Word: optimum
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...What is the danger Whitopias pose to America as a whole? You can call me old-fashioned, but I'm an integrationist. A democracy can't function at its optimum unless all members are integrated as full members...
...Earlier this year, mutual-fund company T. Rowe Price tried to determine the optimum retiree portfolio - the mix of stocks and bonds that would produce the highest returns without the risk of the nest egg running out. To do this, the analysts ran something called a Monte Carlo simulation, which mimics the real-life ups and downs of the market. Most of the time, the market goes up slightly. But some years - ka-pow! - stocks and bonds do spectacularly poorly. What T. Rowe Price found should frustrate anyone who has spent time wondering if 25% of a portfolio should...
...they're right, it could be pretty bad news, even for those who already worry about rising CO2. It's generally agreed that during the earlier warm period, known as the Miocene Climatic Optimum, which occurred 15 million years ago, the global temperature was high enough to make sea levels between 80 ft. and 130 ft. higher than they are today. According to the new study, CO2 levels in the atmosphere at that time hovered at from 390 to 430 parts per million (p.p.m.). Today's CO2 level: 387 p.p.m. and rising...
...Chambers' work supports the idea that the brain plays a critical role in pushing the body to achieve optimum performance. When the mouth tastes sugar, it may anticipate an influx of added fuel and therefore trigger the satisfaction and reward areas of the brain, in turn egging the body on to do more. At Loughborough University in Britain, Clyde Williams, emeritus professor of sports science, and his team found that distance runners on a treadmill selected faster running speeds after swishing with a sugared energy drink than with a placebo solution...
Then again, the history of protected sex, in the broadest sense, used to be a whole lot yuckier. Take the practice of women in ancient Egypt who resorted to using crocodile dung as a spermicide. Modern research has shown that crocodile dung actually created optimum conditions for sperm because of its alkalinity, but the sheer grossness of the practice might have worked - if only by completely ruining the mood. (See pictures of animal attraction...