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Visual Description: Physicists failing to reach the coulomb barrier.
CIPYK = PICKY, OAVLC = VOCAL, TEYLNG = GENTLY, KRONBE = BROKEN — Giving us: ICOAENTRON
Clue/Question: When the nuclear fusion experiment failed again, the scientists had . . .
Answer: NO REACTION
(Fairly challenging! This is the first one in a while where I had to play around a little to get the answer. Originally, because of the “had . . .”, I thought it was going to be TO something. But then, I started seeing the ION and figured it had to be TION, so that meant the first word couldn’t be TO. That’s when I switched to NO. I wrote down the TION, looked at the remaining letters, and immediately realized it was REACTION. I’m hoping that many/most of you had at least a little trouble getting today’s answer. No brainers are no gainers! I breezed through all of the clue words today, although they were all jumbled extremely well. Apparently, both “picky” and “gently” are new, as per the ralis 95 database. If anyone was counting on any help from sloppy answer letter layout, they would have been disappointed, because there was no giveaway there. Be well and do good, friends.) — YUR
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PS. I wonder whatever became of the two scientists from the University of Utah who, back in 1989, claimed to have achieved cold fusion? No one, so far, has been able to replicate what they had claimed. Or, at least that’s what they telling us. — YUR
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Unclerave's Wordy Weblog 
YUR:
This is scary – our thinking on solving puzzles getting to be so much on the same lines. I also started with “TO” but saw nothing in the remaining letters until I fixed on ION. From there, like you, I switched the T to N and ended up with the same answer as you. The guys are really getting good, aren’t they? So Jeff is on the West Coast – maybe he’ll stop by.
Best, ralis95
😉
YUR
This one was tricky. I started with “AN” for the first word, while trying to find a word that starts with a vowel and ends with “TION” with the remaining letters.
With that train of thought hitting a dead end, I followed the same logic as you and ralis95 – working through “TO” and finally “NO” for the first word options, with the second word then falling in place.
Dat’s cuz weez jeanyusses! And, “AN” was another logical starting point, that I hadn’t even considered. Nice work, Keith!
— YUR
I thought of “an”, “it”, and “to” before figuring out “no”. Usually 2 letter words to begin with kind of give an answer away–not this one!
Leave it to Angie, to come up with another feasible two letter word – “it”! Man, I must be slipping. But still, I’m thinking of the four two letter words “it” would have to be the darker horse. But, you never know. I usually just go with my gut.
— YUR