Word: know
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning," said Aristotle Onassis, who should know. Or, as Henry Kissinger put it, "power is the great aphrodisiac." So where would humans--and human civilization--be without sex? Probably back with the aphids and dandelions, I suspect, procreating effortlessly but building neither empires nor cathedrals...
...knowing and doing are two very different things, as hundreds of thousands of lapsed weight watchers have learned to their despair. The trouble, according to one theory, is that our best intentions about weight control go up against several million years of human evolution. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors literally didn't know where their next meal was coming from. So evolution favored those who craved energy-rich, fatty foods--and whose metabolism stored excess calories against times of famine. Love handles, potbellies, thick thighs are all part of Mother Nature's grand design...
...good news is, we know how to change course. Improving energy efficiency is the first step and--surprise!--potentially a very profitable one, not just for consumers and businesses but also for all of society. And better efficiency can buy us time to make a global transition to solar power and other renewable energy...
James Trefil is a George Mason University physics professor and author of 101 Things You Don't Know About Science and No One Else Does Either
Here's what we know. Since sunlight is always falling on the earth, the laws of physics decree that the planet has to radiate the same amount of energy back into space to keep the books balanced. The earth does this by sending infrared radiation out through the atmosphere, where an array of molecules (the best known is carbon dioxide) form a kind of blanket, holding outgoing radiation for a while and warming the surface. The molecules are similar to the glass in a greenhouse, which is why the warming process is called the greenhouse effect...