Word: liquidate
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...Reid tried to ignite his shoes, loaded with the explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), on a flight from Paris to Miami in 2001, U.S. travelers have had to remove their footwear for scanning before boarding. After a plot to blow up several airliners over the Atlantic with small amounts of liquid explosives was uncovered in London in 2006, travelers were barred from carrying containers with more than 3.4 oz. (100 ml) of fluid each through security checkpoints...
...small way, the system did work, because screening effectively forced the alleged bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, to use a liquid chemical rather than a more basic or reliable detonator to trigger the powdered explosive that was sewn into his underwear and smuggled on board. And it turns out that pulling off such an explosion on a plane is no simple feat. "It's a bit more complicated than just putting a flame to the powder," says Jimmie Carol Oxley, the director of the Center of Excellence in Explosives Detection, Mitigation, Response and Characterization at the University of Rhode Island...
...requires an initial explosion. Usually that would be accomplished with a detonator like a blasting cap, but that device would have almost surely shown up on any airport X-ray machine or metal detector. Instead, Abdulmutallab allegedly brought along a syringe, which could have been filled with a liquid explosive like nitroglycerin. If done correctly, the primer explosion could have set off the PETN, which might have blown a hole in the side of the plane. "It looked like he was trying to use a chemical initiation, and that takes a lot of pre-experimentation to find out what would...
Having to use a liquid primer rather than a detonator makes the bomber's task more difficult but not impossible. It will not be easy to prevent similar attacks in the future without ramped-up airport security. While airport "puffer" machines, which blow air on passengers to collect residue, might have detected the PETN, it's not certain, and many airports lack the machines. "There's always room for improvement in airport security, but it's always going to be a trade-off between convenience and commerce," says Oxley. In the meantime, we may have to count on what worked...
...according to some nutrition experts and school districts that are removing the brown liquid from lunchrooms. One 8-oz. serving of reduced-fat chocolate milk has nearly as many calories and sugar as a 12-oz. can of Coke. Encouraging students to regularly consume the drink, they say, is contributing to an already worrying childhood obesity crisis. (Read a brief history of school lunches...