News this Week
Volume 317, Number 5834, Issue of 06 July 2007
©2007 by The American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The World of Undergraduate Education; News
Keeping Score
This map offers basic information on five important components of STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education in the countries profiled in this special issue.
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AUSTRALIA:
'A Crisis in Student Quantity and Quality'
John Bohannon
MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA--Kath Handasyde enlists native species, assertive Americans, and anything else on hand to rekindle a passion for science among undergrads.
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UNITED STATES:
'This Is the Front Line … Where I Can Really Make a Difference'
Elizabeth Culotta
AKRON, OHIO--Lisa Park and her colleagues take on creationism and other antiscientific attitudes in the classroom--and in the voting booth.
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UNITED KINGDOM:
'Much of What We Were Doing Didn't Work'
Daniel Clery
LEICESTER, U.K.--Derek Raine sees integrated sciences as a potential savior for disciplines facing declining student interest and a dwindling number of departments.
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FRANCE:
Opening Up to the Rest of the World
Martin Enserink
BORDEAUX, FRANCE--Antoine de Daruvar injects the real world into his bioinformatics classroom in an attempt to reinvigorate higher education.
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BRAZIL:
'I Do Not Make a Distinction Between Teaching and Research'
Marcelo Leite
RECIFE, BRAZIL--Antônio Carlos Pavão combines the ideal with the practical to bring science to the masses and create the next generation of scientists.
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RUSSIA:
'The Teacher Is Still the Central Figure'
Bryon MacWilliams
KRASNOYARSK, RUSSIA--Irina Sukovataya taps into software and the resources of a new megauniversity to help physics students.
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SOUTH AFRICA:
'I Wish … I Could Give [Them All] Computers'
Robert Koenig
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA--Leslie Lekala teaches physics to thousands of students whom he'll never meet, using distance learning to help overcome the legacy of apartheid.
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AUSTRIA:
'Can't Have a Career…Without English'
John Bohannon
VIENNA, AUSTRIA--Katrin Schäfer helps students acquire the skills they need to live and work in a global scientific community.
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INDIA:
Beyond Islands of Excellence
Pallava Bagla
Nandula Raghuram's hands-on approach gives students a solid foundation for a biotech career
Nandula Raghuram's hands-on approach gives students a solid foundation for a biotech career.
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CHINA:
'It's Important to Ask Students To Do Some Work on Their Own'
Dennis Normile
NANJING, CHINA--Yun Ying has pioneered a course that forces physics students to take the initiative and teaches them the English that they will need.
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SOUTH KOREA:
'A Strong Voice' For Course Reform
Richard Stone
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA--Lee Duckhwan fights to keep science in the forefront of what students are asked to learn in high school and college.
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JAPAN:
Spreading Knowledge of Science and Technology
Dennis Normile
YOKOHAMA, JAPAN--Toyoko Akiyama fosters a movement to counter specialization by giving all students a real taste of her biology lab.
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Straight Talk About STEM Education
Jeffrey Mervis
Getting your hands dirty is one of many keys to a successful undergraduate education in the sciences, says this panel of U.S. educators.
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News of the Week
GOVERNMENT ETHICS:
Supersized Lab Draws Fire at NIH's Environmental Institute
Jocelyn Kaiser
After receiving allegations of mismanagement at the National Institute of Environmental Health, the government cut back funds for the personal lab of the institute's director and sent away his "guest researchers."
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GENOMICS:
Sea Anemone Provides a New View of Animal Evolution
Elizabeth Pennisi
The newly decoded DNA of a sea anemone looks surprisingly similar to our own, a team of researchers reports in this week's Science. This implies that even very ancient genomes were quite complex and contained most of the genes necessary to build today's most sophisticated multicellular creatures.
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CLIMATE CHANGE:
Another Global Warming Icon Comes Under Attack
Richard A. Kerr
A recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change overstates how well climate modelers have gauged the impact of some factors affecting global warming in the 20th century, outside experts say.
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SCIENCE POLICY:
Science Gets New Home in U.K. Government
Daniel Clery
Science appears to have a more prominent role in the British government after the country's new prime minister, Gordon Brown, created a new ministry with responsibility for both research and higher education in his first cabinet reshuffle.
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ASTROPARTICLE PHYSICS:
A Road Map for European Facilities
Daniel Clery
Last week, a body representing astroparticle physicists across Europe released the first draft of a wishlist of facilities, aiming to study the universe via the cosmic rays, gamma rays, gravity waves, and neutrinos that rain down on Earth.
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SCIENCE POLICY:
Egypt Plans a Shakeup of Research Programs
Robert Koenig
Egypt is planning a major overhaul of its science and technology programs, to include more money for research and the creation of a new science institute.
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HOMELAND SECURITY:
NASA Lab Workers Decry New Security Checks
Yudhijit Bhattacharjee
Some scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory say that new rules to beef up security at federal facilities infringe on their privacy and are antithetical to good science.
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News Focus
DARK MATTER:
Racing to Capture Darkness
Adrian Cho and Richard Stone
Their gravity holds galaxies together. Their identity has fueled decades of theoretical speculation. Now particle physicists are vying to drag dark-matter particles into the light.
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MICROBIAL ECOLOGY:
The Dark and Mushy Side of A Frozen Continent
Mason Inman
Researchers are uncovering a wetter world under the Antarctic ice than they ever imagined. But it’s far from clear which life forms call this extreme environment home.
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PROFILE: ESKE WILLERSLEV:
Ancient DNA's Intrepid Explorer
Andrew Curry
After fending off bears, surviving frostbite, and trapping furs in Siberia, Eske Willerslev turned to genetics and is now pushing the boundaries of ancient DNA research.
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GEOMETRY AND THE IMAGINATION:
In Hyperbolic Space, Size Matters
Barry Cipra
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY--At a meeting held here on 7-11 June in honor of the mathematician William Thurston, some of his colleagues announced a proof that a tiny snarl known as the Weeks manifold has the smallest volume of any hyperbolic 3-dimensional space.
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GEOMETRY AND THE IMAGINATION:
Pricey Proof Keeps Gaining Support
Barry Cipra
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY--At a meeting held here on 7-11 June in honor of the mathematician William Thurston, topologists said Grigory Perelman's 4-year-old proof of Thurston's "geometrization conjecture" and its corollary, the million-dollar Poincaré conjecture, still looks rock-solid.
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GEOMETRY AND THE IMAGINATION:
Bizarre Pool Shots Spiral to Infinity
Barry Cipra
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY--At a meeting held here on 7-11 June in honor of the mathematician William Thurston, geometer Richard Schwartz showed that a game of "outer billiards"--in which point-sized balls graze the corners of a geometric target--can result in orbits that spiral outward forever.
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GEOMETRY AND THE IMAGINATION:
That's Not Some Knot Sum!
Barry Cipra
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY--At a meeting held here on 7-11 June in honor of the mathematician William Thurston, a knot theorist said he had taken a step toward determining whether the "crossing number"--the total number of times a knotted loop crosses itself--stays the same when two such loops are grafted together.
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