Word: vapor
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They made their serendipitous discovery by zapping graphite with a laser beam and mixing the resulting carbon vapor with a stream of helium. When they examined the crystallized residue, they found molecules made of 60 carbon atoms. Guessing (correctly) that these structures resembled Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes, they named them "buckminsterfullerenes"--"buckyballs" for short...
Cornell University researchers David Lee, Robert Richardson and Douglas Osheroff made their Nobel-winning discovery in 1972. They were working with helium-3, a rare isotope of the common gas, looking for a "phase transition," analogous to the changes in water when it turns from vapor to liquid and from liquid to ice. They had cooled a sample to within two one-thousandths of a degree of absolute zero (-459.67[degrees] F), the temperature at which atomic motion ceases...
...getting a lot less glamorous. Poppy offers a lipstick called Vanity. Hard Candy has one called Porno and another called Navel. But for names that really scream grotesque, it's tough to beat Urban Decay, whose new fall colors for lips, eyes and nails include Rust, Gash, Gangrene, Vapor and Toxin. Surprisingly, no less a store than Nordstrom's has bought the line, which is selling best in its Mall of America store. Here's what the ghastly set is wearing...
...such compact transport might easily see the value of the $319 MemBrain Denali jacket. The lightweight parka, made by Marmot of Santa Rosa, California, adjusts to the wearer's activity level: if one is, say, paddling briskly in the rain, strands of temperature-sensitive molecules expand to let vapor escape--then tighten up to trap body heat and prevent the chills when the canoer takes a break...
...aircraft. Metal detectors might miss plastics or liquids used to assemble a bomb, as might bored, poorly paid and poorly trained operators of X-ray machines. At some U.S. airports, including Kennedy, checked-in luggage for international flights is sniffed by specially trained dogs or scanned by electronic vapor-particle detectors that can locate explosives. But if the explosives are in airtight containers, they may be missed...