Word: meiotic
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...human egg is a single, liquid-filled cell that is extremely sensitive to temperature changes; ice crystals can easily rupture cell walls, and the solutions used to preserve the egg sometimes wind up destroying it instead. Also, the egg's chromosomes are in a particularly exposed state. If the meiotic spindle--which holds the chromosomes together and pulls them apart as the egg develops--breaks down, as it tends to do when the egg is frozen and later defrosted, then nothing can be done to save...
...Havana to help alleviate tensions between the U.S. and the Castro regime, Blackford begins a series of negotiations with Che. The Commandante is a sardonic figure who sometimes talks like William F. Buckley in fatigues and beret: "Disappointing . . . is a distinctively English, meiotic expression." Wherever Oakes settles in, a pair of alluring hazel eyes cannot be far away. This time they are blinked by Catalina Urrutia, a Cuban translator, moralist and flirt. After the requisite tango, the CIA man and the beautiful bilinguist end up in the percales. Heavy breathing leads to weighty revelations, and the smitten Catalina shows Blackford...
...imperial announcement of Japan's surrender: "The war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage." The British exaggerate in the same direction, indulging in what grammarians call meiosis-understatement. It was an American (born in Wales), however, Henry Stanley, who produced the wonderfully meiotic: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume...
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