Word: horning
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Metallurgist Ann Van Orden, for her part, is fascinated by the fibrous structure of rhinoceros horn. "What strikes me about rhino horn," says Van Orden, "is that it is a natural composite. Really, it looks just like the material used to make the wings of a Stealth aircraft!" The benefits that might flow from such an insight can only be guessed at. Perhaps most intriguing is the fact that rhino horn is self-healing: capable of repairing the tiny cracks that come from jousting matches with other rhinos. "Now imagine a car that could self-heal after a fender bender...
...course, no car of the future will be made of rhino horn, just as no silk spun by spiders is likely be woven into designer clothes. For starters, it would take 500 to 1,000 spiders to spin out enough silk for one necktie. "And you probably wouldn't want to wear a necktie made of spider silk anyway," laughs zoologist John Gosline of the University of British Columbia. Reason: when wet, spider silk contracts 50%, a property that, in a necktie at least, might prove decidedly unpleasant on damp days. Armed with the tools of molecular biology, however, scientists...
Much the same thing happens with D-FENS, whose portrayal by Douglas is more finely tuned than Ebbe Roe Smith's script. When we meet him he is a sort of Everygeek -- flattop haircut, half horn-rims, a pocket protector fully armed with ball-points. You expect his anger to be ineffectual, especially since he starts out armed only with paranoid righteousness. But, as we all know, weaponry is easily acquired in the jungle of our cities, and by the time D- FENS nears home, he has acquired a bazooka. More important, he is no longer the nightmare's victim...
...They really have a following," says Mike Tallon, manager of the bar. "They're very, very talented. They've got a horn good horn section...
...affected, overinflected reading and interspersed with voiced breathing and noises of laughter and singing that bordered on the maniacal. Rzewski accompanied one passage by slapping himself and drumming his fingers on the closed piano lid, another (about the imperfections of governments) with the squeaking of a toy horn. In these instances the effect was derisive, whatever the intention, but much of the work was compelling, and all of it provocative...