He survived, barely, but he had been unalterably changed.

His early life, spent caring for a severely retarded sister, was unalterably changed by a local librarian who gave him a copy of "The Merchant of Venice."

Some places and people featured in "African Ark" have unalterably changed since the year began.

Mr. Jervis's thesis is that nuclear weapons have unalterably changed the way people think and the way nations behave.

And in that room they knew what no one else knew at the time: that the balance of nuclear power in the world might just have been unalterably changed because an aide recognized a Korean symbol.

It is clear, however, that television has been changed unalterably by cable.

Over the long term, there is no evidence so far that oil spills "have unalterably changed the world's oceans or marine resources," according to a 1985 study on "Oil in the Sea" by the National Research Council.

However, the global population has been reduced to between a fifth and an eighth of its pre-invasion level, and the world's climate has been unalterably changed.

And, in a room near, but out of sight of, the execution chamber, a small group of people whose lives were unalterably changed by the killers huddled together.

When you're in the hospital, its anonymity allows you to keep at a distance the fact that your life has been unalterably changed and played around with.