Word: sigmoids
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Recently, researchers studying satellite images of the sun have paid special attention to great, S-shaped twists of plasma called sigmoids that they now believe are an early stage of CME formation. Find a sigmoid, and within a few days you'll probably see an explosion. Since it takes an additional four days for the solar tsunami to reach Earth, you can double today's early-warning time...
...well used. Satellite operators who know a cme storm front is coming can briefly shut their systems off to prevent short-circuiting. Earth-based power grids can be temporarily--if expensively--reconfigured to provide extra grounding. Astronauts planning a space walk can stay indoors until the danger passes. "Each sigmoid is like a loaded gun," says solar researcher Alphonse Sterling, who helped make the discovery. Now, it seems, humanity may have a better chance of dodging the bullet...
...Bend. Though the colon averages 5 ft. in length, the vast majority of diverticula are found in its last 15 inches, known as the sigmoid colon be cause it bends in an S shape from the lower end of the descending colon to the upper part of the rectum. Most of the sigmoid colon is in the left lower quarter of the body. When a diverticulum becomes inflamed (diverticulitis), the symptoms suggest "left-sided appendicitis." Symptoms usually include diarrhea, gas distension and pain...
Further to rule out the possibility of concurrent cancer, the diagnostician inserts a sigmoidoscope-a metal tube, 10 in. long, with a light at the end-through the rectum and examines the lower sigmoid colon visually. Now being refined are more elaborate techniques for washing out the colon, then flushing it with a solution to pick up stray cancer cells which can be identified on a Papanicolaou smear under the microscope...
When the doctors operated for what they felt certain was complicated umbilical hernia, they were amazed to find that the patient's self-diagnosis of "knifelike" pains had been literally accurate: there was actually a nine-inch table knife in his sigmoid. the curve of the intestine leading to the rectum...
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