Stephen Hawking takes Beijing; now, will science follow? - Asia - Pacific - International Herald Tribune: "China wants to stand up scientifically, as it is beginning to economically, and it is pouring money and talent into the sciences, particularly physics. Jie Zhang, director general of basic sciences for the Chinese academy, said his budget had been increasing 17 percent a year for the last few years as China tried to ramp up research spending to about 2.5 percent of its gross domestic product. By comparison, the United States spends slightly less than 2 percent, according to the National Science Foundation.
Among the big-budget items on the table, Zhang said, are a giant 500-meter-diameter radio telescope in China's outback to study microwaves from the Big Bang and a multinational particle-physics project, known as the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment to study the ghostly elementary particles known as neutrinos."
