In The News

China and the Break-Up of the Net

Michael Geist March 30, 2006
The internet community experienced a bout of trepidation earlier in March when “The People’s Daily” announced pending changes in China’s domain name system. The move could signal an attempt to break away from the single-body control over worldwide net domain names by Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, a US non-profit organization that controls website accessibility...

Anxious America – Part II

Susan Froetschel March 14, 2006
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. In the second part of this series, Susan Froetschel examines how closing of the door, out of US security concerns, only encourages research and development efforts overseas. The US is building barriers to science within its borders – with security restrictions and limits for professional visas, combined with decreased federal R&D funding as a...

A Nation of Guinea Pigs

Jenifer Kahn March 14, 2006
Experimental drugs require large testing populations, which are increasingly hard to secure in the developed world. In 2005, the India government lifted restrictions on such testing by foreign-owned firms. So the pharmaceutical industry is outsourcing more trials. India has many advantages for such trials: English-speaking doctors; vast numbers of patients more willing to take experimental...

Low Costs, Plentiful Talent Make China a Global Magnet for R&D

Kathy Chen March 14, 2006
The number of foreign-invested R&D centers in China has more than tripled since 2002. Analysts once downplayed China’s potential in the R&D area for purposes other than studying the Chinese market because of weak patent protection. Yet more corporations, including Proctor & Gamble, Microsoft and Motorola, are taking the risk and developing basic research and new products in China. A...

Antarctic Ice Sheet Is Melting Rapidly, New Study Warns Of Rising Sea Levels

Juliet Eilperin March 8, 2006
The Antarctic ice sheet is losing mass at a significant rate, which can be linked to global warming, reports the journal Science. At the same time, two other scientists from South Africa warn that climate change could seriously deplete the water supply in the southern and western regions of Africa by the year 2100. Satellites supplied data on the ice sheet and the global sea level, which is...

US Approves Visa for Indian Scientist

Shankar Vedantam February 27, 2006
Since the 2001 terrorist attacks the US has implemented a stricter, more time-consuming visa policy citing concerns for national security., However, the recent denial of a visa to Goverdhan Mehta, an Indian scientist who is the president of the International Council for Science, has offered proof that this system remains far from perfect. In a case that caused furor in India just days before a...

How Academic Flap Hurt World Effort on Chinese Bird Flu

Nicholas Zamiska February 27, 2006
A standoff has arisen between Chinese scientists and international health officials over bird flu. The Chinese have expressed reluctance to share avian-flu samples –needed to develop an effective antidote. Last spring, deaths of thousands of wild birds in a secluded region of western China, led officials from the WHO and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization to ask China’s Ministry of...