Word: cracking
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...window, which previously had a large crack in it, had been under surveillance throughout the afternoon because Ridwan Himawan, the supervisor of the Quincy House dining hall, noticed it was shaking...
Despite the early break in a case that was expected to take months, if not years, to crack, there were still countless questions. "At this point, we don't know if we're looking for three or four more people, or 15 or 20," says an investigator. Washington authorities feared that some terrorists might have fled to the Middle East or were trying to do so; the Justice Department circulated to airlines the names of three Muslims and told the companies not to let them board flights out of the country...
What gives spider silk its impressive array of qualities? What, for that matter, lends crack resistance to horses' hooves and adhesiveness to the secretions of mussels and barnacles? What makes rats' teeth sharp and insect cuticle hard? By answering such questions, Lewis and other researchers hope to usher in an exciting new era in materials science, one based not on petroleum products like nylon and plastic but on proteins synthesized by living, growing things. "Why go to an organic chemist for new materials," asks University of Mississippi biochemist Steven Case, "when nature has already produced some beauties...
Once conditions are right, it doesn't take much to trigger a slide. And usually, there is very little warning. "Sometimes you hear a crack like thunder," says U.S. Forest Service research scientist Sue Ferguson, who has been caught in several small slides. "Sometimes the avalanche releases quietly, like rustling silk." Traveling at speeds that can exceed 80 m.p.h., the rushing snowpack compresses the air at its prow, generating a wind blast strong enough to smash windows and hurl skiers into trees. Once the avalanche stops, the snow mass solidifies, entombing its victims in an icy grip...
...character -- although anyone named Lance is bound to hope that that is not always true. Democrats used to have fun with "George Herbert Walker Bush." The full inventory of the pedigree, formally decanted, produced a piled-on, Connecticut preppie-Little Lord Fauntleroy effect that went nicely with the populist crack that Bush "was born on third base and thought he had hit a triple...