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Varmus, Harold Eliot

(Encyclopedia)Varmus, Harold Eliot, 1939–, American microbiologist, b. Oceanside, N.Y., M.D. Columbia Univ., 1966. A professor at the Univ. of California School of Medicine in San Francisco, Varmus and his co-res...

Harriman, William Averell

(Encyclopedia)Harriman, William Averell āˈvərəl [key], 1891–1986, American public official; son of E. H. Harriman. Expanding his railroad inheritance, W. Averell Harriman became a banker and shipbuilder and l...

pension

(Encyclopedia)pension, periodic payments to one who has retired from work because of age or disability. Pensions, originally thought of as charity, are now viewed as an essential part of the social responsibility o...

Bagnold, Enid

(Encyclopedia)Bagnold, Enid băgˈnəld [key], 1889–1981, English novelist and playwright, b. Rochester, Kent, England. She was a nurse in a military hospital in World War I. In 1920 she married Sir Roderick Jone...

Iran-contra affair

(Encyclopedia)Iran-contra affair, in U.S. history, secret arrangement in the 1980s to provide funds to the Nicaraguan contra rebels from profits gained by selling arms to Iran. The Iran-contra affair was the produc...

Los Alamos

(Encyclopedia)Los Alamos lôs ălˈəmōsˌ, lŏs [key], uninc. town (1990 pop. 11,455), seat of Los Alamos co., N central N.Mex. It is on a long mesa extending from the Jemez Mts. The U.S. government chose the sit...

Commerce, United States Department of

(Encyclopedia)Commerce, United States Department of, federal executive department charged with promoting U.S. economic development and technological advancement. In Feb., 1903, the Congress established a Department...

data encryption

(Encyclopedia)data encryption, the process of scrambling stored or transmitted information so that it is unintelligible until it is unscrambled by the intended recipient. Historically, data encryption has been used...

Work Projects Administration

(Encyclopedia)Work Projects Administration (WPA), former U.S. government agency, established in 1935 by executive order of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as the Works Progress Administration; it was renamed th...

AARP

(Encyclopedia)AARP, a nonprofit, nonpartisan national organization dedicated to “enriching the experience of aging”; membership is open to people age 50 or older. Founded in 1958 by Ethel Percy Andrus as Americ...