Headline News, Science Views (1991) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
7 International Affairs
7 International Affairs
Pages 155-178
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 157... ...
Get even." Most Americans probably identify those words more with bumper stickers or bruised athletes than with such genteel subjects as scientific research or industrial production. But "getting even" - not for revenge, but to catch up is precisely what American engineers and technologists need to start doing with their counterparts in other industrial countries.
|
From page 158... ...
engineers and companies should be responding in kind, overcoming traditional isolationism and monitoring foreign research more vigorously. We have a lot to learn from our foreign colleagues.
|
From page 159... ...
Part of the long-term solution is for American engineers and companies to become more "worldly," to read about foreign countries, travel more, learn foreign languages and develop close ties with foreign colleagues. Admittedly, this takes time.
|
From page 160... ...
Likins The United States has a problem: Hong Kong wants John Chen. Chen is not an international criminal or political activist.
|
From page 161... ...
The National Assessment of Educational Progress reports that only 7 percent of 17 year olds still in school are ready for college science and engineering courses. Once in college, students need greater incentives to pursue advanced technical degrees.
|
From page 162... ...
Increased economic incentives and a greater national commitment to engineering education are achievable, and many foreign-born experts can be persuaded to remain. Indeed, ~ am happy to report that John Chen recently decided to stay at Lehigh.
|
From page 163... ...
There is also a more visible form of joint R&D, called technology research associations. Since 1961 government and industry efforts have created a network of these associa~inn.s 1nelr main purpose nas neen to bring lagging companies up to speed on technical information known elsewhere.
|
From page 164... ...
The National Science Foundation now funds a network of university-industry engineering research centers, and national labs and private firms work together more easily in such areas as robotics and pharmaceuticals. Sematech, a consortium funded by semiconductor firms and the Defense Department, has set up shop in Texas to work on semiconductor manufacturing.
|
From page 165... ...
Soviet scholars were prevented from building credible data systems that could tell whether policies were making things better or worse. Instead, they were burdened with fabricated economic statistics, censored census data and dubious public opinion polls.
|
From page 166... ...
Soviet social scientists want to learn how to conduct surveys to get honest answers. One Soviet researcher who recently visited the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at the City University of New York was impressed that American pluralism includes research institutes devoted to assessing the needs of minority groups.
|
From page 167... ...
Yet, if one looks beyond these examples to the developing world as a whole, the outlook is surprisingly hopeful. In fact, an international meeting of scientists and other experts on hunger concluded recently that it is possible to
|
From page 168... ...
Limited efforts that target the poor with food subsidies, feeding programs and other techniques have been more successful. In rural areas, providing wage and food income in return for labor on projects to provide needed agricultural and environmental improvements has reduced food poverty immediately while increasing productivity and income.
|
From page 169... ...
A systematic assault on hunger inevitably requires additional money and food aid from the rich to the poor and a reversal of monetary flows currently going in the opposite direction. But the sums are relatively small—no more than a 20 percent increase or reallocation of global foreign aid disbursements.
|
From page 170... ...
Both public institutes and commercial firms developed the vaccines for their home markets, investing heavily in research because the expected payoff in lives and profits was so great. After recouping their investment costs from sales to industrial countries, many firms were willing to sell the vaccines at or
|
From page 171... ...
The United Nations is exploring two initiatives to overcome these barriers and develop vaccines intended primarily for the Third World. One approach calls for the United Nations to contract with existing public institutes or with commercial firms to do the essential research on specific vaccines.
|
From page 172... ...
Improved child survival rates would also help ease population pressures; where death rates have fallen in the past, pregnancy rates have followed suit. An opportunity of such magnitude cries out to be exploited.
|
From page 173... ...
It enables other women to increase the interval between births, recovering their strength and reducing the competition among their children for food and care. In countries in which safe abortion is unavailable, family planning services are especially important for reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies that might otherwise lead to maternal death or injury from dangerous abortion procedures.
|
From page 174... ...
They need expanded family planning services desperately. Family planning alone will not end the tragedy of so many women and children dying.
|
From page 175... ...
Yet, if and when coca production is somehow cut back in South America, farmers there are going to need financially attractive alternatives. Exporting these unsung crops might provide an option for some of the farmers while opening a culinary treasure chest to gourmets worldwide.
|
From page 176... ...
176 HEADLINE NEWS, SCIENCE VIEWS - ,3 :~ by - ~ -~1' Drawing by Sam Capuano Copyright, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio
|
From page 177... ...
Mexican amaranth is already gaining popularity in some parts of the United States as a nutritious ingredient in breakfast cereals, granola and other products. Yet most Americans have never heard of amaranth's South American counterpart, even though its popping quality makes it a potential competitor with popcorn and its nutritional value is almost unsurpassed.
|
From page 178... ...
Rather than just condemning Andean farmers who grow coca, we ought to help them work toward the day when they can turn their magnificent botanical heritage to their own advantage and ours. November 5, 1989 Hugh Popenoe is director of the Center for Tropical Agriculture at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.