Word: tinkertoy
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...practiced to win the great prize. From the X-ray crystallography laboratory at King's College in London, where Biochemist Maurice Wilkins was also investigating the molecule's structure, they quietly obtained unpublished X-ray data on DNA. Relying as much on luck as logic, they constructed Tinkertoy-like molecular models out of wire and other metal parts. To everyone's astonishment, they suddenly produced a DNA model that not only satisfied the crystallographic evidence but also conformed to the chemical rules for fitting its many atoms together...
...certified or inspected. (The ultralight grew out of the hang glider and, so far, has been regarded benevolently by the Federal Aviation Administration as a motorized kite.) One of the most popular models, the Weedhopper, costs less than $5,000 in kit form and can be assembled like a Tinkertoy in eight to ten hours. It then can be partly disassembled to be carried on a cartop to the takeoff point. The Weedhopper has a rudder and elevator controlled by a stick; there are no pedals. A floating-disc speed indicator is the only gauge. Takeoff consists of cranking...
...this outerspace thriller. On March 9, the NASA space probe Voyager I discovered an erupting volcano on Io, the innermost Galilean moon of Jupiter; and on May 25, 20th Century-Fox released the film Alien. Io gave Hyams his setting: a futuristic mining colony that looks like a gigantic Tinkertoy. Alien provided much of the rest: a crew of steel-spined, me-first mercenaries stalked by a mysterious killer. (In Alien it was a mutating monster; here it is a dangerous drug.) Mix them together with the plot from the old Gary Cooper western High Noon and you have...
...bill to raise the federal debt limit. The Democrats had the strength to beat back the tax cutters on a straight party-line vote, 58 to 38, but the prospect of more such votes was an embarrassment. Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd denounced the Republican maneuvering as a "Tinkertoy economic solution" and "a con game with the American people." To head off more such votes, he called on the Senate Finance Committee to draw up its own tax-cutting measure by Labor Day. But since the Administration is due to produce a revision of the planned budget by July...
...Bird, Ernie and other Sesame Street favorites are gone from CTW's newest undertaking, which aims at a somewhat older and presumably savvier audience, ages eight to twelve. The show's hosts are three young people, Lisa, Marc and Trini, who are forever leaving their Tinkertoy clubhouse for short, filmed sorties to labs, beaches and races-a total of 100 trips in 65 shows. At the start of each episode, Marc announces, "Science is fun," and then tries to prove it. Cartoons are shown to explain how things work, and celebrity guests occasionally drop by to take part...