I just got a call from Bill Khourie (pronounced ‘curry’), Director of OSIDA who let me know that they are putting their finishing touches on Oklahoma’s spaceport application with FAA AST and environmental impact statement and are targetting December 2005 for approval for horizontal takeoff horizontal landing vehicles. He said they would be delighted to be approached by the vertical crowd and would be pleased to welcome them assuming AST says OK.
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Wednesday, 15:30 CDT: One of the vertical crowd emailed me and said that they already approached OSIDA some time ago and “would be pleased” might not be enough to get a new AST spaceport application filed.
In discussing AIDS drug prices, Derek Lowe notes that:
I’ve known some pretty good Brazilian scientists, but the country isn’t up to being able to discover and develop its own new ones. (Very few countries are; you can count them on your fingers.)
I’d never thought about this, but I imagine it’s true. There’s a reason that so many countries send students to the US (and the UK, and few other places) for their education. I recall a chapter in one of Feynman’s autobiographies, in which he described the state of physics education in Brazilian universities. It was basically rote memorization, with no apparent comprehension of the actual meaning or applicability of the formulas. It would be interesting (and sad) if that remains the case.
In discussing AIDS drug prices, Derek Lowe notes that:
I’ve known some pretty good Brazilian scientists, but the country isn’t up to being able to discover and develop its own new ones. (Very few countries are; you can count them on your fingers.)
I’d never thought about this, but I imagine it’s true. There’s a reason that so many countries send students to the US (and the UK, and few other places) for their education. I recall a chapter in one of Feynman’s autobiographies, in which he described the state of physics education in Brazilian universities. It was basically rote memorization, with no apparent comprehension of the actual meaning or applicability of the formulas. It would be interesting (and sad) if that remains the case.
In discussing AIDS drug prices, Derek Lowe notes that:
I’ve known some pretty good Brazilian scientists, but the country isn’t up to being able to discover and develop its own new ones. (Very few countries are; you can count them on your fingers.)
I’d never thought about this, but I imagine it’s true. There’s a reason that so many countries send students to the US (and the UK, and few other places) for their education. I recall a chapter in one of Feynman’s autobiographies, in which he described the state of physics education in Brazilian universities. It was basically rote memorization, with no apparent comprehension of the actual meaning or applicability of the formulas. It would be interesting (and sad) if that remains the case.
You’ll all be shocked to learn, as I was, that men aren’t totally averse to seeing women naked:
Women were more frequently bothered by nude sunbathing than men. Just over 40 percent of women said they did not like seeing other naked females on the beach, while just 5 percent of men shared their opinion about nude women.