Word: steels
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Mexican border with radar balloons, aircraft equipped with infrared sensors and ground-implanted motion sensors. But vast stretches of badlands are not constantly under guard. The traffickers, in turn, have proved endlessly inventive. On May 17, Customs agents discovered a 250-ft.-long, 5-ft.-wide concrete-and-steel reinforced tunnel that ran 35 ft. under the border, between a construction-supply warehouse in Douglas, Ariz., and a house in Agua Prieta, Mexico. Agents figure virtually all of Arizona's cocaine supply moved for a time via the passage...
...usually designed on computers, which can analyze exactly how the molecules of different substances will fit together. As a result, complex compounds can be made to order for specific tasks. They can be engineered to be as solid as cement yet as light as foam cushion, or sturdy like steel but pliable like rubber. Because of their superior properties, advanced materials are rapidly replacing ordinary steel, aluminum and plastics in everything from cutlery to cars. Scientists have high hopes of conserving natural commodities such as iron, wood and rubber. Says Robert Newnham, a professor of solid-state science at Pennsylvania...
...fastest-growing market is the auto industry, which is increasingly replacing metal with lightweight plastics in bumpers, body panels and other parts. These polymers typically weigh half as much as steel but are just as strong. The plastics conserve gas by making a vehicle lighter, and manufacturing them requires 10% to 20% less energy than fabricating metal parts. Admittedly, there can be problems. General Motors found that the polymer body panels of some of its minivans started to peel like old wallpaper. Moisture had seeped between the sheets of plastic and caused the panels to come unglued...
Walter can usually wither the untoward with a cold stare through his steel- rimmed spectacles, though sometimes it is necessary to bark a few brusque commands in order to send it scurrying. India, on the other hand, has a more coquettish relationship with it: she takes painting classes, flirts momentarily with divorce, psychoanalysis and the ideas of Thorstein Veblen. But whether the Bridges are confronting a tornado that Walter refuses to let interrupt dinner, their children's romantic and sexual hubbubs, a friend's suicide or simply the long silences of their own relationship, there is never any question about...
Turkey finds itself in a particularly painful bind. Exporters had expected to sell Baghdad $600 million worth of goods, mainly iron, steel and food products. Since the U.S. and most European countries impose strict quotas on some of these imports and the markets for others are saturated, Ankara estimates that 75% of the products destined for Iraq will effectively be rendered worthless: no other foreign importer will be able to buy them...