Word: frayed
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...something equally vital. Every time one divides, it sheds tiny snippets of DNA known as telomeres, which serve as protective caps on the ends of chromosomes. After perhaps a hundred divisions, a cell's telomeres become so truncated that its chromosomes--site of the cell's genes--begin to fray, rather like shoelaces that have lost their plastic tips. Eventually, such aged cells die--unless, like "immortal" cancer cells, they produce telomerase, an enzyme that protects and even rebuilds telomeres. Scientists have long dreamed of drugs that would inhibit the immortalizing enzyme because, observes M.I.T. biochemist Robert Weinberg, "then maybe...
...protect their secrets--without violating U.S. export laws. The battle between the Clinton Administration and the computer industry over encryption export policy has been raging for six years without resolution, a situation that is making it hard to do business on the Net and is clearly starting to fray some nerves. "The future is in electronic commerce," says Ira Magaziner, Clinton's point man on Net issues. All that's holding it up is "this privacy thing...
...quietly stopped rating itself. And that's when we entered the current phase of the debacle. The Internet Content Coalition, co-founded by msnbc general manager Jim Kinsella, proposed a "news exemption" work-around: it would give news sites an N rating, which would keep them above the ratings fray. Of course, to do that you would first have to define news. Is the Village Voice news? The American Civil Liberty Union's Website? The Netly News? We use four-letter functionals now and then (but only where no other, five-letter word will suffice). Screw magazine publishes reviews...
...LIEBERMAN Democrat is Mr. Above-the-Fray in Donorgate hearings, inheriting Howard Baker mantle...
Ackerman's favorite moment of the W.N.B.A. season was caught on television during a Liberty game. Rhonda Blades, a guard for New York, was kneeling next to the scorer's table, waiting to get into the fray, when she noticed two little girls sitting courtside. "Just before Rhonda went into the game," Ackerman recalls, "she gave one of the girls a high-five. Then the girl showed her hand to her friend, as if she had been given this wonderful present. And I guess...