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For more information on these science news and feature story tips, please contact the public information officer at the end of each item at (703) 292-8070. Editor: Peter West Contents of this News Tip:
Top Ten R&D; States Account for Two-Thirds of National ExpendituresResearch and development (R&D;) in the United States remains highly concentrated in a small number of states, according to a data brief produced by the National Science Foundation's Division of Science Resource Studies. In 1997, the 20 highest-ranking states in R&D; expenditures accounted for about 86 percent of total U.S. research spending. California, which spent nearly $42 billion, had the nation's highest level of R&D; expenditures and accounted for roughly 20 percent of total R&D; spending. The top 10 ranking states in R&D; expenditures accounted for nearly two-thirds of the national R&D; outlays. Between 1987 and 1997 real R&D; growth for the nation as a whole averaged 2 percent per year, but individual state growth rates deviated slightly from that average. Among the top 10 states in R&D; expenditures in 1997, Washington State had the fastest growth rate - five percent. The next highest growth rate among the top 10 was New Jersey with three percent; California's R&D; grew at a rate of two percent. In most cases, these differences in rates reflect the sharp decline in federal R&D; support and the simultaneous dramatic rise in industrial R&D; during the same period. [Andrea Spiker] For more information, see: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/databrf/sdb00325.htm Asians Earn Fewer U.S. Science & Engineering Ph.D.'s Thanks to Stronger Overseas Graduate ProgramsThe number of science and engineering (S&E;) doctoral degrees earned by Asian students enrolled in U.S. universities -- which had increased steadily during the late 1980s and early 1990s peaked in 1996 and declined in 1997, according to a new NSF report. The decline, according to Graduate Education Reform in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, done for NSF's Division of Science and Resources Studies, which was written for NSF's Division of Science Resources Studies, can be attributed to education reforms in Asia, which have strengthened and expanded doctoral programs in Japan, China, Taiwan, and Korea. China, for example, has invested heavily in graduate education. As a result, in 1997, Chinese students earned more than twice as many S&E; doctorates from Chinese universities as from U.S. universities. Despite these changes in individual Asian nations, the U.S. still leads the world in the overall number of S&E; doctorates conferred. U.S. institutions conferred about 27,000 new doctoral degrees in 1997. [Charles Drum] For more information, see: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/nsf00318/start.htm New UCLA Math Institute's First Focus is GenomicsThe Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IPAM) at the University of California at Los Angeles will host a series of seminars and conferences in the coming months on how mathematics is used in the science of functional genomics, the study of gene structure and function. The Institute, which is funded by a five year $12.5 million NSF grant, opened in early August. It is dedicated to strengthening the ties between mathematics and the other sciences. "We hope to encourage cross-fertilization and collaboration between mathematics and other science and engineering disciplines," says Christopher Stark, a program manager in NSF's division of mathematical sciences. "The institute will bring mathematical techniques to bear on the scientific challenges of our time, and train mathematicians to branch out into solving problems in other sciences and engineering." [Charles Drum]
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