Word: strainingly
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...agent of disaster is a 3-mm (one-tenth-in.) insect known to scientists as the poinsettia strain of the sweet-potato whitefly but to farmers as the Superbug. Millions of these voracious insects have spread over the Imperial Valley, massing on the undersides of leaves and sucking plants dry, weakening or killing them in the process. Farmers first noticed the flies getting worse in July, and by September swarms of them looked like white clouds. They covered windshields and got stuck between people's teeth. Farm workers had trouble inhaling and eventually had to wear masks. Not since...
...near Amarillo, Texas, which was expecting to build some 3,500 warheads over the next few years, suddenly has to reverse gears and begin dismantling weapons. Says Thomas Cochran, a nuclear-arms expert with the Natural Resources Defense Council: "It's doable, but if weapons production continues, it will strain the system...
...welfare of the earth's 5 billion people than many heads of state. As a plant breeder at CIMMYT, the internationally funded agricultural research station in El Batan, Mexico, he spends his days in silent battle with threats to the world's wheat crop. Recently Skovmand discovered a rare strain of wheat from eastern Turkey that is resistant to the Russian aphid, an invader that has so far cost American farmers $300 million. By using the Turkish strain to develop hearty new hybrid wheats, CIMMYT breeders may help growers outwit the aphid...
Language itself is buckling under the strain of avoiding insult and injury to everybody in response to the crybaby's complaint. Ever mindful of the genuine or imagined sensitivities of women and minorities, the University of Missouri's Multicultural Management Program has produced for newspaper reporters a 22-page dictionary of loaded words and phrases. Some of the proposals in the lexicon are unarguable (bimbo and broad are derogatory when applied to women). Other entries, listed mainly to pacify various groups, are questionable. Burly should be used with care, since it is "too often associated with large black men, implying...
...amazingly flexible organ, but it simply was not designed to withstand the strain of modern living. Hearing naturally deteriorates with advancing years, but not by much. Mabaan tribesmen in the Sudan, for example, who have never been exposed to industrial sounds, maintain their hearing into old age. Sudden intense noise, like a gunshot or dynamite blast, can damage hearing instantly by tearing the tissue in the delicate inner ear. Sustained noise from a jackhammer or disco music is more insidious. The prolonged barrage flattens the tiny hair cells in the inner ear that transmit sound to the nerves...