Word: toole
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...blind person reads Braille. Because the electromagnetic force applied by the tip is so small, an AFM can delicately probe a wide range of surfaces, including the membranes of living cells. Even more astounding, by applying slightly more pressure, scientists can use an AFM tip as a dissecting tool that lets them scrape off the top of cells without destroying their interior structures. Scientists have used an AFM to detail the biochemical cascade that results in blood clotting; to examine the atomic structure of seashells; and to uncover the tiny communication channels that link one cell to another...
Without question, these recent additions to the scientific tool kit hold tremendous practical promise. A more accurate atomic clock, for instance, is not just a curiosity. "If we can put better clocks into orbit," notes William Phillips, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, "we might improve the global positioning system enough to land airplanes in pea-soup fog." Even now it is not difficult to imagine that STMs might be employed by the semiconductor industry to produce minuscule electronic devices, that optical tweezers might be used by surgeons to correct defects in a single cell...
...those same technologies -- and a few new ones -- are finding their way into tools used by weekend do-it-yourselfers, a group swelled by large numbers of electronics-savvy baby boomers. Some of these tools, like the electronic tire gauge, may be too smart for their own good, and will probably go the way of most overpriced gimmicks. But a few, including the digital level and the electromagnetic stud finder, actually make tough jobs easier to do. And if a smart tool can do that, there will always be people smart enough...
NATIONAL CHARACTER is not what you would call a good analytic tool. The nation hidden inside "national character" is the same top to bottom, generally in agreement, and generally going to stay that way. But such stasis is not a feature of either Japanese or American society today...
...many--including the Harvard Admissions Office--agree that diversity of cultural, ethnic and racial backgrounds often means a diversity of past experience. And "minority" classifications can be an admittedly blunt but useful tool in making sense of that diversity of experience...