Word: nitrogenous
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...m.p.h.* Command to Jets. Mariner II was now under radio command from California Institute of Technology's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The first order was received and obeyed: large, flat solar panels (see diagram) sprang into position. In a series of maneuvers, Mariner's ten tiny nitrogen jets swiveled the spacecraft until its long axis pointed at the sun. So positioned, the solar panels could absorb the sun's energy, power the spacecraft's electrical system without draining its silver-zinc battery...
...piece of the skull, then inserts a three-in-one tube, only 2 mm. (less than 1½ in.) in diameter. The tube slips painlessly through the insensitive brain to the deep-lying thalamus. The tube's outer layer is a vacuum insulator; the innermost bore carries liquid nitrogen supplied at -196° C.; the middle layer is for warmed and gaseous nitrogen to escape...
When the X rays show that the tip of the tube is in the thalamus, Dr. Cooper lets in enough liquid nitrogen to drop the tip temperature to zero or -10° C. This knocks out the nerves, but does not destroy them. He asks the patient to raise an arm, or leg, or both: if the patient has full control of his limbs, with no tremor remaining, the tip is in the right place...
Then Dr. Cooper admits more liquid nitrogen, to drop the tip temperature to -40° or -50°. In less than five minutes, this rapid freezing kills the offending, misfiring nerve cells. If the freezing extends a bit too far and the patient becomes unable to move his arm satisfactorily, Dr. Cooper has 30 seconds in which to correct the error and rewarm the thalamus. Most patients can be out of bed the same day and out of the hospital within a week...
...that nitrogen injection kits are being manufactured, other neurosurgeons, still skeptical, will try to duplicate Dr. Cooper's results. Awaiting the benefits of his bold pioneering are at least 300,000 U.S. victims of Parkinsonism, a lifelong affliction, of which doctors say: "Patients don't die of this disease-they die with...