Rockefeller Foundation, philanthropic institution established (1913) by John D. Rockefeller, Sr., to promote the well-being of mankind throughout the world. During its first 14 years the found...

Kitt Peak National Observatory, astronomical observatory located southwest of Tucson, Ariz.; it was founded in 1958 under contract with the National Science Foundation and is administered by t...

National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), federal observatory for radio astronomy, founded in 1956 and operated under contract with the National Science Foundation by Associated Universitie...

Deep Sea Drilling Project, U.S. program designed to investigate the evolution of ocean basins by core drilling of ocean sediments and underlying oceanic crust. Funded by the National Science F...

Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, astronomical observatory located on Cerro Tololo peak, Chile, with offices in La Serena, about 40 mi (64 km) to the west. Funded by the U.S. National S...

Mohole, Project, program proposed in 1957 to drill a hole down to the boundary between the crust and the mantle, known as the Mohorovičić discontinuity at about 4 to 43 mi (7 to 70 km) below t...

Arecibo Observatory, radio-astronomy facility located at Arecibo, Puerto Rico, that includes the world's largest single-dish radio telescope. It was completed in 1963 and is operated by Cornel...

Conant, James Bryant, 1893–1978, American educator, b. Dorchester, Mass., grad. Harvard (B.A., 1913; Ph.D., 1916). Except for a brief period in the army (1917–19), Conant taught chemistry at H...

Vishniac, Roman, 1897–1990, Russian-American biologist, photographer, linguist, art historian, and philosopher, b. Pavlosk, near St. Petersburg. Vishniac took degrees in medicine, philosophy, ...

Meteorology, branch of science that deals with the atmosphere of a planet, particularly that of the earth, the most important application of which is the analysis and prediction of weather. In...