Word: plastics
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DAVID WAS BORN WITHOUT AN IMMUNE SYSTEM, and for 12 years he lived inside a sterile plastic bubble that protected him from the outside world. Now, nearly 10 years after David's death, doctors have isolated the faulty gene responsible for his rare condition. In an article in Cell, researchers report that the mutation causes immune cells to produce defective copies of a receptor for interleukin-2, one of the most important molecular regulators of the body's defense system. Eventually scientists hope to transplant normal copies of the gene into the blood cells of affected children, thereby curing them...
...ultimate medical nightmare. You slip under the anesthesia confident that your problem will be solved with some simple procedure -- a polyp excision, for example, or tubal ligation. But when you wake up you find your breasts are missing or your intestine now terminates in a plastic bag. Too bad we had the wrong patient, the surgeons shrug, because the operation went beautifully...
...corporation that is now the largest private employer in America does not have any smokestacks or conveyor belts or trucks. There is no clanging of metal on metal, no rivets or plastic or steel. In one sense, it does not make anything. But then again, it is in the business of making almost everything...
...lightweight, efficient battery using a liquid containing lithium salts as the energy-storage medium, and risk leakage or fire in the case of an accident. Now three Arizona State University chemists have an answer that is literally a clever solution. By dissolving lithium not into liquid but into polymer (plastic), they have paved the way for a high-power battery that is light yet durable. This novel cell is still in the experimental stage and needs more engineering. It may not be long, however, before scientists proudly announce a practical battery with more bounce to the ounce...
...forget just how dangerous it is. First, go to any gardening center and chemical-supply house. For little more than $400, buy several 100-lb. bags of urea and some bottles of nitric and sulfuric acid. Mix the urea and acids into a thick paste, put the glop in plastic bags, then pack them in a cardboard box. Next attach either a blasting cap or a detonator made of some batteries, an alarm clock and a container of nitroglycerine. But be very, very careful. "If it spills on the floor, and you scuff your shoe in it," says an explosives...