Word: hydrocarbon
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...squirrel deterrents. Among them: weasel scent, tree paint, rabbit repellent, electric shock devices, steel-tape armor, 24-in. barriers of galvanized iron on telephone poles. None of these measures have worked. Several years ago, a researcher thought he had the answer in a brand-new repellent made of chlorinated hydrocarbon, found that its only effect was to make the squirrels chew treated cables and ignore the untreated ones. Lethal measures, e.g., coating the cables with paint containing ground glass, were blocked by protests from the A.S.P.C.A...
...smog fighters from all over the U.S. suggested that smog irritation may not be caused by the obviously suspect fumes from exhaust pipes and smoke stacks. The theory: combustion in power plants and all types of engines throws hundreds of tons of nitrogen oxides into the air, along with hydrocarbon compounds. The oxides absorb energy from sunlight, which enables them to turn hydrocarbon compounds into what chemists call "free radicals," i.e., fragments of molecules free to form new chemical compounds. Possible result: rare chemicals in the air never suspected in smog...
...sample containing Carbon 14 (perhaps from a Sumerian tomb) is dissolved in a hydrocarbon fluid in a 4-in. tube. Radiation from its unstable atoms makes the liquid give flashes of light. They are too faint for human eyes to see, but photomultiplier tubes pick them up. The whole system is immersed in liquid mercury. As a further safeguard, the counting apparatus is adjusted so that it ignores all flashes of light too weak or too strong to come from Carbon...
Grey Market. Polyethylene was developed in 1933 by chemists of Britain's Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd. They found that ethylene. a hydrocarbon gas, turned into a white, waxlike solid when subjected to high pressures. I.C.I, licensed Du Pont to produce it. But Union Carbide, working independently, devised its own method of making poly, though it pays I.C.I, a royalty fee just the same. Today Bakelite's output totals about 70 million Ibs. a year; Du Pont, the only other commercial U.S. producer, accounts for an estimated 55 million Ibs., and is also expanding...
Then the rug was pulled out from under Glamorene, and the Digest got a bad scare. In San Francisco, a Pan American World Airways serviceman died after cleaning a plane's rug, and the coroner's jury reported that the victim had died from inhaling "halogenated hydrocarbon" from trichloroethylene, one of Glamorene's components. Professional rug cleaners gleefully took ads reproducing news stories about the San Francisco case and urging homeowners to avoid mishap by having experts clean their rugs. The health department banned Glamorene sales in San Francisco...