Word: hybrid
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When it was unveiled at auto shows in 1988, the Magna Torrero's hybrid design turned heads in auto-company boardrooms from Detroit to Tokyo. But it never got a chance to tear up pavement like a Lotus Elise. Instead, parts of the Canadian company's prototype car are quietly helping Ford Contours, Volkswagen Golfs and Audi A8s roll comfortably down driveways around the world. "People keep asking us when Magna is going to manufacture our own car," company spokesman Paul Pivato says, "and the answer is never. We are not a carmaker...
Monsanto's attempt to safeguard its investment in genetically engineered seeds by making sure they can't reproduce seems understandable and justified. It is intended to provide the company with protection similar to that available to developers of hybrids; in most instances, only the first progeny of a hybrid is a marketable crop, and subsequent seed crops do not carry the parents' useful characteristics. Monsanto's effort to protect what is rightfully the company's may help to stimulate further plant research, to the betterment of agriculture and horticulture. TIB SZEGO Lindsay...
Toyota recently introduced its first hybrid car, the Prius, in Japan. It runs on both gasoline combustion and an electric battery, and can attain about double the gas mileage of an ordinary auto. General Motors recently finished its first good electric car, the EV1, although it requires frequent recharging due to its limited range. DaimlerChrysler, taking advantage of research of both its German and American branches, leads the way in developing fuel cell engines--engines which use hydrogen gas as fuel and could produce little more than water as waste. These projects, although showing far more promise than ever before...
Still, Iacocca's new venture faces a long, steep climb to success. The E-Bike is already nine months late to market (at an entrepreneurial burn rate of $150,000 a month) because of the technical difficulties in producing a finely tuned hybrid to Iacocca's exacting specifications. Instead of selling through bike dealers, EVG will peddle the E-Bike through auto dealers, where advertising budgets are gargantuan and Iacocca's credit impeccable...
Some researchers look forward to the day when gene therapy is used to repair damaged genes. With the new vectors, they would infect cells with small molecules that combine DNA and RNA. These hybrid molecules would seek out and bind to the defective gene, enabling it to function normally. "It would be like a repair mechanism," Wilson explains, "rather than a replacement...