Inside there are just three stainless-steel ball bearings, housed in anodized aluminum bar stock.

FORBES

In scientific terms, it was akin to rolling a steel ball down an inclined plane to measure its velocity only to watch the ball float into the air instead.

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After throwing a foul, Nelson stepped into the throwing circle for the second time and told himself to "see it" the whirling move through the circle, the soaring steel ball.

NPR: Shot-Putter Nelson Fails To Make Olympic Grade

Cycling's innovations, including spokes, pneumatic tyres, ball bearings, steel tubing and differential gears, were soon borrowed by the motor industry.

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Heighway Pinball's solution is to introduce inductive switch technology: solid state sensors beneath the playfield, well out of the way of flying steel balls, which are triggered when a ball passes by without any physical contact.

BBC: Flipping heck: Is pinball about to stage a recovery?

Aluminum foil as glassware scrubber: To get baked-on food off a glass pan or an oven rack, use dishwashing liquid and a ball of foil in place of a steel-wool soap pad, says Mary Findley, president of the cleaning-products developer Mary Moppins.

CNN: New uses for Thanksgiving items

Thousands of genes stick to each ball, and the combination is loaded into a "gene gun"--two small stainless-steel chambers and a vacuum pump--that uses compressed helium.

FORBES: Millions Served