needle-in-a-haystack

Earlier this year, he embarked on what he describes as a "needle-in-a-haystack" search for a 15th-century volume with a missing sheet.

The Guardian World News Dalya Alberge 2011

Given both the difficulty he had experienced devising and planning the effort, to say nothing of the needle-in-a-haystack chance that he would succeed where no other SETI observation had for fifty years, the sazanka seemed an apt symbol of encouragement.

First Contact Marc Kaufman 2011

Given both the difficulty he had experienced devising and planning the effort, to say nothing of the needle-in-a-haystack chance that he would succeed where no other SETI observation had for fifty years, the sazanka seemed an apt symbol of encouragement.

First Contact Marc Kaufman 2011

Even though the needle-in-a-haystack tea-identifying Roadblock on The Amazing Race: Unfinished Business brought him to tears and took him four hours to complete, Luke Adams says it was not as hard as the final memory task in the Season 14 finale.

Amazing Race's Margie and Luke: We Almost Took a Penalty 2011

There's an inevitable needle-in-a-haystack quality to these subterranean searches -- the mines are huge, and the hiding places for microbes and nematodes are small and dispersed -- so Borgonie was not particularly disappointed when initial cultures and examinations in the lab came up empty for nematodes from Northam Platinum.

Space Odyssey: Scientists go to the extremes of the earth to divine the secrets of extraterrestrial life. 2011

'In a needle-in-a-haystack situation, better to be the haystack,,' says one software developer.

Hearst Jumps Into the Apps Business Shira Ovide 2010

"In a needle-in-a-haystack situation, better to be the haystack," said Josh Koppel,

Hearst Jumps Into the Apps Business Shira Ovide 2010

"In a needle-in-a-haystack situation, better to be the haystack," said Josh Koppel,

Hearst Jumps Into the Apps Business Shira Ovide 2010

Let me simply list the ways in which this kind of needle-in-a-haystack policing is dumb, dumb, dumb, and ineffective.

The Trouble with Racial Profiling 2010

'In a needle-in-a-haystack situation, better to be the haystack,,' says one software developer.

Hearst Jumps Into the Apps Business Shira Ovide 2010