Word: paraffin
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...showing themselves to be able and devoted scientists. In the Curie Laboratory of Paris' Institut du Radium Irène Curie-Joliot and Jean Frederic Joliot were shooting alpha particles (nuclei of helium atoms) at the lightweight element beryllium. Strange rays hopped out of the beryllium. Fed into paraffin, the rays knocked out protons (hydrogen nuclei) at dizzy speeds of one-tenth the velocity of light. What were the strange rays...
...most beeswax goes into Catholic altar candles, which must be at least 51% beeswax to meet an old Church law based on the supposed virginity of bees. No such rule governs votive candles, sold in great numbers to the faithful. These may be made of ordinary stearic acid and paraffin...
...radon. Alpha particles from the radon knocked neutrons out of the beryllium. First hurdle was a metal ring which deflected part of the neutron beam toward a cylindrical detection chamber less than an inch across, a half-inch deep. The chamber's door was guarded by a paraffin screen from which the neutrons evicted protons. Having positive charges, the protons ripped through the chamber, freeing ions which were collected on an insulated electrode so that their flow could be amplified, detected, measured...
...laying and the mortar between the bricks themselves. Last summer work was pushed to remove all the mortur from between the bricks with air drills and then to replace defective material with a substance of an improved type. The new material is believed to be a mortar mixed with paraffin which is placed in the cracks and then heat applied by coal burners in an effort to melt the wax which, they hope, will then spread around the bricks and form a protective film against the driving of the rains...
...high cost of refrigerated water shipments dropped into the railroads' lap the fat job of carrying the West's oranges to the consuming East. The paraffin process seemed likely to win back for the steamship companies a good share of that business, perhaps even increase consumption by lowering Eastern market prices. Untried but inviting were the new method's possibilities for lemons, limes, grapefruit, cantaloupe...