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Another business coalition, Tapping America’s Potential coalition, is encouraging investment an increased investment in science and engineering to strengthen the USA economy.
The economy of the 21st century is characterized by increasing competition around the globe, and nowhere do we see that more clearly than in the scientific fields, said William D. Green, chairman and CEO of Accenture and chairman of Business Roundtable’s Education, Innovation & Workforce Initiative and a member of TAP. America’s ability to innovate begins with the talent, knowledge and creative thinking of its workforce, and businesses and government must continue to work together to strengthen science and technology education.
The report includes progress updates on the TAP coalition’s agenda to advance U.S. competitiveness in STEM through:
Related: Asia: Rising Stars of Science and Engineering - Engineering the Future Economy - Increasing American Fellowship Support for Scientists and Engineers - Diplomacy and Science Research
Home-grown veg ruined by toxic fertiliser
Problems with the herbicide emerged late last year, when some commercial potato growers reported damaged crops. In response, Dow launched a campaign within the agriculture industry to ensure that farmers were aware of how the products should be used. Nevertheless, the herbicide has now entered the food chain. Those affected are demanding an investigation and a ban on the product. They say they have been given no definitive answer as to whether other produce on their gardens and allotments is safe to eat.
It appears that the contamination came from grass treated 12 months ago. Experts say the grass was probably made into silage, then fed to cattle during the winter months. The herbicide remained present in the silage, passed through the animal and into manure that was later sold. Horses fed on hay that had been treated could also be a channel.
Related: Effect of People on Other Species - Pigs Instead of Pesticides - Peak Soil - Flushed Drugs Pollute Water
Why did China’s scientific innovation, once so advanced, suddenly collapse
The Chinese began printing 600 years before Johannes Gutenberg introduced the technique in Germany. They built the first chain drive 700 years before the Europeans. And they made use of a magnetic compass at least a century before the first reference to it appeared elsewhere. So why, in the middle of the 15th century, did this advanced civilisation suddenly cease its spectacular progress?
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Needham never fully worked out why China’s inventiveness dried up. Other academics have made their own suggestions: the stultifying pursuit of bureaucratic rank in the Middle Kingdom and the absence of a mercantile class to foster competition and self-improvement; the sheer size of China compared with the smaller states of Europe whose fierce rivalries fostered technological competition; its totalitarianism.
Related: Science and Engineering in Politics - Economic Benefits from Engineering - Chinese Engineering Innovation Plan - Best Research University Rankings (2007)
By increasing the production of wheat it is said Norman Borlaug has saved more lives than anyone else who ever lived, for which he was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize. See his New York Times opinion piece: Stem Rust Never Sleeps
In the last decade, global wheat production has not kept pace with rising population, or the increasing per capita demand for wheat products in newly industrializing countries. At the same time, international support for wheat research has declined significantly. And as a consequence, in 2007-08, world wheat stocks (as a percentage of demand) dropped to their lowest level since 1947-48. And prices have steadily climbed to the highest level in 25 years.
The new strains of stem rust, called Ug99 because they were discovered in Uganda in 1999, are much more dangerous than those that, 50 years ago, destroyed as much as 20 percent of the American wheat crop. Today’s lush, high-yielding wheat fields on vast irrigated tracts are ideal environments for the fungus to multiply, so the potential for crop loss is greater than ever.
If publicly financed international researchers move together aggressively and systematically, high-yielding replacement wheat varieties can be developed and made available to farmers before stem rust disease becomes a global epidemic.
The Bush administration was initially quick to grasp Ug99’s threat to American wheat production. In 2005, Mike Johanns, then secretary of agriculture, instructed the federal agriculture research service to take the lead in developing an international strategy to deal with stem rust. In 2006, the Agency for International Development mobilized emergency financing to help African and Asian countries accelerate needed wheat research.
But more recently, the administration has begun reversing direction. The State Department is recommending ending American support for the international agricultural research centers that helped start the Green Revolution, including all money for wheat research. And significant financial cuts have been proposed for important research centers, including the Department of Agriculture’s essential rust research laboratory in St. Paul.
This shocking short-sightedness goes against the interests not only of American wheat farmers and consumers but of all humanity. It is tantamount to the United States abandoning its pledge to help halve world hunger by 2015.
