Word: direness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...which was first used experimentally in 1926. The board desperately wanted the University of California, then the biggest university in the nation, to fully adopt the test. In 1962, as Nicholas Lemann says in his brilliant history, The Big Test, an SAT honcho wrote to his colleagues of the dire consequences if U.C. decided to end its then limited use of the test: "If they drop the SAT, we will lose a great deal more than the revenue; we will suffer a damaging blow to our prestige...
...situation is not as dire this year. In fact, the Crimson has earned itself a third place slot in the league, meaning that Harvard must win only one of its games this weekend to ensure home...
...most important Christian projects in Kunming is the city's orphanage. It was in dire straights 10 years ago, according to missionaries who worked there at the time. Adoptions were rare. The only sure way out of the institution was death, which came quickly from scant food, unsanitary bedding and lack of care. Workers received no training or oversight, nor adequate funds. When embarrassing reports of abuses in a Shanghai orphanage surfaced five years ago, Kunming officials came close to barring Christian workers from the building. Through the years, however, they have managed to stay. "The cooperation of orphanage workers...
...country boasts world-class oil and gas reserves, on a par with those of the largest OPEC producers. The problem is getting the oil out of the ground and to market. Years of Soviet mismanagement and underinvestment have taken their toll. Russia's oil fields are in dire need of rehabilitation; Sakhalin's north and much of Siberia are littered with rusting derricks ringed by porous labyrinths of old pipelines. Local environmentalists, pointing to the recent spill near the Galapagos Islands, worry about the potential damage to Sakhalin's rich ecosystem caused by toxic drilling waste...
...phrase scientific fieldwork didn't conjure up enough images of toe rings, bandannas and Birkenstocks, a team of researchers from the University of Utah cemented the scientist/stoner equation forever this week by naming a dinosaur after ex-Dire Straits frontman MARK KNOPFLER. Masiakasaurus knopfleri was discovered in Madagascar and christened after the aging rock star because the researchers listened to a lot of Brothers in Arms while working under the hot island sun. Masiakasaurus lived during the late Cretaceous period and was probably 5 ft. to 6 ft. long, weighed in at 80 lbs. and sported protruding snaggleteeth used...