ScienceInsider

*The headline of this story has been changed, see note at end.

by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

It's an article of faith: the United States needs more native-born students in science and other technical fields. The National Academies' influential Rising Above the Gathering Storm report in 2006 said the nation should "enlarge the pipeline of students who are prepared to enter college and graduate with a degree in science, engineering, or mathematics" to remain competitive. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce had a similar message on the gap in so-called STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) students a year before. President Barack Obama has pushed for more science teachers and training for the same reason.

But a new paper contradicts the notion of a shrinking supply of native-born talent in United States.  "Those who advocate increasing the supply of STEM talent should cool their ardor a little bit," says one of its authors, B. Lindsay Lowell, a demographer at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

by Jeffrey Mervis

Does the United States need another high-powered panel recommending ways to improve how students learn science and math?

The President’s Council of Advisors for Science and Technology (PCAST) thinks the answer is yes. Late last week, the presidentially appointed body heard from two expert panels and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan about what governments, academic institutions, and the private sector are doing to raise the quality of teachers, improve the curriculum, and close the achievement gap between rich and poor students. Council members pressed witnesses to explain the theory behind their efforts and provide evidence to back up any reported successes. They also solicited advice on how PCAST might make a unique contribution to the raft of existing reports and analyses.

PCAST would like to get a report to the president within 6 months, says Eric Lander, head of the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who will be leading the effort along with Jim Gates, a physics professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. “We have a lot of issues on our plate, but this one is too important to ignore,” Lander said after the 2-day meeting, which ended on Friday.

What aspects of U.S. science education do you think PCAST should focus on?

by Wayne Kondro

Is it "heavy-handed bullying" or simply a "misunderstanding between bureaucrats"? The suggestion that Canada's science minister threatened to punish one of the country's research funding councils over its support of a conference on Palestinian statehood has rekindled debate on a story we reported this summer.

Gary Goodyear, the minister of state for science and technology, this spring asked the Social Science and Humanities Research Council to review its decision to support a June conference at York University in Toronto the United Kingdom on the prospects for peace in the Middle East because of his concern that some of the participants may be biased against Israel. This week the Canadian Association of University Teachers released a memo that describes a conversation between the Council's communications manager, Trevor Lynn, and Goodyear’s chief of staff, Phillip Welford. The memo, from Lynn to the council's president and other senior officials, quotes Welford as saying that the council's actions "will make it hard for the Minister to recommend increased funding for [the council] in the next budget.”

The National Science Foundation's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) has awarded six $20 million grants for infrastructure to support research including grassland studies in Kansas and Hawaiian environmental monitoring.

All 10 campuses of the University of California are bracing for walkouts and demonstrations tomorrow as faculty, labor unions, and student groups vent their frustration over layoffs, furloughs, and tuition hikes.

A top-level scientific committee to the European Commission has found few risks to health from the electronic fields that mobile phones emit.

The U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration has certified the elimination of more than 375 metric tons of highly enriched uranium from Russian nukes—the equivalent of more than 15,000 weapons. A 1993 agreement to eliminate 500 tons is now 75% complete.

The House of Representatives science committee has approved legislation to bolster cybersecurity research.

(Photo courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/vitroids/ / CC BY 2.0)

 

by Jeffrey Mervis

THUWAL, SAUDI ARABIA—King Abdullah opened the kingdom of Saudi Arabia today to a throng of foreign dignitaries, government officials, scientists, and guests to show off his new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

The multi-billion dollar project is a graduate institution with designs on crashing a list of the world's top 20 research universities.  It's a tall order for a school that sits on a 32 sq. km. slab of desert that hugs the Red Sea north of Jeddah, the country's second largest city. But the 70-odd scientists that form the founding faculty—along with 400 students who began classes on 5 September—won't be lacking for money or equipment.

The king has put his considerable power and authority behind the university, a message reinforced by holding the inaugural ceremony on the country's National Day holiday. He's hoping that KAUST will help to move the country from an oil-based to a knowledge-based economy, a task that the university's president, Choon Fong Shih, expresses with a simple formula: "Hire the best minds and find practical applications for their discoveries."

In addition to tapping $1.5 billion in core facilities that include the first supercomputer in the region, an industrial-class a nofabrication lab, a top-rated visualization center, and a dozen state-of-the-art nuclear magnetic resonance machines, faculty members will get from $400,000 to $800,000 apiece per year for 5 years to outfit and staff their labs.

by Eli Kintisch

The African Science Academy Development Initiative will hold a workshop in Ghana in November to tackle maternal, newborn, and child health in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Joel Myers, founder of AccuWeather.com, has given $2 million to Pennsylvania State University to start a weather center.

The 2009 Canadian Science Policy Conference will meet in Toronto 28–30 October.

Retired faculty are filling in as science professors at state universities as budgets continue to whither.

(Photo courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/joshme17/, CC BY-SA 2.0)

... on a Carnegie Mellon University robotics scientist eschewing military cash:

I adore such a scientist. It might be difficult, but I believe that it is worth it. On the other hand, loosely speaking, I believe that it looks like a game. We need a certain portion of people who follow the same trend. ... There will be a positive feedback and more and more people will tend to reject this kind of money.

Another reader is not so sure:

by Richard Stone

Earlier this summer, South Korea merged three science agencies to form the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF). The new body will control a $2 billion pot of money, roughly 20% of the government’s annual R&D spending. Science recently caught up with NRF’s first president, computer scientist Chan-Mo Park.

Q: By any measure, Korea is a technology powerhouse, but its achievements have come more from emulation than innovation. How will NRF change that?

The University of California, San Francisco, appointed pediatrician Sam Hagwood yesterday as dean of its medical school. Hagwood was named interim dean in December 2007 after the abrupt dismissal of his predecessor, David Kessler, who had bickered with administrators over alleged financial irregularities at the school.

Aerosmith lead guitarist Joe Perry will headline an event in Washington, D.C., on Thursday organized by the "Rock Stars of Science" organization to push for biomedical research funding.

On the same day the House of Representatives science committee will take several doses of testimony at a hearing about the need for measurement standards for biologic drugs.

Industrial biotechnology could provide 2.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions cuts if given the chance, says the World Wildlife Fund.

German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine have struck a deal to collaborate on stem cell projects.

Photo courtesy of Aerosmith

by Greg Miller

Next Thursday is supposed to be the first day of school at several campuses of the University of California (UC). But hundreds of instructors are planning to cut class to protest budget cuts and furloughs at the cash-strapped public university.

The university faces a roughly $800 million shortfall in state funding over the next 2 years and administrators have responded with a number of cost-cutting measures, including tuition hikes and a furlough plan for faculty and staff members that amounts to a 4-10% pay cut, depending on pay grade. Last month, Lawrence Pitts, UC's interim provost and executive vice president for academic affairs announced that furlough days would not occur on days when faculty are scheduled to teach, arguing that doing so would violate UC's "paramount teaching mission."

That angered many faculty, who had assumed they would have a say in when they took their furlough days and wanted to take some of them on teaching days to demonstrate to students, parents, and state legislators that budget cuts were having a direct impact on the quality of education at UC. On 31 August, faculty from several UC campuses began a petition urging a walkout on 24 September. In an open letter to their colleagues, the organizers accuse the UC administration of acting by "autocratic fiat" and call for a walkout to protest the management of the furlough plan. Nearly 800 faculty had signed the petition as of this morning, and according to the organizers' blog, several student organizations and labor unions have voiced support for the walkout.

Meanwhile, UC Regents meet in San Francisco today to consider a plan that would raise tuition by 30% by the fall of 2010.