Related: Diplomacy and Science Research - Five Scientists Who Made the Modern World - 2004 Medal of Science Winners - U.S. Slipping on Science
An American Solar Opportunity Gets Shipped Abroad
They’ll be installed in Europe. In Asia. And maybe even in America too, one day. Why not now? Because AES wants to sow its solar seeds in only those countries that offer the most “attractive tariffs.” That eliminates the US from the list of potentials, immediately. And it gives countries like Germany, Spain, Italy and South Korea the clear advantage. They all have can’t-beat national incentives for solar developers.
It’s one of the sad facts of Washington’s incoherent clean energy policy these days. How can a country lure in clean energy projects when there are far more appealing offers elsewhere?
Government actions impact economic decisions. It will likely take more than 10 years to have good data on what government investments pay off in the energy sector. But I would say it is a pretty good bet to invest in technology such as: solar, geothermal, wind… Countries that create global centers of excellence in these areas are likely to benefit greatly. The only question I think is that many countries are smart enough to see the benefits and so likely many countries will try.
Any time many actors pursue the same economic strategy there is the risk that the payoff is diluted with so many others having done the same thing. Still the reason so many countries have adopted the strategy of developing centers of excellence in science, engineering and technology is that it is such a good idea. The USA has a problem in that we are spending more than we produce on luxuries today so there is much less available to invest compared to other countries (and compared to 40 years ago).
Related: Global Installed Capacity of Wind Power - Invest in Science for a Strong Economy - Science, Engineering and the Future of the American Economy - China challenges scientific research dominance of USA, Europe and Japan - Green Energy in Canada
Growth in jobs rises for German engineers
Jobs in the sector – the backbone of Germany’s manufacturing industry – rose by 27,000 in January, the highest monthly increase since the 1960s, according to figures published on Tuesday by Gesamtmetall, the engineering employers’ federation. Some companies reported losing production because they could not fill vacancies quickly enough.
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He said that about one in eight of the approximately 6,100 engineering companies were having difficulties in recruiting qualified engineers and mechanics, with this in some cases leading to production cutbacks. “Many companies misjudged how quickly the economy would recover and therefore failed to take on sufficient trainees,” Mr Vajna said. There also remained a shortage of engineering graduates, he added.
Related: Germany’s Science Chancellor - Top 10 Manufacturing Countries 2006 - Best Research University Rankings (2007) - Country H-index Rank for Science Publications
ballast-free ship’ could cut costs while blocking aquatic invaders
This week, the U.S. Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corp. will implement new rules designed to reduce Great Lakes invaders. Ships will be required to flush ballast tanks with salt water before entering the Seaway, a practice corporation officials describe as an interim measure, not a final solution.
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Instead of hauling potentially contaminated water across the ocean, then dumping it in a Great Lakes port, a ballast-free ship would create a constant flow of local seawater through a network of large pipes, called trunks, that runs from the bow to the stern, below the waterline.
“In some ways, it’s more like a submarine than a surface ship,” Parsons said. “We’re opening part of the hull to the sea, creating a very slow flow through the trunks from bow to stern.
Related: articles on invasive plants - Invasive Plants: Tamarisk - Sails for Modern Cargo Ships
Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Australia, speech to the National Press Club of Australia: Science meets Parliament
When societies invest in science, they are investing in their own future. They are entitled to expect a fair return on that investment.
They’re entitled to know we are using the country’s intellectual and technical capacity to deliver outcomes that matter to them – stronger communities, more good jobs, a cleaner environment, better public services, a richer culture, greater security for themselves and their children. Everybody here knows the rules of professional scientific conduct – think independently, put emotion aside, reject received authority, be faithful to the evidence, communicate openly.
These are good rules – rules I wholeheartedly endorse – but there’s one more I’d like to add – remember your humanity. Remember you’re part of a wider society – one that you have a special ability and therefore a special duty to serve. This doesn’t just apply in the physical sciences, but in the humanities and social sciences as well. When I say science I mean knowledge in all its forms.
Related: Engineering Economic Benefits - Authors of Scientific Articles by Country - Economic Strength Through Technology Leadership - Science and Engineering in Global Economics - Aussies Look to Finnish Innovation Model - Invest in Science for a Strong Economy
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Similar efforts are also being made at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Optical Sciences, where a new spin-off called The Solar Venture aims to improve the economics of solar. “Ontario was a global leader in telecom, but now that has slowed down,” says Rafael Kleiman, professor of engineering physics and director of McMaster’s Centre for Emerging Device Technologies. “All the people, all this research (in telecom), is finding a new home. I really believe Ontario can make itself a global hub in solar photovoltaic technologies.”
