Word: soaks
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...secret of the leucaena's rapid growth is in its roots; they extend as deep as the tree is tall. That enables it to soak up nutrients below the reach of other plants. Growing on the leucaena roots are fungi called mycorrhizae that help by absorbing phosphorus compounds that cannot be used by most plants, and converting them into forms that can nourish the tree. Then too the steady dropping of leaves provides rich nutrition for other plants...
...argues that Americans overuse the word decadent, without knowing what they mean by it. They use it to describe a $50 bottle of Margaux, a three-hour soak in the tub, a 40-hour-a-week television habit, the crowds that tell the suicide to jump, a snort of cocaine. And yet Americans mean something by it. The notion of decadence is a vehicle that carries all kinds of strange and overripe cargo-but a confusing variety of meanings does not add up to meaninglessness. Decadence, like pornography (both have something of the same fragrance), may be hard to define...
PROPHECY at least has a social conscience, pretending to explore the white man's physical and moral pollution of Indian lands in Maine. Methyl mercury, used to soak lumber, gets into the fish, which is later consumed by animals and humans. The poison primarily affects the fetus, causing nasty mutations, one of which--a huge, snorting, blood-soaked pig (or something)--menaces federal health investigator Robert Foxworth, his pregnant wife, Talia Shire, and assorted noble Indians and opportunistic lumber executives...
Many residents of Western states, where the MX is expected to go, were leery of these additions to their landscape, especially after Air Force Chief of Staff Lew Allen referred to the area as a "sponge" that could soak up Soviet missiles, but the Governors of Nevada and Utah recently announced their support of the MX trenches. Besides, the U.S. has already spent $5 million on environmental impact studies for its new weapon...
During the winter, Energy Secretary James Schlesinger began urging oil-fired utilities and factories to convert not to coal but to natural gas. This was to have been only a short-term move to help soak up the gas glut, but it created the misleading impression that coal was not the Administration's favorite fuel after all. Asserts Jim Larson, president of Energy Fuels Corp., Colorado's largest coal producer: "There is a simple lack of leadership. From where I sit, you just have to wonder what in hell is going on back there in Washington." The industry...