Word: metallic
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Advanced materials are just now starting to show up in commercial products. Examples: ceramic scissors that never rust or get dull, plastic lumber that is water-resistant and does not swell or warp like wood, and "metal" windows that keep excessive light and heat out of a house in summer and trap them inside during winter. In the U.S. the aerospace industry, including the military, is the biggest consumer of engineered materials, accounting for more than two-thirds of all use. The substances, used in door panels and floors, account for about 14% of a typical airplane's weight...
This experimental "plastic" house, built by General Electric in Pittsfield, Mass., is perhaps the most striking use so far of a new class of souped-up substances called advanced materials. These novel building blocks are basically futuristic versions of present-day metals, glasses, plastics and ceramics. But unlike conventional counterparts, the materials are made with extra ingredients that greatly enhance their performance or give them new features. By blending in stiff carbon fibers, for example, modern-day alchemists have developed plastics that are up to 10 times as strong as conventional plastics. And by mixing copper with zinc and aluminum...
...fastest-growing market is the auto industry, which is increasingly replacing metal with lightweight plastics in bumpers, body panels and other parts. These polymers typically weigh half as much as steel but are just as strong. The plastics conserve gas by making a vehicle lighter, and manufacturing them requires 10% to 20% less energy than fabricating metal parts. Admittedly, there can be problems. General Motors found that the polymer body panels of some of its minivans started to peel like old wallpaper. Moisture had seeped between the sheets of plastic and caused the panels to come unglued...
...least we can say that we belong to a definite generation that isn't solely defined by our interest in video games and heavy metal music. I was always a little jealous of my parents who did things in college like march on Washington with Martin Luther King, watch the Kennedy-Nixon debates live and go to Beatles concerts...
...they're not alone--not anymore, at least. Nosering wearers at Harvard say they're happy to have bits of precious metal stuck in their nostrils, and they say the trend is slowly catching...