1.   Economically sensitive auto, chemical and computer companies gained the most as investors saw signs of accelerating economic expansion.

2.   It is thought that some kind of repulsive force, which has come to be known as dark energy, is pushing the universe into an accelerating expansion.

3.   Knowledge of an accelerating expansion could lead to a revised recipe of just what the universe is made of.

4.   The measure of their velocities provided the first direct, if tentative, evidence of an accelerating expansion of the cosmos.

5.   This could explain their willingness in February to plunge in by announcing an accelerating cosmic expansion and explicitly invoking the cosmological constant as a likely interpretation.

6.   Accelerating NATO expansion also is a popular idea among Senate Republicans.