Word: phenomena
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...attempt demonstrated the extraordinary efficiency of a pioneering early-warning system that is called the Center for Short-Lived Phenomena. Based at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., the center uses volunteer observers and the Smithsonian's satellite-tracking communications network to inform the world's scientists about important natural events. It has one extraordinary requirement: like the meteor over Mexico, the phenomena that it reports must be so fleeting that they can be successfully studied only while they occur or very shortly thereafter...
...Arctic, or the drift of a floating island in the Caribbean. After the flight of Apollo 11, it reported the lunar rumblings recorded by the seismometer left behind at Tranquillity Base. Even the recent discovery of a primitive jungle tribe in Surinam fell within the category of passing phenomena. Reason: the Indians' Stone Age culture will change so rapidly under the impact of civilization that anthropologists may lose a rare opportunity to study man's past...
...nature, the center operates at press-agency speed. With nine telephone lines and 15 Teletypes at his disposal, Center Director Robert Citron, 37, can reach investigators almost anywhere in the world within minutes after an alert. By last week the center had reported more than 199 major short-lived phenomena, including 41 earthquakes, 26 volcanic eruptions, 29 fireballs, 20 major oil spills, ten animal migrations and one red tide (a strange discoloration of the seas caused by a sudden spread of tiny marine organisms). Fifty-one of these events were important enough to warrant full-scale scientific investigations...
...haven't discovered any outstanding new phenomena," Reeves added, "but a great many observations that had been qualitative are now quantitative. Now you can start calculating the sun's behavior...
Willie's hope makes much of the American phenomena (swimming pool culture, perversions of academia, postmarital sex life) dissected in the novel seem not so much horrifying as pathetically funny. In taking this approach to life in American society. Lebowitz has come up with something different and genuinely beautiful as sick sixties fiction goes...