Word: ratio
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...billion-year-old rocks found in Greenland's Isua (Eskimo for "the farthest we can go") region, Ponnamperuma and other scientists found evidence of compounds called hydrocarbons, which are of major importance in organic chemistry. To discover whether these hydrocarbons had a biological origin, scientists analyzed the ratio of two isotopes, or forms, of carbon. They found that the amount of carbon 12, the isotope most utilized in biological processes, was high in relation to carbon 13. This indicates that the hydrocarbons were produced by photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert carbon dioxide into organic compounds and oxygen...
...boom. Those first postwar children are now 33- or closer to the still common retirement age of 65 than to birth- and the balance of the economy is shifting rapidly. In the future, far fewer workers will be supporting far more retired people. In 1950 the worker-to-retiree ratio was 7.5 to 1; to day it is 5.4 to 1. By 2030, when the baby boomers will be rocking away on the veranda, the ratio will be 3.1 to 1. Under Social Security, payments from current workers back the checks that are sent to former employees. There...
Before long, many industries will have to face up to the changing pension demographics that automakers have already encountered. While in 1970 there were seven current auto workers for every retired one, the ratio now is 3 to 1 and will be 2 to 1 by 1990. Masterful union negotiators, going back to legendary President Walter Reuther, have won their employees some of the best pensions in private industry. This year the union fought for another breakthrough that would tie pension benefits to the cost of living, a plum common to public employees but still almost unknown in the private...
...longer term solution to the pension woes can only be painful to workers and the retired: they will have to pay more, and receive less. As the ratio of retired people to those holding jobs narrows in coming decades, active workers will have to increase their pension contributions. A congressional Joint Committee on Tax study has estimated that individual contributions will nearly double, from this year's $11.3 billion to $21.9 billion in 1984. Cutting back the growth of pension fund benefits in an era of double-digit inflation will be difficult but inevitable. Without some moderate increase...
Dinklage says language disabilities are inherent, and have nothing to do with intelligence. In the general population, ten times as many men as women have such disabilities, and the Harvard ratio is similar to that, Dinklage says. Harvard began testing for the disability in the '60s, when administrators wanted to know why a few hard-working students would continually fail language classes, Dinklage says. Before then, students had been referred to language testing experts in the Boston area, Charles P. Whitlock, associate dean of the Faculty for special projects, says...