Word: plante
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...federal water surges toward their fields, the farmers generate hydroelectric power with it, which they then sell at market rates and pocket the profit. In Washington State, farmers in the Columbia Basin have built seven such plants, which now generate about 500 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, enough to supply power to 50,000 American homes for a year. The electricity is sold to the cities of Seattle and Tacoma and so far has produced nearly $10 million in income since the first plant went on line...
...final clue led to my window where I found a stuffed animal hanging off the ledge that said 'Someone at Harvard loves you.'" Jeanne had gotten her roommates to decorate the whole room and plant the scavenger hunt clues while they were at the a cappella concert...
Captain James Cook saw a lot of strange things when he was exploring Polynesia in 1769, but the virgins chewing kava brought him up short. After pulling the plant's root out of the ground, island girls worked it over in their mouths, reducing it to a pulp, then spit the whole mess into coconut milk. The mixture was then strained through fibers, collected in a bowl and consumed by the tribe at large. Cook's men found the practice distasteful, but what did they know? Kava, after all, had been a popular tonic in the South Seas...
...alleged powers, kava is a pretty pedestrian plant. One of 2,000 members of the extended pepper family, it grows principally in the South Pacific, where it is harvested like any other cash crop. The root was largely unknown in the U.S., but that changed in 1996. That year, a coalition of 21 herbal-product makers devised a plan to bring more kava to American shores and shelves. Using aggressive ad campaigns, they quickly raised the profile of the root. When word began circulating that kava might have the power to calm--and when ABC ran a story to that...
...Food and Drug Administration is less calm. Neither it nor anyone else knows precisely how kava works. The prevailing thinking is that its active ingredient is a class of molecules known as kavalactones, plant metabolites that affect the limbic system, the emotional center of the brain. According to Cass, kava works on the same amino-acid sites as Valium; while Valium binds to so-called GABA receptors, kava causes more of them to form...