Word: thirsted
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Myths about the camel and its thirst-resistance are older than the Sphinx-and almost as durable. Well into the modern age of science, men accepted the notion that the evil-tempered animal could store a two-week supply of water in its humpor in a great, cistern-like stomach. The hump theory was the first to be discarded as so much humph. What the camel carries on its back is a reserve of fatty tissue to be consumed when the rest of the camel runs out of fuel. The story about the parched Bedouin who slaughtered his favorite camel...
Albumin in the Plasma. But for all the debunking dissections, the camel's thirst-quenching secret remained hidden. Then, a young Israeli veterinarian went to work on the ship of the desert. The answer, says Dr. Kalman Perk, 34, of Rehovot's Hebrew University, is in the camel's bloodstream. The plasma has an extraordinary high content of a kind of albumin, which enables the blood to retain its water and maintain its volume and fluidity even when the water in the camel's tissues has been markedly depleted...
...hope of finding a way to make man more immune to desert heat, Dr. Perk plans to begin experimenting on human volunteers next summer. Meanwhile, there is evidence that some humans may already have some of the camel's thirst-conquering equipment. A Tel Aviv researcher has collected data showing that Yemenite Jews, traditional desert dwellers, have a significantly higher blood-albumin level than Jews of European lineage...
...stopped by after a day at the office. Wherever the blue-and-white trailer picked a place to park in Cleveland, crowds gathered for a free drink of flavored corn syrup. And two hours later the drinkers returned to the trailer. Not that Clevelanders were afflicted with a sudden thirst; on their second visit, instead of getting another shot of syrup, they donated a blood sample. A technician smeared the blood on chemically treated cardboard. In a matter of moments the results were obvious. If the cardboard changed color from grey to blue, sugar from the corn syrup...
...special thanks for "the thrifty conviction that every piece of installed equipment ought to be good for 40 years." The realization that there is at least an oasis of such belief in an economy of 90-day guarantees of doubtful merit is like water to one dying of thirst...