Word: weather
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...that the natural growth of sea grass may be ended, as has happened in Chesapeake Bay, or sudden blooms of algae can occur, particularly in stagnant waters. The exact reasons for these spurts of algal growth are unknown. They can be triggered, for example, by extended periods of sunny weather following heavy rains. Scientists believe algal growth is speeded up by the runoff of agricultural fertilizers. The burgeoning algae form a dense layer of vegetation that displaces other plants. As the algae die and decay, they sap enormous amounts of oxygen from the water, asphyxiating fish and other organisms...
...corn crop of 4.4 billion bu., 800 million bu. less than the USDA estimate. A survey by the National Corn Growers Association is even more pessimistic, predicting that this year's corn yields will be down as much as 42% from last year's. The USDA estimates assume normal weather for the rest of the growing season, even though most long-range forecasts, including those of the National Weather Service issued last week, predict no break in the hot, dry weather. Chicago's commodities-futures traders tended to believe the worst. Prices for corn, wheat and soybean contracts surged after...
...showing no signs of life. Even so, hope persisted. To demonstrate that a Mariner flyby at a distance of thousands of miles might completely overlook a thriving civilization, a young and still unknown Carl Sagan that same year sifted through a thousand pictures of earth shot by a weather satellite orbiting only 300 miles up. In a paper entitled "Is There Life on Earth?" he reported that only one photograph, of a snow-covered superhighway cutting a straight line through a forest, showed any evidence of man's presence on this planet...
...retroactive" plague, as Andrew Holleran calls the AIDS epidemic in Ground Zero (Morrow; 228 pages; $16.95), is causing not only panic but a radical change in sensibilities. Phrases like "oral sex" and "anal penetration," once startling to read outside hard-covers, are now routinely bounced off satellites with the weather reports. "Making love," one of the sweetest phrases in the language, now suggests a cause of death. Still, the world is sharply divided into the sick and the well, and AIDS can be something of a lark if you are a robust heterosexual college student at a safe-sex lecture...
Like the Carver figure in "Intimacy," Chekhov did not try to excuse himself from the theft. His reply to her letter was gentle. He wrote about the weather and his plans for a trip abroad. His response to her accusation was a plea for compassion: "All I can say is: another man's soul is a dark well...