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A solar cell is just a big specialized chip, so everything we’ve learned about making chips applies,” Paul Saffo, an engineering professor at Stanford University, recently told the New York Times. There’s a reason why California’s Silicon Valley, the headquarters of data-networking king Cisco Systems and semiconductor goliath Intel, is positioning itself as Solar Valley.
All around the world people are aiming to create centers of excellence for solar power research and production.
Related: Economic Strength Through Technology Leadership - Large-Scale, Cheap Solar Electricity - Economic Impact of Educational Institutions - Solar Power Innovation - Nanotechnology Supports National Economic Policy - Entrepreneurial Engineers
Better higher education will change lives by Shashi Tharoor
India is entering the global employment marketplace with a self-imposed handicap of which we are just beginning to become conscious - an acute shortage of quality institutions of higher education. For far too long we have been complacent about the fact that we had produced, since the 1960s, the world’s second largest pool of trained scientists and engineers.
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Whereas countries in the Middle East, and China itself, are going out of their way to woo foreign universities to set up campuses in their countries, India turns away the many academic suitors who have come calling in recent years. Harvard and Yale would both be willing to open branches in India to offer quality education to Indian students, but have been told to stay away. Those Indians who choose to study abroad easily get scholarships to do so - currently 80,000 of them are in the United States alone.
Related: Science and Engineering in Global Economics - Global Research University Rankings (2007) - The Role of Science in Economy - The Importance of Science Education - Engineering graduate: USA, China, India - posts on engineering education
Cheap, ’safe’ drug kills most cancers
Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, and his colleagues tested DCA on human cells cultured outside the body and found that it killed lung, breast and brain cancer cells, but not healthy cells. Tumours in rats deliberately infected with human cancer also shrank drastically when they were fed DCA-laced water for several weeks.
DCA attacks a unique feature of cancer cells: the fact that they make their energy throughout the main body of the cell, rather than in distinct organelles called mitochondria. This process, called glycolysis, is inefficient and uses up vast amounts of sugar.
Until now it had been assumed that cancer cells used glycolysis because their mitochondria were irreparably damaged. However, Michelakis’s experiments prove this is not the case, because DCA reawakened the mitochondria in cancer cells. The cells then withered and died
The University of Alberta is raising funds to further the research. Some look at this and indite a funding system that does not support research for human health unless there is profit to be made. Much of the blame seems to go to profit focused drug companies. I can see room for some criticism. But really I think the criticism is misplaced.
The organizations for which curing cancer is the partial aim (rather than making money) say government (partial aim or public health…), public universities (partial aim of science research or medical research…), foundations, cancer societies, private universities… should fund such efforts, if they have merit. Universities have huge research budgets. Unfortunately many see profit as their objective and research as the means to the objective (based on their actions not their claims). These entities with supposedly noble purposes are the entities I blame most, not profit focused companies (though yes, if they claim an aim of health care they I would blame them too).
Now I don’t know what category this particular research falls into. Extremely promising or a decent risk that might work just like hundreds or thousands of other possibilities. But lets look at several possibilities. Some others thoughts on where it falls: Dichloroacetate to enter clinical trials in cancer patients, from a previous post here - Not a Cancer Cure Yet, The dichloroacetate (DCA) cancer kerfuffle, CBC’s ‘The Current’ on dichloroacetate (DCA), Dichloroacetate (DCA) Phase II Trial To Begin (”Like hundreds (if not, thousands) of compounds being tested to treat cancer, DCA was shown by Michelakis’ group earlier this year to slow the growth of human lung tumors in a preclinical rodent model.”).
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Rep. Lofgren wants residency for foreign engineers
Lofgren, a Democrat, spoke to an audience Friday at the Joint Venture: Silicon Valley conference about threats to innovation in the area. She said that about 56 percent of the Ph.D. candidates at the finest schools in the United States are immigrants, and because of the government’s current immigration policy, many of those people leave the country.
I support such legislation. I also think it is only one, of many measure to take to encourage science and engineering excellence (which will in turn help the economy). I have no doubt that other countries are going to be successful establishing their own global centers of excellence and attract scientists and engineers from around the world: including from the USA. The Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog now includes a tag cloud on the right side of our home page, tags for this post include: government and economy.
Related: Brain Drain Benefits to the USA Less Than They Could Be - economic benefits of science and engineering excellence - USA Losing Brain Drain Benefits
My comments on: National Association of High School Principals Takes Exception to Two Million Minutes
Thanks for saying what has to be said. I have talked on similar themes on my blog for awhile now. The USA is definitely losing its relative position as the clear leader for science and engineering excellence.
