Word: silica
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...argument: these single-celled animals live in countless billions in the sea. When they die, their silicic, spherical skeletons sink to the ocean floor, form a radiolarian ooze. An explosion such as the H-bomb would blow them skyward, heating them past 1,710° centigrade, at which temperature silica melts. But they would harden again at the lower temperatures of the atmosphere and, being feather light, would float on the wind across the Pacific -to strike windshields...
...Centralia, Wash., reporters seized upon a theory propounded by Building Materials Dealer Jack Scherer: windshield glass is made from silica sand, which abounds on the Pacific shores of the State of Washington. Silica sand is full of sand-flea eggs. So, when the windshields get warm enough, the eggs hatch and the fleas have to chip the glass to get out. When he learned that his facetiously offered explanation had been wired across the country, the astonished Scherer granted that it was no more ridiculous than some others that had been publicized...
Skidless Shine. A tough, nonslippery floor wax is being test-marketed by E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. For use on both hardwood and linoleums, the Safety Floor Wax contains tiny, gripping particles of Du Font's Ludox (colloidal silica) which snub the forward motion of a shoe hitting the shiny floor, bring it to a safe and sure-footed stop.. Price: $1.29 a quart...
...Bell crystals are grown in thick-walled steel "bombs" filled with a water solution of alkaline material (see diagram). At the bottom is a layer of finely ground quartz (silica). A small quartz crystal (it may be only a sliver) is suspended near the top. When the bottom of the bomb is heated to 750°F., and the pressure raised to 15,000 Ibs. per sq. in., the ground quartz dissolves. Its molecules diffuse through the solution. When they reach the cooler top of the chamber, they deposit one by one on the "seed," building it into a perfect...
When a miner breathes finely divided silica (quartz), the sharp microscopic particles, lodge in the little sacs at the ends of the air tubes in his lungs. The irritation forms scar tissue, whose stiffness keeps the sacs from collapsing, as they normally do, to expel air from the lungs. Breathing becomes harder & harder until the miner has to use all his strength merely to keep his blood oxygenated. Bacterial infections, including tuberculosis, often add to his misery...