In The News

With New Clue to How SARS Kills, Scientists Work on Treatment

Elisabeth Rosenthal July 15, 2005
In 2003, the SARS virus killed almost 800 people and reminded the world of our vulnerability to epidemic disease. Two years later, scientists may have learned why the virus is so deadly. A team of scientists from Europe and Asia seem to have discovered how SARS fills the lungs with fluid, initiating acute respiratory distress syndrome. Their findings could lead to a new treatment that would...

Nagasaki 1945: While Independents Were Scorned, Embed Won Pulitzer

Mark Selden July 7, 2005
Sixty years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some newly disclosed journalistic accounts offer a unique insight into wartime press controls. A copy of Chicago Daily News reporter George Weller's dispatches, which were stopped in 1945 by US military censors, has recently been uncovered by his son. Both Weller and another reporter had documented the atrocities in post-...

The Wages of Fundamentalism

Peter Watson June 22, 2005
Author Peter Watson cites religious fundamentalism as a major cause of the recent decline of US leadership in scientific research and innovation. To be sure, a renewed interest in the sciences in Western Europe and Asia has helped them to catch up in previously American-dominated fields. Equally influential, however, has been a renewal of religious fervor in the US. Teachers in Kansas are...

In Spite of Offshoring, US Students Can Still Engineer a Career

David Wessel June 20, 2005
A new report by McKinsey & Co. concludes that the nominal demand for engineering jobs in the US will not wane in the next few years in spite of the potential of offshoring. While there are more university-trained professionals in low-wage countries, many of them, according to the report, are unfit for the jobs demanded by foreign employers. Furthermore, it concludes that by the end of the...

Fallout from the War on Terror – Part I

Mark Sidel June 14, 2005
Four years after the 9/11 attacks, protecting America from an invisible threat continues to shape domestic and foreign policy. The complex effects of the war on terror extend far beyond security – and the unintended results are not all positive. In this two-part series, YaleGlobal explores how US anti-terrorism policy is changing America's position in the world. In part one, Mark Sidel...

Don't Mention Democracy, Microsoft Tells China Web Users

Mure Dickie June 13, 2005
In order to steer clear of political censors, Microsoft has banned the use of certain words, among them "democracy" and "freedom," from its new Chinese internet portal. In accordance with central government regulations, Chinese MSN subscribers are restricted from labeling their web sites with words that might be seen as critical of China's Communist leadership. Working...

Bird Flu Spreads Among Java's Pigs

David Cyranoski May 27, 2005
International health experts have kept a wary eye on the avian influenza virus, identified as H5N1. Though transmission to humans has not been widespread, scientists in Indonesia have made an unsettling discovery. Earlier this year, a virologist found the H5N1 strain – though without symptoms of the disease – in pigs in western Java. Why the concern? According to the journal Nature, "...