Word: fractious
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Perverse Plutonium. Another problem fuel is plutonium, which may some day become the principal source of nuclear fission energy. Last week the Argonne National Laboratory dedicated its new $4,000,000 Fuel Fabrication Facility, whose principal job is to make fractious plutonium behave...
...Fractious Cyclones. Meteorology of the weather-adage type is at least as old as the Bible ("The north wind driveth away rain"; Proverbs 25:23), and knowledge of atmospheric behavior has accumulated slowly through the centuries. In the early 19th century, for instance, it was known that large areas of low atmospheric pressure sweep across the North Temperate Zone roughly from west to east and are apt to bring stormy weather. But this knowledge was useless for weather forecasting. The stormy "lows" or "cyclones"* move much faster than letters carried by stagecoaches, so in those days countries lying in their...
Fronts & Masses. About the time of World War I, Professor Vilhelm Bjerknes of Norway and his son Jacob decided that the fractious cyclones, though they may be 1,000 miles across, are only minor bit-players in the weather drama. The leading players are enormous masses of cold, dry air that sweep down from the polar regions at irregular intervals. The Bjerknes theory, emphasizing fronts and air masses rather than cyclones, lit up meteorology like a new sun rising, and upgraded it into a more exact science. It is still the basis of the familiar newspaper weather maps...
Jolly Old Electorate. From the outset, it was clear that the moderates were in firm control. Fractious Nye Bevan noisily challenged Hugh Gaitskell, whom he considers his chief antagonist and rival, for the post of party treasurer. Gaitskell won by a 5-to-1 margin. The defeat seemed only to inspire Bevan to new onslaughts. He charged that the party has become dominated by the huge trade unions. Labor's answer to the Tories, he shouted, should be not change but a return to the old hellfire Socialism and nationalization of almost everything. "You are not Socialists!" he thundered...
Since the French deposed and exiled fractious Sultan Sidi Mohammed ben Youssef last year, they have had no trouble with the complaisant new Sultan, Sidi Mohammed ben Moulay Arafa. But they have had plenty of trouble with Istiqlal nationalists, who scorn the new Sultan as a stooge. Since last August, the poorly organized nationalists, armed with smuggled hand grenades, homemade bombs, pistols and machine guns, have killed 101 persons, wounded 189 more. France's reverses in Indo-China have given the insurgents new heart. Recently, they circulated clandestine letters saying that "Casablanca will be another Dienbienphu." Help from...