They may also try to wash specks off their body and even cut their hair.

BBC: Will the bombers be caught?

IgE can mistake harmless specks of pollen or dust as dangerous invaders and start biochemical chain reactions leading to nasty allergy or asthma attacks.

FORBES: Magazine Article

Each layer consists of an array of elements made of foil, which produce tiny electrical pulses whenever they are penetrated by specks of dust.

ECONOMIST: Orbital debris

Analysis of the pulses enables the researchers to count individual specks.

ECONOMIST: Orbital debris

In one of the books, Holmes is able to instantly tell that his companion Dr Watson has been to a post office, just from a few specks of dirt on his shoe.

BBC: NEWS | Entertainment | Solving it like Sherlock

And while most of the projects are micro-specks in the larger landscape of federal spending, they mean a lot to the beneficiaries and to the lobbyists like Lowery who help to secure them.

NPR: Signs of a Wider, Deeper Scandal in Congress

Sociologists call what has emerged a syncretic faith, resembling more than anything else a pointillist painting in which every individual's beliefs are shaped and colored by specks of each tradition--and, at the close of the 20th century, by the color of money.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | China: Inside China's Search for Its Soul

And on this dazzling sheet, spread under the blackness of the clouds and emitting a bluish glow, Captain MacWhirr could catch a desolate glimpse of a few tiny specks black as ebony, the tops of the hatches, the battened companions, the heads of the covered winches, the foot of a mast.

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