Word: vapor
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...truism is that the eye can lie, but the nose knows. Cool pools in the middle of the desert turn out to be heat vapor or over-the-horizon reflections. A bartender can suddenly split into identical twins. But drop a blindfolded man into the middle of a place that whiffs of tanned calfskin, saddle soap and cordovan polish. Is he in a shoe store? Not necessarily...
...seasonal growth of vegetation. When the thin icecaps at the planet's poles disappear with the coming of the Martian spring, belts of darker color creep toward the equator, sometimes crossing it. This effect might be caused by some nonliving chemical change under the influence of drifting water vapor, but biological action is more likely...
More from the Sun. Martian life, said the panel headed by Princeton Biologist Colin S. Pittendrigh and Stanford's Nobel-prizewinning Geneticist Joshua Lederberg, must be hardy enough to survive long periods of extreme dryness and cold. Martian organisms may concentrate water vapor the way earthly plants collect small traces of carbon dioxide; they may even make their own water by chemical action. There is a possibility that they need no water at all, using some other liquid as a fluid medium...
...spaceship was thick enough to contain a good-sized oxygen tube. It may be an umbilical cord supplying oxygen from the spaceship's tanks, besides carrying wires for communication and telemetering. The tube could also carry away carbon dioxide from Leonov's breathing, water vapor from his perspiration and excess heat. The oxygen cylinders on his back may have been for emergency...
...panels are covered on both sides with thin sheets of copper and aluminum separated by plastic. The metal sheets are electrically charged, but normally no current flows between them. When a micrometeoroid penetrates the aluminum, it will punch a hole in the plastic and fill the hole with metal vapor that is a good conductor of electricity. Although the gas will dissipate quickly, there will be time for a brief pulse of electricity to cross the barrier and inform the satellite's electronic brain. Instruments in the satellite will record the time of each hit, identify the panel...