From ancient Egyptian pain mythology to the most recent research on endorphins at Johns Hopkins University. Back to Top Click on any of the vocabulary words below to hear them pronounced and used in a sentence. As anyone who's ever had an ache or a fever knows, aspirin has remarkable properties. An acute or chronic disease in humans and other warm-blooded animals characterized by an abnormal increase in the number of white blood cells in the tissues and often in the blood. Both Marie Curie and her daughter died from leukemia caused by their exposure to radioactive elements.
Osmosis is used to purify salt water in desalinization plants.
The property possessed by some elements or isotopes of spontaneously emitting energetic particles by the disintegration of their atomic nuclei. Marie Curie discovered that the mineral pitchblende, which contains radium, was a source of radioactivity. An intensely radioactive brilliant white metallic element that resembles barium chemically, occurs in combination in minute quantities in minerals, emits alpha particles and gamma rays to form radon, and is used chiefly in luminous materials and in the treatment of cancer. Radium is a highly radioactive metallic element, discovered by Marie Curie, which was used in cancer radiation therapy. A semipermeable membrane is important in the filtering of seawater.