Category Archives: Science

The Innovation Agenda

Democrat’s are proposing an Innovation Agenda, including:

Educate 100,000 new scientists, engineers, and mathematicians in the next four years by proposing a new initiative, working with states, businesses, and universities, to provide scholarships to qualified students who commit to working in the fields of innovation.

Place a highly qualified teacher in every math and science K-12 classroom by offering upfront tuition assistance to talented undergraduates and by paying competitive salaries to established teachers working in the fields of math and science; institute a “call to action” to professional engineers and scientists, including those who have retired, to join the ranks of our nation’s teachers.

Create a special visa for the best and brightest international doctoral and postdoctoral scholars in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Make college tuition tax-deductible for students studying math, science, technology, and engineering.

They also propose doubling the funding for the National Science Foundation. Making promises about what you will do is much different than actually doing something: lets see what actually happens.

Currently the United States has over $8,000,000,000,000 (that is over $8 trillion – see current count) in debt (increasing by over $400 Billion a year). That brings every person’s share to over $27,000. Given that, it seems reckless to just add spending without either cutting something else or increasing taxes and I don’t see those details in the innovation agenda. Of course, my opinion on that being reckless may not be shared by a majority choosing to spend more money – after all they have been adding to that debt at a record pace the last few years.

To me, the most realistic federal action, given the role of the federal government (k-12 education is primarily a state and local responsibility) is the scholarship proposal but lets see what actually happens. In July we posted about proposed Science and Engineering Fellowships Legislation (which also seems like a good idea). We have not been able to find out about any progress on that legislation. From the November AAAS S&T newsletter:

Meanwhile, across the Capitol, Senators Joe Lieberman (D-CT) and John Ensign (R-NV) are currently drafting bipartisan legislation to implement a series of policies based on the “National Innovation Initiative” report from the Council on Competitiveness. The legislation, which the senators originally planned to introduce in September, has reportedly been delayed by lack of agreement on its immigration provisions.

I am not certain whether the legislation being worked on includes the fellowships or not (though I would guess that it does).

A Decade of Progress for Women in Science …

A Decade of Progress for Women in Science … by Nancy Hopkins

In 1995 it was unimaginable that within 10 years the presidents of Princeton University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Michigan, and University of California at San Diego would all be women, and remarkably, women scientists.
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The percentage of women faculty at MIT is climbing, slowly. In 2004, 13% of faculty in the School of Science and 14% of the School of Engineering were female, up from 8% and 6%, respectively, in 1993. Women who make it to the top in science have long known what holds many women in science back: family demands and bias. But until recently both topics were taboo. A critical step to making progress for women in science has been to put these problems on the agenda.

Progress is being made and continued progress is needed. The percentage of women studying engineering is still very low. And the recent talk in the blogosphere about how many potential engineers are turned away shows that not just women choose to turn away.

We should work to make the option of pursuing a science and engineering path more desirable for those who are interested. Still, it seems progress is being made in including more women on the path to careers in science and though engineering is lagging, progress is being made there also.
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Science Toys You Can Make With Your Kids

Simple steam boat

Science Toys You Can Make With Your Kids

Photo: the simplest steam engine you will ever see. It has no valves, no moving parts (in the traditional sense of the phrase), and yet it can propel it’s little boat easily across the largest swimming pool or quiet duck pond.

The site includes many simple projects to create toys and teach scientific principles in a fun way with simple materials. Gonzo Gizmos, is the book the site is based on.

Projects include: the impossible kaleidoscope, a simple rocket engine, building a radio in 10 minutes and building your own solar battery.

This cool site is definitely worth a visit.

GAO Report: Federal Science, Technology and Engineering Trends

GAO Report: Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Programs and Related Trends

13 federal civilian agencies reported spending about $2.8 billion in fiscal year 2004 for 207 education programs designed to increase the numbers of students and graduates or improve educational programs in
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) fields. NSF and NIH each account for a bit over 1/3 of the spending.

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.
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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.

Estimated Changes in Numbers of International Students in STEM fields by Education Levels from the 1995-1996 Academic Year to the 2003-2004 Academic Year

Education level Number of international students, 1995-1996 Number of international students, 2003-2004 Percentage change
Bachelor’s 31,858 139,875 +339
Master’s 40,025 22,384 -44
Doctoral 36,461 7,582 -79
Total 108,344 169,841 +57

Scientists crack 40-year-old DNA puzzle

Scientist at University of Bath: Stefan Bagby, Jean van den Elsen and Huan-Lin Wu

Scientists crack 40-year-old DNA puzzle and point to ‘hot soup’ at the origin of life:

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.”

200,000 science and engineering doctorates in China by 2010?

Below are more statistics on engineering doctoral students in China, via China will increase its science and engineering doctorates to some 200,000 by 2010. I can’t say how reliable these figures are; but you can judge for yourself. The internet makes a great deal of information available but people still have to decide what level of credibility to give any source.

For more details see the original post:

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
…
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

Whatever numbers turn out to be true the increase in science and engineering education in China is huge.

Related posts:

Science and Engineering Apprenticeships

Office of Naval Research Science & Engineering Apprentice Program (SEAP)

SEAP provides competitive research internships to approximately 250 high school students each year. Participating students spend eight weeks during the summer doing research at Department of Navy laboratories.

Requirements:

  • High school students who have completed at least Grade 9. A graduating senior is eligible to apply.
  • Must be 16 years of age for most laboratories
  • Applicants must be US citizens and participation by Permanent Resident Aliens is limited.
  • The application deadline is February 17, 2006.

Apply online for the apprenticeship/internship. See more internship oportunities at externs.com.

Innovative Science Education

Great Scientific Debates

Teach History and the Nature of Scientific Inquiry, History and Philosophy of Science: Overview of Engaging Students in Science Debates.

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.

This is a great example of innovating in education. The students in the example were in5th grade at Turtleback Elementary in San Diego.

The Apple site has a great deal of information on the entire process.

Science Books

With many people’s minds turning to what they can get for presents in the holiday season we will take the opportunity to list some excellent books related to science that are educational and entertaining:

Our books page includes more science related books.

I am not related to John Hunter, the surgeon, though a Google search connects us – in that the results include links related to both of us. So my site, John Hunter, is competing with sites about, or related, to a surgeon born in 1728 (which may only be interesting to me).

Buckminster Fuller

Everything I Know, the historic 42-hour session with Buckminster Fuller via Spontaneous Arising:

During the last two weeks of January 1975 Buckminster Fuller gave an extraordinary series of lectures concerning his entire life’s work. These thinking out loud lectures span 42 hours and examine in depth all of Fuller’s major inventions and discoveries from the 1927 Dymaxion house, car and bathroom, through the Wichita House, geodesic domes, and tensegrity structures, as well as the contents of Synergetics.
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Permeating the entire series is his unique comprehensive design approach to solving the problems of the world. Some of the topics Fuller covered in this wide ranging discourse include: architecture, design, philosophy, education, mathematics, geometry, cartography, economics, history, structure, industry, housing and engineering.

Includes some video and audio or transcribed sessions.