Word: sanding
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...company on the best of terms, the scene in Somalia turned nasty. On Wednesday demonstrators set up burning roadblocks along the main thoroughfares in Mogadishu and pelted passing U.S. servicemen with chunks of concrete. Banners paraded past the Marine base at the old American embassy read THIS IS SOMALI SAND NOT AMERICAN SAND. Later in the week, fierce fire fights erupted in several parts of the city between UNITAF (Unified Task Force) troops and Somalis thought to be loyal to General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, leaving five American servicemen and two Nigerians injured and an estimated 10 Somalis dead. The unrest...
...central idea is that self-organization is almost inevitable in a wide range of systems, both natural and man-made. The consistent shape of sand dunes marching across a desert, the evolution of complicated body parts such as eyes and kidneys, the equilibrium between supply and demand in a functioning economy and the existence of life itself -- all these may be expressions of this single principle...
...easiest examples to understand is sand dunes, which maintain their overall shape despite winds and sandslides. Researchers at IBM's Thomas Watson Research Center built an artificial dune, a tiny sandpile sitting on a sensitively balanced plate, to study this behavior in detail. In one experiment, they dropped 35,000 grains of sand onto the pile one by one. As the sides grew too steep -- in some cases, by only a single grain of sand -- avalanches would make the pile collapse. Then it would start growing steeper again, until it was time for the next avalanche...
This phenomenon is known as self-organized criticality -- the grains have organized themselves to slope at a certain angle, yet the arrangement is precarious because a tiny extra bit of sand can knock the whole thing down. The sandpile is not quite stable, not quite chaotic...
...deep religious faith is the inspiration and focal point of "The Spirit and Soul of Latin America," an exhibition at Dudley House by Panamanian artist Sheila E. Lichacz. These strikingly original pieces convey her Catholic beliefs through a juxtaposition of shards of ancient pottery with sand, soil and, in some cases, paint...