Word: data
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...same again," Governor Keith Miller declared jubilantly after last week's bidding for oil-drilling rights enriched his state's coffers by $900 million (see BUSINESS). Conservationists, for reasons of their own, fear that he may be right. In their understandable haste to obtain geological data before the bidding began, some of the oil companies scarred the tundra with seismic ditches that look from above like giant graffiti and littered it with garbage and empty barrels. Once full-scale exploitation of oil begins, the effects on the North Slope could become disastrous...
...dream of extraterrestrial life was stimulated earlier this summer by preliminary interpretations of data sent back from Mars by the twin Mariner probes. Hurriedly examining the readings from his infrared spectrometer on board Mariner 7, Chemist George C. Pimental had dramatically announced that the Martian atmosphere probably contained traces of ammonia and methane, two gases produced on earth by bacterial decay. The implication was clear: there might well be micro-organisms on Mars...
Last week, after further study of the Mariner data, Pimental reported that his ephemeral clue to the existence of Martian life had proved to be false. What he had read as the characteristic "signatures" of methane and ammonia in spectrographic information gathered near the Martian south pole, he admitted, were actually produced by a thick layer of frozen carbon dioxide, otherwise called diy ice. How did the embarrassing error occur? Only when he checked out the experiment in his laboratory, Pimental explained, did he learn that a thick layer of dry ice could produce spectral characteristics similar to those...
...rate its 7000 applicants on "personality," and then simply accept the 1400 or so with the highest ratings; for example, no student will be accepted unless the committee believes he can at least get C's here. But it does mean that an outsider, given only the computer data and asked to guess which applicants the committee will accept, will come close if he chooses those with the highest personal ratings, tossing in about 100 students who are extraordinarily superior academically or athletically, and paying some attention to geographical distribution...
This reliance on the instantaneous reaction of interviewers, the wording of autobiographies, and the readability of reports appears subjective enough, but is only the beginning. Perhaps the pivotal factor is how all this already subjective data is assessed by the applicant's advocate-the man who must present a student's case to the admissions board...