Stephen Quake, a Stanford biophysics professor, has been guest writing a column in the *New York Times*. His opening column was on the links between pure and applied research. He raises a lot of great points about how applied research can lead to new ideas for pure research and vice versa (and includes a few nice ... read more

Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden have conducted a recent study of University of California graduate students. Mason's assessment in *The Chronicle*: "We may be losing some of the most talented potential academics before they even arrive for a job interview. In the eyes of many doctoral students, the research univers... read more

A piece in today's *Times* covers a new NSF-funded study that compares standardized math test scores for girls and boys and finds no difference. These studies are important in that there is a fair amount of evidence that the *perception* that women underachieve in some subjects becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. ... read more

The Sloan Foundation has just announced a new set of grants for people to study the S&E workforce in the US. Here are some of the kinds of things they find interesting: > 1) “Mismatch” between education and occupation: With respect to U.S.-educated engineers and scientists, is there evidence of what some descri... read more

There's an interesting piece in today's New York Times about the proliferation of prizes for solving scientific problems. So far, the prizes are mostly from private sources, but the National Academies have encouraged NSF to get into the act. It's a trend that definitely bears watching. Prizes appear to have s... read more