Word: perished
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
These quests are all part of the controversy and ferment that have been bubbling through the scientific community since the rise of a spectacular new theory that attempts to explain the mass extinctions--most notably the one in which the dinosaurs perished--that have punctuated the history of life on this planet. Every 26 million years or so, the theory holds, a rain of comets that lasts hundreds or thousands of centuries bombards the earth. The impact of some of the larger comets spews enough debris into the atmosphere to block the sun for months. As the skies darken, temperatures...
...their roosts and not allowed to realight. Recalls Chinese Ornithologist Tao Yaokuang, who was forced to take part in the program: "The idea was to harass them so they would be on their wings the whole day till they literally dropped dead." Sparrows were not the only birds to perish in the melee. Cranes, ibis and eagles, among others, were driven to near extinction by reckless pesticide spraying, pollution and the destruction of forests. Even today the woods around Peking remain eerily silent...
...every army officer knows, morale is crucial. The U.S. learned that the hard way in Viet Nam, where collapsing spirits at home subverted confidence in the field. Civilizations can flourish or perish according to their cultural morale. What the yuppies, in concert with a man like Ueberroth, have to offer is a new energy wedded to the belief that problems are solvable...
...veil of soot and dust slowly circulates through various layers of the atmosphere, blanketing entire continents, creating a world of frigid darkness. As ground temperatures plummet by as much as 40° F and the sun is obscured, crops in Iowa, Nebraska and the Ukraine in the Soviet Union perish...
...abstention from choice." This seems doubtful. Are we, in fact, dying as a nation, as a culture, or as individuals from a surfeit of technological riches? Perhaps death from such causes is more common in Lasch's circle than in one's own. Perhaps, indeed, Lasch's acquaintances perish under the stress of the suggestion that industrial technology may jeopardize our political system. Lasch darkly intones that...