Word: layered
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Making a profit and protecting the planet don't have to be incompatible. Iceland, which sells kitchen appliances as well as food, has been a leader in marketing freezers and refrigerators that don't damage the atmospheric ozone layer, which protects us from harmful ultraviolet radiation. Old models were cooled by chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which can seep out and attack the ozone. And early CFC substitutes, though less destructive, were still not ideal. Last year Iceland brought out a brand of appliances cooled by isobutane, which does no harm to the atmosphere. On the food front, Walker tries...
...frustrations and disappointments of American life, can one find some kind of happiness? Mendes offers an answer in the character of Ricky (excellently played by Wes Bentley), Burnham's teenage neighbor. A strange outcast, Ricky videotapes everything "because it is beautiful." Beauty, for him, lies in stripping away any layer from a thing until it is totally naked. He uses his video camera to get to the essence of a subject. That is, he struggles to see things as they are, while his parents and neighbors distract themselves with various illusions. Right before his death, Burnham recognizes the truth...
...surgeons first tried using the excimer laser to correct vision in a procedure called photorefractive keratectomy. They scaled off the cornea's outermost protective layer, or epithelium. Then they vaporized some of the underlying tissue with the laser, forcing the cornea to flatten or steepen, depending on the correction. Although the epithelium always grew back, the cornea retained its new shape. It was a big improvement over radial keratotomy, although the healing of the epithelium remained painful...
Even setting aside the hucksterism, laser surgery is hardly a risk-free procedure. Lasers work by emitting a powerful beam of light that vaporizes skin. Though some newer lasers can skip the top layer, or epidermis, penetrating to the lower dermis to kill abnormalities and hair follicles, lasers "wound" the skin to some degree, and healing can have complications. Long-term effects can include pigmentation changes in the skin: patients with darker complexions, such as African Americans or those of Mediterranean origin, are especially susceptible to skin lightening. And everyone is vulnerable to doctors or technicians who do not handle...
Carbon dioxide, or CO2, lasers have been widely used since 1994 to bloodlessly eradicate wrinkles and sun damage by vaporizing the upper layer of skin, thus stimulating the underlying collagen fibers to rejuvenate the skin. Some 170,000 people had laser resurfacing done last year, making it by far the most popular laser procedure. Though chemical peels do essentially the same thing--and cost less than the average $2,500 to $3,000 for laser resurfacing--lasers have the advantage of being more controllable, since chemicals are absorbed at different rates by different skin...