Category Archives: quote

Asia: Rising Stars of Science and Engineering

Great report – The Atlas of Ideas: How Asian innovation can benefit us all by Charles Leadbeater and James Wilsdon:

Each country will develop differently. In South Korea strong government support has created a world-class information infrastructure.
…
China is mobilising massive resources for innovation through ambitious long-term plans, funded by rapid economic growth. Beijing’s university district produces as many engineers as all of western Europe. China is developing world-class universities and attracting multinational innovation centres.
…
India’s elite, trained at the Indian Institutes of Technology, are second to none. New institutions like the National Science and Engineering Foundation could energise a disjointed innovation system. Yet India’s innovation elite may face a rural backlash. Its infrastructure is in poor repair and cities like Bengalooru are congested. Even the much-vaunted IITs do not, unlike their US counterparts, animate innovation clusters.

Percentage of world share of scientific publications

Year	China	France	Germany	Japan	Korea	UK	US	EU-15
1995	2.05	6.09	7.62	8.65	0.79	8.88	33.54	34.36
1998	2.90	6.48	8.82	9.42	1.41	9.08	31.63	36.85
2001	4.30	6.33	8.68	9.52	2.01	8.90	31.01	36.55
2004	6.52	5.84	8.14	8.84	2.70	8.33	30.48	35.18

Excellent reading, the report is full of useful information I have not been able to obsorb yet.
Related: Diplomacy and Science Research – The World’s Best Research Universities – Engineering the Future Economy – Worldwide Science and Engineering Doctoral Degree Data – USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates – Increasing American Fellowship Support for Scientists and Engineers
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Cancer Deaths – Declining Trend?

3,000 fewer cancer deaths:

Cancer deaths in the United States dropped for the second year in a row, health officials reported yesterday, confirming that the trend is real and becoming more pronounced, too.

The news was cause for celebration among doctors and politicians. “When we saw the first decline, the number wasn’t that enormous,” Dr. Felice Schnoll-Sussman, a cancer physician at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center said. “But once you start to see a trend like this, it obviously makes you feel like ‘We must be doing something right! ‘”

Is this really a trend? I have not examined the data at all but I seriously doubt it. People (the media even more so) constantly overreact to variation in data. Maybe I am wrong, certainly I should look at the data and see what it says – and I will if I get some time and remember. But I am more confident in my belief this is more overreaction to random variation than in the headlines. Why? Because so often when I do look more closely at the numbers my general observation of overreaction to random variation is confirmed while news reports talk of “trends.” Hopefully I am wrong this time.

Ok, I couldn’t resist and I did a little looking for some data. This is how crazy it is. The press release from the American Cancer Society states:
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Sarah, aged 3, Learns About Soap

A Dialogue with Sarah, aged 3: in which it is shown that if your dad is a chemistry professor, asking “why” can be dangerous [the broken link was removed] by Stephen McNeil.

DAD: Why does the soap grab the dirt?
SARAH: Yes.
DAD: Because soap is a surfactant.
SARAH: Why?
DAD: Why is soap a surfactant?
SARAH: Yes.
DAD: That is an EXCELLENT question. Soap is a surfactant because it forms water-soluble micelles that trap the otherwise insoluble dirt and oil particles.

Great. I remember such discussions with Dad (Chemical Engineering professor). The only danger I saw was him getting tied of -why? (when I was older). And sometimes giving me answers the teacher didn’t like (a way of doing math problems that wasn’t the way my teacher was teaching).

Increasing American Fellowship Support for Scientists and Engineers

A great research paper is available today from the Brookings Institution: Investing in the Best and Brightest: Increased Fellowship Support for American Scientists and Engineers by Richard B. Freeman. For those interesting in science and engineering education and/or economic policy I recommend it.

In 2005, the United States employed about 31 percent of the world’s scientist and engineer researchers and financed 35 percent of R&D while accounting for 5 percent of the world’s population and 21 percent of the world’s GDP…
The U.S. share of global science and engineering activity is declining, however, and will continue to decline

I agree the declining trend is likely to continue, mainly due to the improvement of science and engineering efforts worldwide, see, for example: Diplomacy and Science Research and – U.S. Slipping on Science – Phony Science Gap?.

The growth of high-tech employment in Silicon Valley and in university-based locations of scientific excellence suggests that innovation, production, and employment in high-tech fields occur largely in areas strong in basic science.10 The supply of scientists and engineers is a major factor in the location of these centers of excellence.

Again I agree. I am in danger of confirmation bias since this report basically reinforces what I believe – so of course I find it worthwhile.

While no one can be sure of the particular areas where an increased number of scientists and engineers might make their greatest contribution, our recent history is filled with examples where young innovative researchers have made major contributions to economic progress: The Internet. The biotech industry. The PC. The mathematics of cryptography that underpins Internet commerce.

Again I agree. This is why so many countries have been devoting significant resources to improving their science and technology infrastructure – the economic benefits of doing so.
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Report on Use of Online Science Resources

The Internet as a Resource for News and Information about Science (pdf) from the Pew Internet & American Life Project:

“40 million Americans rely on the internet as their primary source for news and information about science,” second to TV.

