Tiny strands that sprout out. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21151552/ http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/background/index.htm http://www.tycoelectronics.com/customersupport/rohssupportcenter/pdf/tyco_lf_customer_packet_whiskers.pdf - - - - [Here is an EXCERPT from the website for you] - - - - Danger to lead-free electronics: tin whiskers Scientists fear damage will escalate once best-known defense is banned …… Jacquelyn Martin / AP.... updated 2:14 p.m. ET, Fri., Oct. 5, 2007 Henning Leidecker, a chief parts engineer with NASA Goddard, looks at an electrical relay that has grown tin whiskers. Tin whiskers are tiny tin strands that sprout without warning from tin finish or solder, short-circuiting electronics. By some estimates, they've caused as much as $10 billion in damage since they were first noticed in the 1940s. Most popular Most viewed • Top rated • Most e-mailed Tight Dem race; McCain looks to bury Romney Choosing radical cancer surgery Chinese weather 'coldest winter in 100 years' Jamie Lynn ready to run away from Lynne Meet the losers of the Joy Fit Club Most viewed on msnbc.com SAN JOSE, Calif. - They've ruined missiles, silenced communications satellites and forced nuclear power plants to shut down. Pacemakers, consumer gadgets and even a critical part of a space shuttle have fallen victim.

Tin whiskers are electrically conductive, crystalline structures of tin that sometimes grow from surfaces where tin (especially electroplated tin) is used as a final finish. Tin whiskers have been observed to grow to lengths of several millimeters (mm) and in rare instances to lengths up to 10 mm. Numerous electronic system failures have been attributed to short circuits caused by tin whiskers that bridge closely-spaced circuit elements maintained at different electrical potentials. http://nepp.nasa.gov/WHISKER/background/index.htm

Ah! tHERE WAS A TIME TIN WHISKERS WERE NOT A PROBLem. The good ole days when we used gold, platinum and silver instead of lead zinc and tin.