Word: threshold
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...breed of materials: superconducting ceramics. The substances can convey electric currents with no loss of energy at temperatures much higher than conventional superconductors. They open the way for such marvels as levitating high-speed trains and tiny but immensely powerful computers. "The breakthroughs in superconductivity bring us to the threshold of a new age," Reagan said. "It's our task to herald in that new age with a rush...
Officials of animal-protection societies tell of pit bulls being given live kittens or small dogs, such as poodles, to tear apart. Often they are fed gunpowder or hot sauce in the mistaken belief that this will increase the animals' pain threshold. Jean Sullivan, director of the Memphis-based Humane Society, charges that some owners have tried to increase their dogs' natural aggressiveness by keeping them tied up with collars of baling wire or running them on treadmills until they are exhausted. The pit bull's jaws -- which can exert as much force...
Even so, abortion advocates and most doctors argue that the viability debate is still largely academic. "The fact is that the threshold of viability is not that much different from what it was at the time of Roe v. Wade," says Dr. Alan Fleischman, director of neonatology at New York City's Montefiore Medical Center. "There is a biological limit to what we can do." Even at the most sophisticated hospitals, babies born before the 24th week of gestation or weighing less than 500 g (1.1 lb.) have virtually no chance of survival. Meanwhile, fewer than...
...them. "Every year," says NATO Supreme Commander General Bernard Rogers, "we find the gap continues to widen." Rogers warns that "within days" of a Warsaw Pact invasion, he would be forced to seek permission to use tactical nuclear weapons to halt an otherwise unstoppable advance. Once NATO crossed that threshold, however, escalation to full-scale nuclear war might be impossible to stop. The grim joke in NATO military circles is that its defense strategy consists of "fighting like hell for three days and then blowing up the world...
...help raise the nuclear threshold, NATO defense ministers agreed last month to strengthen their conventional forces through a 3% boost in defense spending. Yet most NATO governments have consistently failed in the past to fulfill their military spending commitments. Moreover, with the Gorbachev peace offensive in full swing, it will be difficult to win public support for military budget increases. In West Germany, for example, 72% of respondents in a U.S.-sponsored survey registered approval for Soviet arms control diplomacy, compared with only 9% for U.S. efforts. Says Eberhard Schulz, a West German Sovietologist: "Gorbachev's propaganda has really reached...