Word: phenomena
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...probably already read Wuthering Heights and A Tale of Two Cities, so this class should be a breeze. The course promises to "map the nineteenth-century British obsession with crime and horror, with phenomena that rattle one’s sense of self." Take it if you are ready to be rattled. Difficulty 2.5, Workload 1.8 | T., Th. 12. Link...
...quake is equally evident: when a natural disaster so devastating hits, oughtn't we have some way of predicting it? Hurricanes, blizzards, even volcanoes can be forecast well before their arrival, after all, allowing governments and people to make lifesaving preparations. Earthquakes, however, are stealth disasters, geological phenomena largely undetectable until just seconds before they occur. What scientists have long wanted to know is why quakes are so sneaky and what, if anything, can be done to read their warning signs better...
People stockpiled gold and grain and canned chicken chow mein in anticipation of the apocalypse that didn't happen. But few foresaw the apocalypses that did, not to mention the then inconceivable phenomena - Twitter, Twilight, Rachael Ray. So we come to a new calendar eager to assign certainty; each month has its rituals, and somewhere, someone is forever celebrating something. January, naturally, is National Oatmeal and Hot Tea Month. April, less naturally, is Irritable Bowel Syndrome Awareness Month. July seems a strange month to choose as Bioterrorism/Disaster Education and Awareness month. I don't want to be aware of anything...
...funny thing is, scientists have known about epigenetic marks since at least the 1970s. But until the late '90s, epigenetic phenomena were regarded as a sideshow to the main event, DNA. To be sure, epigenetic marks were always understood to be important: after all, a cell in your brain and a cell in your kidney contain the exact same DNA, and scientists have long known that nascent cells can differentiate only when crucial epigenetic processes turn on or turn off the right genes in utero...
...Black Friday. Notebook-computer prices dropped 26%, to $500, and unit sales of computers increased a whopping 63%. Prices for netbooks, the lighter, more portable cousin to traditional laptop computers, also dropped. Camcorder prices fell 33%. And these days, the deals extend beyond Black Friday. "One of the phenomena we are seeing is that retailers are really stretching the promotional period," says Ross Rubin, consumer-electronics analyst at NPD. "Retailers are looking to prime the pump for 2010 by getting consumers in the store. They're driving momentum while trying put 2009 far behind them...