China is on course to overtake the US in scientific output possibly as soon as 2013 - far earlier than expected.
That is the conclusion of a major new study by the Royal Society, the UK's national science academy.
The country that invented the compass, gunpowder, paper and printing is set for a globally important comeback.
An analysis of published research - one of the key measures of scientific effort - reveals an "especially striking" rise by Chinese science.
The study, Knowledge, Networks and Nations, charts the challenge to the traditional dominance of the United States, Europe and Japan.
The figures are based on the papers published in recognised international journals listed by the Scopus service of the publishers Elsevier.
'No surprise'
In 1996, the first year of the analysis, the US published 292,513 papers - more 10 times China's 25,474.
By 2008, the US total had increased very slightly to 316,317 while China's had surged more than seven-fold to 184,080.
Previous estimates for the rate of expansion of Chinese science had suggested that China might overtake the US sometime after 2020.
Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
There are many millions of graduates but they are mandated to publish so the numbers are high”
End Quote
Dr Cong Cao
Nottingham University
But this study shows that China, after displacing the UK as the world's second leading producer of research, could go on to overtake America in as little as two years' time.
"Projections vary, but a simple linear interpretation of Elsevier's publishing data suggests that this could take place as early as 2013," it says.
Professor Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, chair of the report, said he was "not surprised" by this increase because of China's massive boost to investment in R&D.
Chinese spending has grown by 20% per year since 1999, now reaching over $100bn, and as many as 1.5 million science and engineering students graduated from Chinese universities in 2006.
"I think this is positive, of great benefit, though some might see it as a threat and it does serve as a wake-up call for us not to become complacent."
The report stresses that American research output will not decline in absolute terms and raises the possibility of countries like Japan and France rising to meet the Chinese challenge.
"But the potential for China to match American output in terms of sheer numbers in the near to medium term is clear."
Tuesday 29 March 2011
Monday 28 March 2011
We didn't do it, honest.
The American Secretary of Defence has noted that the outbreak of disease in Tripoli is not linked at all to the current US UK and French military attack but rather it is due to all the dead bodies of freedom loving people that the Bad Muslims have put into the bombed-out residential buildings.
"Whenever we finish a night-bombing raid on one of Gaddafi's crazy and garishly coloured apartment blocks, or we've finished the day's salvo of Tomahawk rockets, well, by early the next morning the Bad Muslims have filled up the bombed out buildings with dead people. We've got proof of it, too. This is the kind of evil and tricky and delusional people we are dealing with."
"Whenever we finish a night-bombing raid on one of Gaddafi's crazy and garishly coloured apartment blocks, or we've finished the day's salvo of Tomahawk rockets, well, by early the next morning the Bad Muslims have filled up the bombed out buildings with dead people. We've got proof of it, too. This is the kind of evil and tricky and delusional people we are dealing with."
US Secretary Gates and the run-away mouth
Well, today the US Secretary of Defence, Gates, said there's absolutely no evidence at all of any civilian being killed by the massive attacks on Libya's cities...and that any evidence presented was done so by the Bad Muslims...oh dear. Imagine him saying things like that and then using that same mouth to kiss his wife. Yuck. Oh boy.
Thursday 24 March 2011
The War on All Libyans
The great majority of Libya's soldiers are still just army guys, like in Australia or America, with families & all the trials & tribulations that come with being discliplined & following orders,tasked with defending your country.Now, all of a sudden, they are the Bad Muslims being irradicated like vermin with US Cruise Missiles. 30 days ago the UK & France sold them their weapons. This is a very sick war.
Obama and Libya
Obama: "You see, American Cruise Missiles are fairly harmless; they don't actually kill freedom loving people. Bombing cities? No, no one gets hurt. Only bad muslims kill people."
Julian Assange, one boy making a difference in a big leaking world.
Im watching Indian Parliament on TV in Hindi...this huge parliament with so many passionate people gesticulating and calling out and the only three words I could understand were 'Wikileaks' and 'Julian Assange' and I thought to myself 'Goodness me, this bright Julian boy from Townsville, just South of here, my, he's done well.' Imagine the documents that will flow from the war on Libya!
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