Word: perturb
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...object to having done all this work. Writing papers is, of course, one of the prime ways we digest information and ideas, and I even find it (at times) enjoyable. What does perturb me is the isolated, dead-end nature of the writing process here at Harvard. Paper-writing, rather than serving as an integral part of the learning process, all too often becomes something we do on our own, late at night, hunched in front of our computers, with one overriding goal: to just get it done. If my work habits fall toward the middle of the spectrum, this...
...Rowland and Molina announced their conclusion: CFCs were weakening the ozone layer enough to cause a marked increase in skin cancers, perhaps enough to perturb the planet's climate by rejuggling the stratosphere's temperature profile. In 1978 the U.S. banned their use in spray cans. "People assumed the problem had been solved," recalls Rowland. But the Europeans continued to use CFCs in aerosol cans; other uses of CFCs began to increase worldwide. Says Rowland: "All along, critics complained that ozone depletion was not based on real atmospheric measurements -- until, that is, the ozone hole appeared...
...solar system passes through the central plane, it may collide with one of the massive dust clouds. While the cloud itself would have little graviational effect on the earth or the sun, its gravitational pull would. The strong lure would perturb the Oort cloud--a vast spherical shell of trillions of icy particles which surround the solar system...
...burning big question: Is There Meaning to Life?" Richard Rhodes (Yale '59) is worse: he goes on for 10 tortured pages in John Leonard gibberish about his search for an elusive all-purpose Answer he dubs "the structure." As in, "I mean the structure was there, in place, to perturb and energize the shells and at least graze the nucleus...
Reagan's life has rushed by at a frantic pace, which seems not to perturb him at all. Of course he tries to slow it down with a laugh whenever he can. Now and then, when the band strikes up Hail to the Chief, the President leans over to Nancy and says, "They are playing our song." He chuckled to himself, an old sportscaster, that the baseball All-Star game was played without his even knowing. Even that garish glen-plaid suit that rattled European style arbiters brought a guffaw. "Did you see that suit on NBC? I like...