Word: leveler
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...forge ahead, is famous even among those who barely made it through high school biology for his and Francis Crick's 1953 discovery that DNA molecules arrange themselves in a double helix. That breakthrough earned them a Nobel Prize and made it possible to trace at the molecular level how cells organize hereditary information. In October, Watson drove in from the Long Island, N.Y., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he has worked for nearly three decades, to speak to TIME's reporters and editors. Elmer-DeWitt used the opportunity to invite Watson to write the package's closing essay...
...this year, you will pay Social Security tax on the first $72,600 you earn--up from the $68,400 threshold in 1998. That's a 6.1% hike, a rate that is roughly double the pay increase most wage earners will see. For anyone whose income exceeds that higher level, it means an extra $260.40 a year owed to the feds. Tip: earnings stashed in a flexible-spending account at work are exempt from FICA withholding. In a two-earner household, it may pay for the lower earner to fund the account...
...open to charges of inadequacy. A broader investigation could turn into a fishing expedition lasting years...Obviously no one can predict the outcome of the special counsel's probe. The dealings are so complex that it is difficult even to summarize the suspicions they arouse...But on another level, the investigation concerns the much larger issue of whether a President and First Lady can be trusted to obey the law and tell the truth...
Last week the Justice Department released stunning news: violent- and property-crime rates, which have been dropping since 1991, are at their lowest level in 24 years. In 1997, murder dropped 8% and robbery fell 17%; early 1998 figures suggest the trend continues. Experts can't agree on why, citing factors from better policing to a booming economy. But one of the most fascinating developments seems to be that crack is now your father's drug. Users are maturing, if not heading into middle age, and dealers are less aggressive in recruiting youths, who tend to be turned...
Even so, these tests can spot only visible abnormalities in the 23 pairs of chromosomes we inherit from our parents, such as the extra chromosome associated with Down syndrome, a form of mental retardation, or biochemical errors, such as a reduced level of hex-A enzyme that brings on Tay-Sachs disease, a fatal metabolic disorder. Moreover, the results may be confused by so-called chromosome structural abnormalities--oddball configurations that may or may not have a genetically significant effect, thus exasperating couples who expect clear-cut answers from amniocentesis...