Word: melt
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...nuclear reactors work by splitting large atoms into smaller pieces, producing heat. The danger is that the nuclear fuel, unless properly cooled, can overheat and melt through containment walls, releasing radioactivity into the environment. Most commercial reactors guard against meltdown by ensuring that the fuel is always surrounded by circulating coolant, usually ordinary / water. But what if a pipe bursts and the water is lost? Or if the water boils off? To prevent such mishaps, today's reactors have backup systems and backups to the backups. But no matter how many layers of redundancy are built into a conventional reactor...
...Sciences issued a long-awaited report on global warming -- the theory that a buildup of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is causing temperatures to climb, threatening crops and coastal areas that could be drowned under rising oceans if the polar ice caps melt. Though both sides could find some support for their positions in the study, its findings and recommendations could prod the go-slow faction in the White House...
...Science is the outgrowth of questions about the world: it's about why some things are smooth, rough and hard, and others melt," Layzer continues. "The way it is taught today turns off many creative people who are best equipped to be serious students of science...
Opponents of the freeze organized a brief rally outside city hall. Approximately 15 middle-aged besuited professionals, sporting "melt the freeze" buttons and carrying signs, participated in the demonstration...
This is the shape-shifting landscape of addict and alcoholic. The two terms mean in essence the same thing: a powerless dependence upon one drug or another, whether the chemical is legal or illegal. Here boundaries blur and melt. "Responsible" adults -- fathers, mothers, bankers, Senators, solid citizens -- become dangerous aliens. Their cars fly across the median in the middle of the night. The high began as a creamy indulgence and ends as a squalid necessity, a fix. The soul begins to die. It passes over into realms of the surreal and savage, into moral blackout and passivity...