Word: metallism
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They gathered around the peculiar contraptions placed at a few points along the parkway: rectangular wooden frames hung with large cans and bottles, metal bars, and anything else that could be banged on, all dappled in a dozen colors...
...spider? In a word: carefully. Kristensen and his wife Anita start by tranquilizing the specimen with a gentle breeze of carbon-dioxide gas from a cylinder behind the milking desk. Once the spider is groggy, the milker, peering through a low-power stereoscopic microscope, gently picks it up with metal tweezers that are connected to an electrical supply. When a mild shock is administered through the tweezers, the spider promptly spews up pretty much everything liquid inside it--including digestive enzymes. That was a problem early on, until Chuck devised a combined "mouthwash" and venom-collecting system that keeps...
...introduce the Jacuzzi to newly affluent Chinese peasants. Instead of shipping the tubs from California, you simply ship the VEC unit, or cell. To make the tubs, two composite skins are draped over a foam model, and a thermochemical reaction causes them to harden into shape. (Because no metal bending is involved and the "thermoset" process uses chemistry, not immense heat, the molds cost a fraction of the conventional version.) The skins are then attached to a universal frame. The cell is closed and filled with pressurized water, which braces the skins together. Then composite materials are injected into...
...process. A company offered them a lucrative contract to build storm drains, but Pyramid didn't have the $2 million needed to fashion or tool the proper steel mold to shape the pipe. That's when McCollum came up with a startlingly simple--and cheap--idea. Instead of a metal mold, why not fashion two pieces of composite in the shape of the product, inject the resin into the cell and brace the flimsy mold with pressurized water...
...presidency still inspires some reverence - an awe that may work in complex ways. Voters may put an apparent doofus in the White House, yet in their awe, may trust that the presidency's sacramental, transformative powers will, so to speak, transubstantiate the doofus. Historical memory teaches that a base metal like Harry Truman, and therefore maybe even George W. Bush, might yet turn into gold - or anyway, be raised to unexpected, unpredicted stature. It's nothing more mysterious than democracy following its nose...