Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 (Bookshop|Amazon) takes its title from the temperature at which book pages burn. Some 200 copies of the first edition of the book were bound with an unusual material: asbestos. A few are still available...
Jason in San Antonio, Texas, is curious why the term salamander is applied to small heater on a construction site. In ancient lore, the mythical beast called a salamander was impervious to fire. Later salamander was applied to various heating...
meso n.— «At 42, he was dead. The killer: mesothelioma, a cancer linked to asbestos.…Today, a group of people affected by the deadly disease, which they refer to as “meso” for simplicity’s sake, gathered at the Marriott in...
popcorn ceiling n.— «We’ve lived in our home for 30 years and have “popcorn” ceilings. I remember when we hung our swag lamp we could see fibers falling when we drilled holes. After all these years, is it too late to have the...
