Word: takings
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Pessimists who fear that science is exhausting nature's mysteries can take fresh hope from a newly published book: The Natural History of Mosquitoes, by Dr. Marston Bates (Macmillan; $5). Mosquitoes punch holes in man; they pester him, keep him awake, infect him with deadly diseases. So well-financed scientists, determined to deal with mosquitoes, have studied them intensively for more than half a century, accumulating a vast amount of information. But, as Dr. Bates points out, they have hardly begun to find out how even the best-known species go about their business...
...habits of mosquitoes, though closely studied, are still a dark mystery. The males of a few species take their mates where they find them, just like less subtle insects. Among the Opifex fuscus of New Zealand, the males like their females young. They skim along the surface of stagnant water, watching downward intently and sometimes thrusting their heads below the surface. They are looking for female pupae about to become adult. When a pupa breaks the surface, the male tears open the pupa case and mates with the still-soft imago before it has fully emerged...
...later in the week, was still running ahead of 1948, there was still a strong demand in many lines, and price supports and unemployment benefits would cushion any decline in incomes. For the steelmakers themselves, Sawyer had a special word of cheer. "The Government," said Sawyer, "never intended to take over the steel business." He added that businessmen should be permitted to run their own enterprises without Government interference; after all, said he, "they know more about business than Government officials...
...Senators sat up and took notice; Airman Rickenbacker made the businesslike kind of sense they wanted to hear. Next day, he followed up his free advice with a dramatic and not entirely disinterested proposal. He offered to take over his competitors-National, Delta, Capital, Chicago & Southern, and Colonial Airlines -and handle all their domestic air mail at Eastern's "non-subsidy" rate of 60/ to 65^ per ton mile (v. the five lines' average which he figured at $4.45 last year). *The difference, said Rick, would save the taxpayers $10 million a year...
Medal for Merit. Sir William agreed to take on the Jamaica cement project. With the same quiet dexterity that won him a wartime U.S. Medal for Merit, he quickly organized the Caribbean Cement Co. Ltd., with himself as chairman (Ed Stettinius joined in as a director). He got a 19-year monopoly on Jamaican cement, and a scale of guaranteed prices (30% below the delivered cost of British cement, but still enough to make a tidy $221,650 annual profit...