India does not produce enough good computer engineers and those it does are good at theory but not very well equipped to handle the practical aspects.’
– Microsoft Chief Technical Officer Craig Mundie

From its 113 universities and 2,088 colleges — many of which teach various engineering disciplines — India produces nearly 350,000 engineering graduates every year. All of Europe produces 100,000 engineering graduates a year, and America produces only 70,000.

But, the quality of Indian engineers is questionable, says Madhavan, who has had a career spanning four decades and is now advisor to several engineering colleges in Karnataka and Kerala.
“That is because of the lack of trained faculty and the dismal State spending on research and development in higher education in the country,” he says.

In the 1980s, India had just 158 engineering colleges. That number has jumped to 1,208 in the last two decades, mainly because of the information technology boom and the ever-burgeoning capitation fee that self-financing colleges charge.

Every year, these engineering colleges admit about 350,000 students. Apart from this, nearly 3,500 students are absorbed into the seven premier Indian Institutes of Technology.

University officials frequently cited teacher quality as a key factor that affected domestic students’ interest in and decisions about pursuing STEM degrees and occupations. Officials at all eight universities we visited expressed the view that a student’s experience from kindergarten through the 12th grades played a large role in influencing whether the student pursued a STEM degree.
…
officials at many of the universities we visited told us that some teachers were unqualified and unable to impart the subject matter, causing students to lose interest in mathematics and science.

The banana as we know it is on a crash course toward extinction. For scientists, the battle to resuscitate the world’s favorite fruit has begun…

. It also turns out that the 100 billion Cavendish bananas consumed annually worldwide are perfect from a genetic standpoint, every single one a duplicate of every other. It doesn’t matter if it comes from Honduras or Thailand, Jamaica or the Canary Islands—each Cavendish is an identical twin to one first found in Southeast Asia, brought to a Caribbean botanic garden in the early part of the 20th century, and put into commercial production about 50 years ago.

That sameness is the banana’s paradox. After 15,000 years of human cultivation, the banana is too perfect, lacking the genetic diversity that is key to species health. What can ail one banana can ail all. A fungus or bacterial disease that infects one plantation could march around the globe and destroy millions of bunches, leaving supermarket shelves empty.
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What can ail one banana can ail all. A fungus or bacterial disease that infects one plantation could march around the globe and destroy millions of bunches, leaving supermarket shelves empty.

A wild scenario? Not when you consider that there’s already been one banana apocalypse. Until the early 1960s, American cereal bowls and ice cream dishes were filled with the Gros Michel, a banana that was larger and, by all accounts, tastier than the fruit we now eat.

A new theory that explains why the language of our genes is more complex than it needs to be also suggests that the primordial soup where life began on earth was hot and not cold, as many scientists believe.
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The University of Bath researchers suggest that the primordial ‘doublet’ code was read in threes – but with only either the first two ‘prefix’ or last two ‘suffix’ pairs of bases being actively read.

By combining arrangements of these doublet codes together, the scientists can replicate the table of amino acids – explaining why some amino acids can be translated from groups of 2, 4 or 6 codons. They can also show how the groups of water loving (hydrophilic) and water-hating (hydrophobic) amino acids emerge naturally in the table, evolving from overlapping ‘prefix’ and ‘suffix’ codons.

The University of Bath researchers suggest that the primordial ‘doublet’ code was read in threes – but with only either the first two ‘prefix’ or last two ‘suffix’ pairs of bases being actively read.

By combining arrangements of these doublet codes together, the scientists can replicate the table of amino acids – explaining why some amino acids can be translated from groups of 2, 4 or 6 codons. They can also show how the groups of water loving (hydrophilic) and water-hating (hydrophobic) amino acids emerge naturally in the table, evolving from overlapping ‘prefix’ and ‘suffix’ codons.
…
The theory also explains how the structure of the genetic code maximises error tolerance. For instance, ‘slippage’ in the translation process tends to produce another amino acid with the same characteristics, and explains why the DNA code is so good at maintaining its integrity.

“This is important because these kinds of mistakes can be fatal for an organism,” said Dr van den Elsen. “None of the older theories can explain how this error tolerant structure might have arisen.”

Below are some figures taken from the China Statistical Yearbook 2005 on China’s graduate schools:

Science:
  New enrollment: 41,607
      Ph. D. 10,083
      M. S. 30,984

Total enrollment: 102,769
      Ph. D. 28,769
      M. S. 73,612

  Graduates: 17,540
      Ph. D. 4,518
      M. S. 13,022

Engineering:
  New enrollment: 120,750
      Ph. D. 20,271
      M. S. 100,479

  Total enrollment: 318,063
      Ph. D. 69,315
      M. S. 248,748

  Graduates: 56,074
      Ph. D. 8,054
      M. S. 48,020
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Number of science and engineering doctorate holders up to 1985:
      Probably less than 2,000.
Number of science and engineering doctorate recipients between 1985 and 2001:
      Approximately 51,400
Number of science and engineering doctorate recipients for 2002 and 2003:
      Approximately 16,000.
Number of science and engineering doctorate recipients in 2004:
      Exactly 12,572
Number of science and engineering doctorate recipients in 2005:
      Approximately 15,000
Total number of science and engineering doctorates up to the end of 2005:
      Approximately: 95,000
Total number of science and engineering doctorate enrollment at the beginning of 2006:
      Approximately 85512

To take students deep into the process of the development of a scientific idea, we needed to engage the students not only in the real world data and documented history, but also in the process of constructing arguments. Students worked in collaborative groups of 4 in order to write, film, edit, and present their historical scientific debate. In order to prepare them for weighing abstract concepts using available evidence, students learned much of their content through hands-on labs, as well as internet research, related to their selected scientists.

The US government is poised to propose rules that could restrict the ability of Chinese and other foreign nationals to engage in high-level research in the country, a plan that is generating fierce opposition from companies and universities.