Word: carbone
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...problem was how to heat the droplets differentially. Dr. van Straten solved it with carbon black, which is a fluffy kind of soot whose intensely black particles, about 500.00 in diameter, accumulate radiant heat just like a blacktop road. When these particles are released in a cloud, she reasoned, the water droplets that capture one or more of them should grow warmer by absorbing sunlight, and should lose their moisture by evaporation to droplets that have stayed comparatively cool because they have captured no particles. Then the cool, fattened-up droplets should fall slowly through the cloud, growing gradually bigger...
This system, worked out theoretically, worked like a charm in actual fact, the Navy announced last week. It was tested last July over the coast of Georgia. The usual tactic was to attach a package of 1-2 Ibs. of carbon black to a static line and toss it out of an airplane flying through the top of a cloud. When the slack snapped out of the line, the package broke open, releasing the carbon black. Seven clouds out of seven tested dissipated entirely in 2½ to 20 minutes...
...When carbon black is released in moist, cloudless air the effect is opposite but no less magical. Its black particles catch sunlight and heat the air between them. The heated air rises, expands and grows colder. Some of its moisture condenses, and a new, white cloud appears in the sky. This system will not form clouds in dry air, but when the air is moist enough, it works almost every time. The official Navy attitude is that the action of carbon black is "an interesting effect" that will have to be studied a great deal more before...
...Caesium 137, which is a genetic peril because it spreads throughout the body. ¶ Strontium 90, which affects the bones, especially of young children, because it is absorbed like calcium. ¶ Carbon 14, which has a half-life of 5,700 years and has probably risen in all living matter -3%-.6% since the beginning of nuclear weapons tests...
Sneak Killer. Among other things that Balke & Co. studied was sensitivity to an excess of carbon dioxide in the inhaled air. Odorless and tasteless, COo can be a sneak killer: if something went wrong with his oxygen-recycling system or its indicator, a busy spaceman might not notice it until too late. In the altitude chamber, first Balke and then the airmen mounted an Exercycle. Disguised like Martians in a spirometer (breathing measurement) mask, they pedaled frantically off to nowhere...