Word: vanuatu
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...product of a lonely, itinerant childhood, Wilson began studying insects at age nine. Later, his scrutiny of ants in faraway places ranging from Suriname to Vanuatu enabled the self-effacing Harvard myrmecologist to discover connections between the size and remoteness of ecosystems and their diversity, an idea that has proved crucial to understanding the crisis of extinction. His examination of ant social structure started Wilson on investigations that led him to conclude that the social behavior of all animals, including humans, is influenced by genes...
...Olympic basketball, the teams are made up of a country's best players. Some may play professionally in a league on a foreign continent, but they play for their national teams in World Cup games. In December 1991, 143 nations signed up to compete in the qualifying rounds; even Vanuatu and San Marino, plus a few curious geopolitical subdivisions like the Faroe Islands, entered. It took two years and 491 matches to whittle the field down to two dozen, and these finalists will play 52 games in nine cities in the U.S. By the time the championship...
...wondering, and so, evidently, are the cocaine cartels. Uruguay, with its stringent bank-secrecy laws, would seem a natural heir. But after Uruguayan officials extradited an accused money launderer and assured the U.S. of further cooperation, cartel financiers began scurrying for alternatives. Among the prospects being watched by investigators: Vanuatu, a Pacific island republic formerly known as the New Hebrides; the Cook Islands, a protectorate of New Zealand; and the island group of Palau, which is about to legalize gambling, a business that generates the kind of cash flow money washers love to swim...
Bungee jumping is based on an age-old ritual practiced by the "land divers" of Pentecost Island in the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu. Every spring villagers there collect liana vines and wind them into long cords. Young men then scale high wooden towers, lash the vines around their ankles and jump. A successful leap is considered a demonstration of courage -- and a harbinger of a plentiful yam harvest...