Word: nitrogen
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that it is under way, the liquidation will not take long. Last Thursday workers at fertility clinics across Britain started taking vials out of liquid-nitrogen storage vats and allowing them to thaw. In some cases, the tiny specks inside--each the size of a pinpoint and consisting of one to four cells--were dosed for good measure with rubbing alcohol or salt water. By sometime next week, it will all be over. About 3,300 fertilized human eggs and potentially viable embryos will have been destroyed...
Joseph McCarthy's research interests relate to the regulation of plankton productivity in the sea and, in recent years, have focused on the cycling of nitrogen in planktonic ecosystems
Even the most experienced scuba divers rarely venture below 150 ft., however, owing to increasingly crushing pressure and the laborious decompression process required to purge the blood of nitrogen (which can form bubbles as a diver returns to the surface and cause the excruciating and sometimes fatal condition known as the bends). And pressurized diving suits make it possible for humans to descend only to 1,440 ft.--far short of the deepest reaches of the oceans...
...shows. Some, especially Cirque du Soleil's $33 million Mystere at Treasure Island, have the otherworldly vision to transcend this outsize format. And some, like EFX--a $67 million investment, including $27 million to equip its theater with 3-D movie projection, a "fog wall" of steam and liquid nitrogen and hot-wired rumble seats--are content to give visitors a hell of a high-tech ride...
...There are two key developments here, says TIME science contributor Leon Jaroff. One is flexibility. Previous materials had been brittle, and snapped easily at the extremely low temperatures necessary for superconductivity. The other key is that the new material conducts electricity with no resistance at the temperature of liquid nitrogen, minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit. This makes it much cheaper to maintain and use than other superconducting materials that need to be cooled to a much lower temperature. The discovery could lead to commercial applications like more efficient electric motors, better medical equipment and improved electric transmission lines...