Not all of them will be as unthreatening to human health as foot-and-mouth.

BBC: The pointless slaughter?

"Rather than focus on some grandiose symbolism, start on the ground--where the 6-foot human interacts with the space around him, " suggests John (Jack) Portman III, chief executive of John Portman Associates, an Atlanta architecture and development firm.

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The rules tell these foot soldiers what to do if the human-controlled character or forces are nearby.

BBC: Creature from Black and White Electronic Arts

The result has been a series of high-profile cases against human-rights abusers who have been rash enough to set foot in America.

ECONOMIST: The law

Pigs or indeed potatoes can produce human proteins for medical use (though none has yet received authorisation), foot-and-mouth vaccine can come from alfalfa, genes from enzyme-making bacteria can do the same job in tobacco, and useful new enzymes can be found and put into old bacteria.

ECONOMIST: Non-food GM

But we have failed adequately to protect the two- or three-foot channel between the browser's display and the brain of the human who uses it.

ECONOMIST: It's best for governments not to know too much

But what it gave us, with its short, 200-foot block lengths and small, 20- to 25-foot lot sizes, its direct and easy navigability, is a walkable, personal city at human scale, where every street is an endlessly varied and inviting series of visual experiences, of constantly changing shopfronts, restaurants and buildings of infinite styles and uses.

WSJ: The Greatest Grid | Museum of the City of New York | Crosshatching a Miracle | By Ada Louise Huxtable

Whether that position is under the desk, or just with a foot inserted firmly in you soon-to-be-apologizing mouth, a 2010 poll by human resource firm Adecco shows that 40% of us have seen or suffered a major indiscretion at a work-sponsored holiday event.

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