Word: vapor
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Ridge, site of three major volcanoes with an average elevation of 17 km (10.8 miles) and two smaller ones. Besides confirming past volcanic activity, Viking provided closeup glimpses of the reddish, rocky Martian soil, monitored weather changes including violent dust storms and discovered significant quantities of water (as atmospheric vapor, polar ice and permafrost). But Viking failed to find any signs of life, although biological tests showed certain quirky chemical activity in the soil...
...Harris vs. McRae). That decision followed by two weeks one that allowed the patenting of new manufactured forms of life, which should spawn even more laboratory activity in a field whose boundaries can only be imagined (Diamond vs. Chakrabarty). A federal regulation tightening the limits on how much benzene vapor can be in the air in work places was challenged in Industrial Union Department vs. American Petroleum Institute. The case offered a chance to decide whether the cost of industrial safety should be balanced against the benefits: money vs. lives. But the Justices, in striking down the regulation, left that...
...last fall a lawyer for the oil industry stood before the Supreme Court and urged the nine robed Justices to throw out a federal regulation limiting the amount of dangerous benzene vapor permitted in the workplace. Justice John Paul Stevens, the newest member of the court, leaned forward and put it squarely to the attorney: "If you win this case, isn't it true that some people may die as a result?" It was a typically pointed question from Stevens, but as befits a man renowned for his skill at the bridge table, he did not tip his hand...
...apparently caused largely by sulfur dioxide emissions from coal-burning power plants, smelters and factories. To a lesser extent, nitrogen oxides from car exhausts and industry contribute to the problem. Rising high into the sky and borne hundreds of miles by winds, these chemicals mix and react with water vapor to form sulfuric and nitric acids. The acids then fall to earth in the form of rain or snow that can damage anything from monuments to living organisms. After a number of such rain showers or highly acidic snow melts, a lake's pH* can plunge low enough...
...water is pumped out of the bottom of the pond and funneled into the coiled tubes of a heat exchanger, or evaporator, which is surrounded by a low-boiling-point liquid similar to that used in refrigerators. The water's heat turns the liquid into a pressurized vapor, which is directed against the blades of a turbine designed to operate on such low-temperature gases. As the turbine spins, it drives an alternator, which produces an electric current. Completing the cycle, the vapor passes into another heat exchanger, or condenser, where it is rechilled (with the cooler water from...