Word: precursors
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...Beta-carotene, a precursor of Vitamin A, has been associated with a decrease in the chances of heart disease," says Lillian M. Sonnenberg, manager of Massachusetts General Hospital's Nutrition Service. "A lot of research is pointing to beta-carotene as having a clear relationship with the chances of cancer...
Less controversial was the proposal that terrestrial defenders should know the exact nature of their target before acting. Responding early to a worrisome asteroid, they would send a "precursor mission," an instrumented spacecraft, to fly by or orbit the object and determine its size, shape and composition. One such "practice" mission, code-named Clementine, has already been budgeted by the Defense Department in coordination with NASA. It will fly an instrument package past the approaching asteroid Geographos in 1994 to test the kind of sensors and navigational devices that someday may be needed to help cope with a real threat...
...convinced that "a significant possibility of an impact exists that would have major consequences" and that "we can do something about it. It can't be some hare-brained scheme that would cost umpteen billion dollars for an immediate mission," he stresses, "but we can do all of the precursor planning and prepare the kind of launch vehicle necessary to do the job." Brown's words carry weight; he will preside over hearings on the subject during the current session of Congress...
...other effort to find a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian standoff. While the P.L.O. is committed to searching for accommodation with Israel, Hamas will settle for nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish state, followed by the establishment of an Islamic Palestine as a precursor to a greater pan-Arab union. "Between Hamas and Israel," says Abdul Sattar Kassem, a political scientist at An-Najah University in Nablus, "it is a battle to the death...
Before long he found that his pathological interests precluded his being hired by any hospital. His ostracism, however, did leave him more time to rummage around flea markets, looking for old toys with small gears that he could use to build his inventions. His first "Mercitron," a precursor to the carbon-monoxide delivery contraption he provided to two more suicidal women last week, now sits in his lawyer's office. "He's very skilled in mechanical engineering," says Geoffrey Fieger. "He's very talented, in everything he builds...