, the Iceman lay undisturbed for more than 53 centuries. And centuries more might have passed before he was discovered were it not for a foehn that last year delivered tons of North African desert sand to the Alpine ridges. "This is a common phenomenon," explains climatologist Dreiseitel, "but in 1991 it coincided with a winter that produced little snow, and the coating of sand increased the rate of melt on the high peaks." All over the Alps...
...findings could have international significance, since wind-borne woes afflict millions of people on several continents. Italy suffers each year from the effects of the sirocco, France from the mistral, the Alpine regions from the foehn. Chinook winds bring a touch of seeming madness to the Rocky Mountain area each winter, and the Santa Ana wind makes thousands of Californians miserable. Sulman's experiments show that this misery may be lessened...
Irrational Behavior. Santa Ana-like phenomena are not confined to Southern California. Similar hot, dry wind sweeping down mountain slopes is called "foehn" (pronounced, approximately, fain) in Austria and Germany, "chinook" along the U.S. and Canadian Rockies, "sky sweeper" on Majorca, "khamsin" in Israel, and "the Canterbury northwester" in New Zealand...
Wherever they blow, the winds stir strange human actions. In Munich, as in Los Angeles, most residents are convinced that the foehn causes general lassitude, irrational behavior, suicides and an increase in crime. Israelis swear that headaches, asthma, high blood pressure, mental aberrations and other assorted ills are accentuated during the khamsin. In Sicily and some Arab nations, courts have considered the hot, dry winds as mitigating circumstances for those accused of crimes committed while they blow...