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To: Seeker of Truth who wrote (49364)	5/3/2004 9:30:24 AM
From: BubbaFred	Respond to of 74559

Experts: U.S. fades as global leader in science, technology Europe, Asia closing the research gap By William J. Broad The New York Times The United States has started to lose its worldwide dominance in critical areas of science and innovation, according to federal and private experts who point to strong evidence such as prizes awarded to Americans and the number of research papers in major professional journals. Foreign advances in basic science now often rival or even exceed America's, apparently with little public awareness of the trend or its implications for jobs, industry, national security or the vigor of the nation's intellectual and cultural life. "The rest of the world is catching up," said John Jankowski, a senior analyst at the National Science Foundation, a federal agency that tracks science trends. "Science excellence is no longer the domain of just the U.S." Even analysts worried by the trends concede that an expansion of the world's brain trust, with new approaches, could invigorate the fight against disease, develop new sources of energy and help wrestle with knotty environmental problems. But profits from the breakthroughs are likely to stay overseas, and this country will face competition for things such as hiring scientific talent and getting space to showcase its work in top journals. One area of international competition involves patents. Americans still win large numbers of them, but the percentage is falling as foreigners, especially Asians, have become more active and in some fields have seized the innovation lead. The U.S. share of the industrial patents used in the country has fallen steadily over the decades and now stands at 52 percent. Europe and Asia are ascendant, analysts say, even if their achievements go unnoticed in the United States. In March, for example, European scientists announced that one of their planetary probes had detected methane in the atmosphere of Mars - a possible sign that alien microbes live beneath the planet's surface. The finding made headlines from Paris to Melbourne, Australia. But most Americans, bombarded with images from America's own rovers successfully exploring the red planet, missed the foreign news. More aggressively, Europe is seeking to dominate particle physics by building the world's most powerful atom smasher, set for its debut in 2007. Its circular tunnel is 17 miles around. Science analysts say Asia's push for excellence promises to be even more challenging. "It's unbelievable," Diana Hicks, chairwoman of the school of public policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said of Asia's growth in science and technical innovation. "It's amazing to see these output numbers of papers and patents going up so fast." Analysts say comparative American declines are an inevitable result of rising standards of living around the globe. The rapidly changing American status has not gone unnoticed by politicians, with Democrats on the attack and the White House on the defensive. Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota recently accused the Bush administration of weakening the nation's science base by failing to provide enough money for cutting-edge research. The president's science adviser, John H. Marburger III, strongly denied that accusation. "The sky is not falling on science," Marburger said. "Maybe there are some clouds - no, things that need attention." denverpost.com

To: Seeker of Truth who wrote (49364)	5/3/2004 10:01:35 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Respond to of 74559

<<< how are you getting to that nice new world via spending half a trillion a year on a war which fills AlQaeda with glee>>> We aren't getting there (the promised land) without a few blips and mistakes. I thought it was a mistake going into Iraq the way we did. If we had said we were going into Iraq to save the Iraqi's from Saddam Hussein. That Saddam Hussein is bad for Iraq and bad for the world and we need lot of money to do this - I would have been okay with it. Having gotten into Iraq the way we did, we can't just get out. It is not going to be easy and I don't see a plan. I don't know how we are going to do it - but we will get it done. USA, the system works. The situation will correct itself. It was designed this way. The system is not broken. A lot of science awards and patents are going to the ROW (wow - more than 50% of patents - how shocking!!!). Many of the science awards are going to people trained in the US. They live in Palo Alto and Cambridge. We don't have a lot of the winners - we only train them.