Word: thousandths
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...expects life after basketball to be "less gratifying" but "more meaningful." He says, "I also expect my palms might sweat next year watching the 76ers play. It has a place, but so many things have places. I'll move on." Seeing to his creaky knees, icing them down a thousandth time, Erving is often last out of the locker room. Whatever hour he leaves, there always seem to be children outside the door. "They don't want signatures anymore," he smiles. "They're looking for souvenirs." Winners' out. Memories...
...invader is tiny, about one sixteen-thousandth the size of the head of a pin. It consists basically of a double-layered shell or envelope full of proteins, surrounding a bit of ribonucleic acid (RNA), the single-stranded genetic molecule, and often enters the bloodstream of its victim after sexual contact. It is an AIDS virus, and its intrusion does not go unnoticed. Scouts of the body's immune system, large cells called macrophages, sense the presence of the diminutive foreigner and promptly alert the immune system. It begins to mobilize an array of cells that, among other things, produce...
Ordinary microscopes provide sharp images of most bacteria but cannot distinguish anything smaller than about eight-millionths of an inch -- the tiniest bacteria, for example -- because the wavelength of visible light, which is in the hundred-thousandth of an inch range, is too long. Ruska found that a magnetic coil could focus electrons, which have a wavelength that is roughly 100,000 times shorter. Substituting magnets for lenses and electrons for light, he built his first electron microscope. Improved versions, by providing images of viruses and even large molecules, have revolutionized such disparate fields as biology and electronics...
...case. Another is a "capture latch," a metal lip containing an added O ring, which would force escaping gas to turn an extra corner and lose momentum. The maximum distance that joints can pull apart under the stress of launch will be reduced from the current one thirty-thousandth of an inch to one-fifth that figure. A "vulcanized, rubbery substance" will replace the putty that now fills the gap as a sealant...
...them? How much gold is enough? Only a sane person would think to ask. An Eskimo hunter who kills only the game necessary to feed his family would have been horrified by Theodore Roosevelt, who could not have consumed more than one ten-thousandth of the animals he slaughtered. Roosevelt loved hunting the way that Imelda loves shopping. He loved the kick of the gun and the smell of the powder. He loved the antlers. The same sportive hormones may be active in Imelda. Nature is filled with wild waste, unthinkable redundancies. Why does nature toss off a billion sperm...