Word: scientist
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...evolution, protein chemistry has a lot to recommend it. To produce Kevlar, for instance, requires vats of concentrated sulfuric acid that must be maintained at high pressure. But spiders produce silk in the open air using water as a solvent. "I am absolutely fascinated," says University of Washington materials scientist Christopher Viney, "that such an incredible material starts out as a solution in water, and all the spider does is squirt it out through a small hole. In the process, proteins that were soluble turn into insoluble fibers. Now, isn't that amazing?" Just as amazing is Viney's discovery...
What little volcanologists have learned over the centuries has come at a fearsome price. Beginning in A.D. 79, when the Roman scientist Pliny the Elder was killed while observing an eruption of Mount Vesuvius, volcanology has been one of the world's more dangerous fields of study. Over the past 11 years, sudden eruptions -- including major blasts in Colombia, Mexico and the Philippines -- have killed an estimated 26,000 people; since 1979 at least 12 scientists have perished while seeking to plumb the fiery mysteries...
Conway was the only survivor able to walk away from Galeras; on his way out, he passed the body of a dead tourist whose shirt was still on fire. The fourth survivor, Ecuadoran scientist Luis Lamarie, had to be carried out on a stretcher...
Complexity theory and chaos theory share more than the attention of enterprising writers; they are scientific first cousins. The essence of chaos theory is that certain phenomena involve so many factors that they are inherently unpredictable; although a scientist may be able to project the pattern of a swinging pendulum or a flying cannonball, it is impossible to determine how far apart two leaves will be after they go through a waterfall or exactly what the weather will be a month from now. Reason: in systems governed by the mathematics of chaos, small events have big consequences. For instance, even...
...evolutionary biologist said if he were to request an epitaph after his death, it would read: "Tried to recover the humanistic tradition of writing science for the non- scientist as noble...