Word: tracers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first step. A native of Johannesburg, South Africa, he became intrigued in 1956 by the difficulty doctors had in obtaining X-ray pictures of the brain. Because the cranium is so thick, they could make an X-ray beam "see" an abnormality only by injecting a patient with tracer dyes or air bubbles. When Cormack immigrated to the U.S. that year (he became an American citizen a decade later), he began exploring the physics of how X rays pass through differing body parts. Dividing this passage into cross-sectional slices, he found he could calculate the absorption...
...keys in a lock. A blood sample from a patient is added to a tube containing animal brain tissue and a radioactively tagged chemical known to bind to particular receptors. Whatever drug is in the patient's blood displaces the test chemical at these sites, and the radioactive tracer left behind can easily be measured, giving doctors a precise indication of the levels of the prescribed drug in the blood-and thus a firm indication of how the body is utilizing...
That seedier side is the subject of Skip Tracer, a new Canadian film from the nether reaches of British Columbia. A skip tracer is a fellow who tracks down anyone who has skipped out on a debt. He's the smiling guy in the three-piece suit nailing a For Sale sign on your house, repossessing your car, walking out with all your living room furniture. It's all legal--after all these things are no longer yours--but it's a nasty business, and the people who do it for a living are nastier still--picture...
...particular skip tracer of this film is one John Collins, Vancouver's finest, Man of the Year for his firm three years running, and probably the coldest, most calculating lead character of the year. With his stylish suits and grown-out crew cut, he is the epitome of the emotionless bureaucrat, a surly, cocky SOB whose meanness is matched only by his ruthless efficiency (pardon me, I'm raving). He'll follow you around town, visit you at work, call you on the phone. Not that he doesn't have his own standards--pay up and it's all buddy...
Arber, 49, first postulated the existence of restriction enzymes in the early 1960s while studying viruses that invade bacteria. After labeling a virus with a radioactive isotope that acted as a tracer, Arber found that when the virus entered a bacterium, most of the viral DNA was destroyed...