A greater commitment to multidisciplinary research, and to local problem solving, is essential to achieving future development goals. UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon recently announced the members of the panel that has been given the challenge of defining the global development agenda after the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015. The panel’s first meeting, scheduled…
The dynamics of global innovation are changing as a result of the activities of emerging economies, according to The Global Innovation Index 2012. Countries like China, India – and even Paraguay and Sri Lanka – show that while innovative activity generally increases with income levels, good results can be achieved using their own innovation models….
Americans have grown accustomed to bad news about student performance in math and science. On a 2009 study administered by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 15-year-olds in the U.S. placed 23rd in science and 31st in math out of 65 countries. On last year’s Nation’s Report Card assessments, only one third of eighth…
The U.S. Department of State has increased its efforts to promote international cooperation in science and engineering by launching two new outreach initiatives. One will seek to tap into US-based scientific diasporas — scientists from developing countries and elsewhere who are currently working in the United States. The second will support the engagement of US…
Do you think cutting-edge scientists should earn as much as star athletes, celebrity artists or Wall Street bankers? The Russian billionaire investor Yuri Milner does, and this week he put his money where his heart is, depositing $3 million in the bank accounts of each of the nine theoretical physicists he judged to be doing…
Recently, the University of Texas provost announced he would reexamine a report by a UT professor that said fracking was safe for groundwater after the revelation that the professor pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from a Texas natural gas developer. It’s the latest fusillade in the ongoing battle over the basic facts of fracking…
A typical American school day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra. In both high school and college, all too many students are expected to fail. Why do we subject American students to this ordeal?
The National Youth Science Camp aims to give high-achieving students a chance to experience science in a fun setting. Especially when it comes to sciences, or STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — education, learning over the summer matters, education experts say. Students need exposure to hands-on, experiential science beyond the textbook, or they…
A quest to get more discussion about science and scientific issues in the run-up to this year’s presidential election in the U.S, is starting to get noticed. Scientific American has joined this endeavor to get the U.S. presidential candidates to talk about substantive issues related to science and will be grading the candidates on their…
From the editors at SciAm: Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, died on July 23 of pancreatic cancer. She was 61. Outside her trail-blazing career as an astronaut, Ride was also a major champion of STEM education. In 2010, she helped found an initiative called Change the Equation [a CEO-driven initiative to increase…