Another interesting piece of data: “59% of Americans have been to some sort of science museum in
the past year.” I find this unlikely but… That rises to79% for those that have visited a science website.

The respondents also reported extremely positives views of science, such as (see page 26-28):
To be a strong society, the United States needs to be competitive in science 39% strongly agree 50% agree 8% disagree 1% strongly disagree
Developments in science help make society better 31% 58% 8% 1%
Scientific research is essential to improving the quality of human lives 35% 56% 7% 1%
Science creates more problems than solutions for us and our planet 3% 19% 52% 19%

Global Engineering Education Study

Global Engineering Education Study includes a great deal of useful information. Universities partnering in the study include: Technische UniversitÃ¤t Darmstadt, Germany; Georgia Institute of Technology, USA; MIT, USA; Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China and University of Tokyo, Japan.

This unique collaboration will study the influence and importance of technological expertise and education on the competitiveness of nations, people, and companies. At the heart of this initiative is a comprehensive study designed to reflect a broad spectrum of topics dealing with all aspects of engineering and natural sciences.

Recommendations include:

Global competence needs to become a key qualification of engineering graduates
Transnational mobility for engineering students, researchers, and professionals needs to become a priority
Global engineering excellence depends critically on a mutual commitment to partnerships, especially those that link engineering education to professional practice
Research on engineering in a global context is urgently needed

Web Science

MIT and University of Southampton launch World Wide Web research collaboration:

The Web Science Research Initiative (WSRI) will generate a research agenda for understanding the scientific, technical and social challenges underlying the growth of the web. Of particular interest is the volume of information on the web that documents more and more aspects of human activity and knowledge. WSRI research projects will weigh such questions as: How do we access information and assess its reliability? By what means may we assure its use complies with social and legal rules? How will we preserve the web over time?

Commenting on the new initiative, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web and a founding director of WSRI, said, “As the web celebrates its first decade of widespread use, we still know surprisingly little about how it evolved, and we have only scratched the surface of what could be realized with deeper scientific investigation into its design, operation and impact on society.

Tim Berners Lee continues to show great insight. Continue reading →

Educating Scientists and Engineers

Business Week has an articles discussing what business would like to see from graduates, Biotech’s Beef:

The problem is a disconnect between what universities are teaching and what biotech wants. “The focus of academia is getting basic and theoretical knowledge in place,”
…
There are several weaknesses. First, recent grads lack the technical knowledge to carry out applied research in areas that straddle engineering, math, and computers. Second, job candidates have little awareness of what the Food & Drug Administration is looking for when it considers whether or not to approve a drug. Recent grads simply aren’t familiar with issues such as quality control and regulatory affairs.

This general idea is not new. But, as always (and probably more so if the nature of what is needed is changing faster today than in the past) the changing environment does require universities (and students, at least those that want to work in industry) to adapt.

But with H-1B quotas filling up earlier every year, Invitrogen has chosen to do more drug development in Japan, China, and India. It may also open facilities in Korea and Singapore, says Rodney Moses, Invitrogen’s vice-president of talent acquisition. Compensation in China and India is lower than in the U.S., but that’s not what motivates the move offshore, says Moses. “If the talent is located in Singapore, it’s just easier for us to go there.”

U.S. colleges take the problem seriously. State university systems in California, Wisconsin, and elsewhere are adding more industry-oriented classes.

Discoveries by Accident

‘Failed’ experiment produces a bacterial Trojan horse by Katie Weber. Interestingly the usefulness of Penicillin, the most popular bacteria fighting agent, was discovered by accident (and then a smart scientist learning from the accident and applying that knowledge to creating an incredibly useful medication).

As he was puzzling out why what should have been a routine procedure wouldn’t work, he made a discovery that led to the creation of a new biological tool for destroying bacterial pathogens – one that doesn’t appear to trigger antibiotic resistance.

The discovery also led to the startup of a promising new biotechnology firm that has already brought Wisconsin a dozen new, high-paying, highly skilled jobs.

This is yet another example of the power of scientists and engineers to boost the economy and society at large.

What Kids can Learn

This is a fascinating interview discussing what children can learn if given a computer and little, if any, instruction. Very Cool. Links on the progress since this interview are at the end of the post.

Q: This is your concept of minimally invasive education?

A: Yes. It started out as a joke but I’ve kept using the term … This is a system of education where you assume that children know how to put two and two together on their own. So you stand aside and intervene only if you see them going in a direction that might lead into a blind alley.

The interview explores what happened when:

Mitra simply left the computer on, connected to the Internet, and allowed any passerby to play with it. He monitored activity on the PC using a remote computer and a video camera mounted in a nearby tree.

What he discovered was that the most avid users of the machine were ghetto kids aged 6 to 12, most of whom have only the most rudimentary education and little knowledge of English. Yet within days, the kids had taught themselves to draw on the computer and to browse the Net. Some of the other things they learned, Mitra says, astonished him.

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