Efforts to equalize the funds available to school districts, a major goal of education reformers and many states in the 1970's, has not significantly reduced the gaps existing between the richest and poorest districts.

The concept of the grand jury dates from the twelfth century, when Henry II of England ordered panels of common citizens should prepare lists of who were their communities' suspected criminals.

Although she was considered among her contemporaries to be the better poet than her husband, later Elizabeth Barrett Browning was overshadowed by his success.

By 1999, astronomers had discovered 17 nearby stars that are orbited by planets about the size of Jupiter.

A ruined structure found at Aqaba, Jordan, was probably a church, as indicated in its eastward orientation and by its overall plan, as well as artifacts, such as glass oil-lamp fragments, found at the site.

Most efforts to combat such mosquito-borne diseases like malaria and dengue have focused either on the vaccination of humans or on exterminating mosquitoes with pesticides.

The use of lie detectors is based on the assumption that lying produces emotional reactions in an individual that, in turn, create unconscious physiological responses.

Scientists have recently found evidence that black holes—regions of space in which matter is so concentrated and the pull of gravity so powerful that nothing, not even light, can emerge from them—probably exist at the core of nearly all galaxies and the mass of each black hole is proportional to its host galaxy.

Found only in the Western Hemisphere and surviving through extremes of climate, hummingbirds' range extends from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from sea-level rain forests to the edges of Andean snowfields and ice fields at altitudes of 15,000 feet.

The original building and loan associations were organized as limited life funds, whose members made monthly payments on their share subscriptions, then taking turns drawing on the funds for home mortgages.