China 'to overtake US on science' in two years (BBC)

[Drew Wilson]

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.

More... (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12885271)

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The hand bone is connected to the... forehead...

[mountain_rage]

They have a strong education system, a smaller religious population, and the 1 child policy caused children to have all the attention, pressures and aspirations placed solely on their shoulders. Finally, without and education, life in China is grim, with your only work being piss poor wadges in the factories. So yeah, people are getting educated, costs are cheaper, and there is a huge population to support these industries. Add that to the fact that everything is made there, so there is ample equipment for research and development and you start to see why its such a strong country.

[thelastfreeman]

No surprise there. Their culture actually encourages and rewards education whereas here education is only a small priority. And when I say education I mean emphasis on math and science. All you dumbshits you pursue business degrees don't count. Anyway, it doesn't help that we continually run deficits and when it's time to balance the budget, education gets cut so rich people can keep their tax cuts and corporations like GE can continue paying $0 tax. On top of that Texas where I live, we have creationists blocking science to promote religious views.