Uranium's hardness and the ease with which it oxidizes preclude its use in actual coins. However, the various proposals for international control of fissionable materials might lend themselves to an international paper currency backed by centrally controlled uranium metal. The chemical resistance of Teflon, as the material is called, is outstanding. Because of its cost, however, the field for Teflon is limited. In addition to its use in electrical equipment, it will very likely find applications in the chemical industry as a gasket and as chemically inert tubing.
Smallpox ravages Afghanistan every spring, killing about one-fifth of the children.
The Emir has decreed obligatory vaccination in all his states. The order has been given to construct stables and to raise vaccine heifers. At 2,500 fathoms the pressure is thirty times more powerful than the steam pressure of a locomotive when drawing a train. As late as 1880 a leading zoologist explained the existence of deep-sea animals at such depths by assuming that their bodies were composed of solids and liquids of great density, and contained no air. For days a solid procession of carts, filled with snow, is seen in progress down the side streets toward the river, where it is dumped.