The debate now whether we are willing to invest more today to slow the decline or whether we are willing to risk the economic future where our centers of science and engineering excellence are eclipsed quickly.
There is a long lag time that has allowed us to coast for the last 30 or so years. The reality is that most Americans suffer under the illusion we are in the same position we were in 1970’s. We are not and it is obvious to me that the economic impacts are starting to have dramatic effects now and it will only increase.
It might be more pleasant to explain why the USA is fine the way it is but that is a mistake. For more on my thoughts see two categories of the Curious Cat Science and Engineering Blog: Economics and primary science education and 2 posts: The Future is Engineering and the Political Impact of Global Technology Excellence.
The SCImago Journal and Country Rank provides journal and country scientific indicators developed from the information contained in the Scopus database. As stated in previous posts these types of rankings have limitations but they are also interesting (such as the best research universities 2007). The table shows the top 6 countries by h-index and then some others I chose to list.
| Country | h-index | % of World Population |
% of World GDP | total Cites | % Top 500 Schools |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USA | 793 | 4.6% | 27.4% | 43,436,526 | 33% |
| United Kingdom | 465 | 0.9 | 4.9 | 9,895,817 | 8 |
| Germany | 408 | 1.3 | 6.0 | 8,377,298 | 8 |
| France | 376 | 0.9 | 4.6 | 5,795,531 | 4 |
| Japan | 372 | 2.0 | 9.0 | 7,167,200 | 6 |
| Canada | 370 | 0.5 | 2.6 | 4,728,874 | 4 |
| Additional countries of interest | |||||
| 20) China | 161 | 20.1 | 5.5 | 1,629,993 | 3 |
| 20) South Korea | 161 | .7 | 1.8 | 1,018,532 | 2 |
| 24) Brazil | 148 | 2.9 | 2.2 | 752,658 | 1 |
| 25) India | 146 | 17.0 | 1.9 | 994.561 | .4 |
Read more about the h-index (Hirsh index). Country population and GDP data taken World Development Indicators 2007, by the World Bank.
via: Stat freaks, are you ready to play with the SCImago Journal & Country Rank?
Related: Worldwide Science and Engineering Doctoral Degree Data - Views on Evolution by Country - Science and Engineering Doctoral Degrees Worldwide - Top 10 Manufacturing Countries 2006 - USA Teens 29th in Science - Ranking Universities Worldwide - Diplomacy, Science Research and Economics
Politics of engineering by Patrick Mannion, EE Times:
If the science and engineering community are not well represented to our representatives the interests of the science and engineering community will get short changed. Especially since so few politicians in the USA have even a basic understanding of science and the scientific method. And a very small percentage have any advanced degrees in science and engineering fields or work experience in them. That being said the political arena is much like a tar pit: that is it is difficult to interact with without becoming entangled in a big mess. And it is not as though the scientific and engineering community are even close to unified but still the impact of political decisions is very significant and science and engineering leaders need to be heard.
China’s Economic Science Experiment - China’s 9 most senior government official are all engineers (in 2006 - I am not sure now):
Related: Larry Page on Marketing Science - The A to Z Guide to Political Interference in Science - Diplomacy and Science Research - Open Access Legislation - Proposal to Triple NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Awards - Science Interview with John Edwards - Proposed Legislation on Science and Education - House Testimony on Engineering Education - Germany’s Science Chancellor - Nanotechnology Investment as Strategic National Economic Policy - Singapore Supporting Science Researchers - Farming Without Subsidies in New Zealand
Towards more renewable energy posted to Google’s blog by Larry Page, Co-Founder and President of Products:
To lead this effort, we’re looking for a world-class team. We need creative and motivated entrepreneurs and technologists with expertise in a broad range of areas, including materials science, physics, chemistry, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, land acquisition and management, power transmission and substations, construction, and regulatory issues. Join us. And if you’re interested, read about our previous work toward a clean energy future
Very cool. And I think something Google might be able to pull off well. It is also true this may be a distraction and not work well. For many companies that would be my guess for how it would play out. Google has done an exceptional job of allowing engineers to do what they do best. And I think there is a chance they can translate that into effectively managing such a project as this. Google continues to try what they believe even if that is not the conventional path. Good for them.
Related: posts on energy - posts on Google management - Google’s cheaper-than-coal target - Wind Power - Large-Scale, Cheap Solar Electricity - 12 Stocks for 10 Years Update - Larry Page and Sergey Brin Interview Webcast - Google’s Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (press release)
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