Word: infra
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...read his papers, you wonder how he finds the courage to get out of bed in the morning." Crichton has a theory about the use of obfuscating medical language. In explaining it, however, he unwittingly demonstrates that jargon is highly contagious: "Medical obscurity may now serve an infra-group recognition function, rather like a secret fraternal handshake. In any event it is a game, and everybody plays it. Indeed, I suspect one refuses to play at one's professional peril...
...used routinely in medicine to repair torn retinas, to remove cataracts and to burn away growths. They are also being used for welding and cutting steel. Lasers were used in Viet Nam to pinpoint bombing targets with a spot of light so that "smart bombs" equipped with infra-red sensors could seek them out. Since then, weapons researchers have been devising even more sophisticated uses for these potentially lethal beams of light...
...skies and detect incoming missiles, and may some day be powerful enough to destroy enemy missiles in space. The day may not be too far off when lasers can blind an enemy's early warning system and leave him vulnerable to missile attack. Strong and still unexplained infra-red light detected by U.S. early warning satellites over Russia recently heightened speculation that the Soviets may be experimenting with such devices. U.S. scientists are believed to be working on a similar system...
...Israeli armor is on constant alert. About the only time the engines of the 155-mm. and 175-mm. self-propelled gun carriers are turned off is when Soviet spy satellites are about to pass overhead. The engines are shut down eight hours before the pass-overs so that infra-red sensors on the satellites will not pick up motor-engine heat, thereby disclosing Israeli strengths and dispositions...
...fixed cycle. In fact until a few years ago, many scientists suspected that the earth would heat up, largely because of mankind's increasing output of carbon dioxide. A byproduct of fossil-fuel burning, the gas lets sunlight pass down through the atmosphere but prevents the escape of infra-red heat waves that are radiated from the earth's surface. Thus the gas adds to the planet's heat store...