Word: nucleus
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Leading this year's unit will be a trio of juniors--Fred Scherrer, Bill Wolff and Ben Elizondo. Toss in Wade Stokes and goalie Don Benson, both juniors and returning starters, and second-year Coach Chris Hafferty can claim a nucleus of proven talent...
...particles that are initially provided by a reactor ignition device. The shattered nuclei release energy and emit more neutrons. When uranium atoms are packed closely together, however, as they are in power-plant fuel rods, the neutrons emitted by the splitting nuclei break up other nearby nuclei. Each shattered nucleus contributes more neutrons and heat to what has now become a chain reaction, and the heat is used to produce steam that drives the electrical generators...
...coolant is lost, the core begins to overheat, like a car with a broken radiator. The chain reaction promptly ceases because rising temperatures cause the fuel to expand, which increases the distances between individual atoms and makes it less likely that the neutrons emitted by one will hit the nucleus of another. But the spontaneous radioactive decay of nuclei goes on. The uncooled reactor core could eventually get hot enough to melt through its casing and the surrounding building, causing fires that loft radioactive material into the atmosphere. Under the worst circumstances, the core melts through the earth...
...cells vital to the body's defense and maintenance. The primary target known to scientists is the T-helper lymphocyte, called "the general" of white blood cells because it helps orchestrate the body's defense. The AIDS virus entwines itself in the fundamental genetic material at the cell's nucleus, where it uses the cell's own mechanisms to reproduce many-fold. The viruses then destroy that cell and escape to invade others...
FOOTNOTE: *The cameraless U.S. spacecraft ICE made the first close approach to a comet last September, when it passed only 5,000 miles behind the nucleus of Comet Giacobini-Zinner...