Lawrence Krauss, one of the best popularizers of science since Carl Sagan, has another article in last week’s Science: Celebrating Science as Culture. In it, he reviews the World Science Festival that took place in New York City from May 28 to June 1, 2008.

In the article itself, Krauss provides the big picture: Read more »

Did you know that it is more likely that the next graduate student you meet in the US is from one of two Chinese alma mater’s than from any other U.S. university, including UC Berkeley, Cornell University, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor? That’s a striking figure, the topic of a tiny comment in last week’s Science: Top Ph.D. Feeder Schools Are Now Chinese.

While I may not have known that statistic however, it’s not surprising, as any past or current graduate student will tell you. There are a lot of non-American’s in American grad schools. Props to those non-Americans - they worked hard and have earned it.
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The June 20th issue of Science had an interesting story worth noting (interesting to anyone into molecular pharmacology, anyway), on Drugs, Industry, and Academia. It caught my attention because of some conversations that I’ve been having recently with colleagues and friends in the industry - how is Big Pharma going to maintain itself amid slowing drug discovery trends?

Now, I’m working at a generic pharmaceutical company for the time being, and the coming decade will be a boom for companies who aren’t following discovery model - so many very profitable drugs will be coming off their patents over that time.
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Catching up on the news after being away for two weeks - Lawrence Krauss had short comment in the New Scientist, Stop creationists undermining school science. The very quote-worthy punchline being:

Say that you are in charge of developing a state-wide high-school curriculum in French-language studies, and that you need the advice of a group of experts on how to put together the ideal programme. Is it better for officials to appoint these people, or for the public to vote on who they regard as the most attractive candidates for the job?
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