India: it's a nation of geeks, swots and nerds. Almost one in five of all medical and dental staff in the UK is of Indian origin, and one in six employed scientists with science or engineering doctorates in the US is Asian. By the turn of the millennium, there were even claims that a third of all engineers in Silicon Valley were of Indian origin, with Indians running 750 of its tech companies. At the dawn of this scientific revolution, Geek Nation is a journey to meet the inventors, engineers and young scientists helping to give birth to the world’s next scientific superpower – a nation built not on conquest, oil or minerals, but on the scientific ingenuity of its people. Angela Saini explains how ancient science is giving way to new, and how the technology of the wealthy are passing on to the poor. Delving inside the psyche of India’s science-hungry citizens, she explores the reason why the government of the most religious country on earth has put its faith in science and technology. Through witty first-hand reportage and penetrative analysis, Geek Nation explains what this means for the rest of the world, and how a spiritual nation squares its soul with hard rationality. Full of curious, colourful characters and gripping stories, it describes India through its people – a nation of geeks. curious, colourful characters and gripping stories, it describes India through its people – a nation of geeks.

In 1974 India joined the elite roster of nuclear world powers when it exploded its first nuclear bomb. But the technological progress that facilitated that feat was set in motion many decades before, as India sought both independence from the British and respect from the larger world. Over the course of the twentieth century, India metamorphosed from a marginal place to a serious hub of technological and scientific innovation. It is this tale of transformation that Robert S. Anderson recounts in Nucleus and Nation. Tracing the long institutional and individual preparations for India’s first nuclear test and its consequences, Anderson begins with the careers of India’s renowned scientists—Meghnad Saha, Shanti Bhatnagar, Homi Bhabha, and their patron Jawaharlal Nehru—in the first half of the twentieth century before focusing on the evolution of the large and complex scientific community—especially Vikram Sarabhi—in the later part of the era. By contextualizing Indian debates over nuclear power within the larger conversation about modernization and industrialization, Anderson hones in on the thorny issue of the integration of science into the framework and self-reliant ideals of Indian nationalism. In this way, Nucleus and Nation is more than a history of nuclear science and engineering and the Indian Atomic Energy Commission; it is a unique perspective on the history of Indian nationhood and the politics of its scientific community.

This influential report described science as "a largely unexplored hinterland" that would provide the "essential key" to the economic prosperity of the post World War II years.

This collection of essays explores two traditions of interpreting and manipulating nature in the early-modern and nineteenth-century Iberian world: one instrumental and imperial, the other patriotic and national. Imperial representations laid the ground for the epistemological transformations of the so-called Scientific Revolutions. The patriotic narratives lie at the core of the first modern representations of the racialized body, Humboldtian theories of biodistribution, and views of the landscape as a historical text representing different layers of historical memory.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has played a key role over the past several decades in advancing understanding of Earth's systems by funding research on atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, geologic, polar, ecosystem, social, and engineering-related processes. Today, however, those systems are being driven like never before by human technologies and activities. Our understanding has struggled to keep pace with the rapidity and magnitude of human-driven changes, their impacts on human and ecosystem sustainability and resilience, and the effectiveness of different pathways to address those challenges. Given the urgency of understanding human-driven changes, NSF will need to sustain and expand its efforts to achieve greater impact. The time is ripe to create a next-generation Earth systems science initiative that emphasizes research on complex interconnections and feedbacks between natural and social processes. This will require NSF to place an increased emphasis on research inspired by real-world problems while maintaining their strong legacy of curiosity driven research across many disciplines ? as well as enhance the participation of social, engineering, and data scientists, and strengthen efforts to include diverse perspectives in research.

Informal science is a burgeoning field that operates across a broad range of venues and envisages learning outcomes for individuals, schools, families, and society. The evidence base that describes informal science, its promise, and effects is informed by a range of disciplines and perspectives, including field-based research, visitor studies, and psychological and anthropological studies of learning. Learning Science in Informal Environments draws together disparate literatures, synthesizes the state of knowledge, and articulates a common framework for the next generation of research on learning science in informal environments across a life span. Contributors include recognized experts in a range of disciplines-research and evaluation, exhibit designers, program developers, and educators. They also have experience in a range of settings-museums, after-school programs, science and technology centers, media enterprises, aquariums, zoos, state parks, and botanical gardens. Learning Science in Informal Environments is an invaluable guide for program and exhibit designers, evaluators, staff of science-rich informal learning institutions and community-based organizations, scientists interested in educational outreach, federal science agency education staff, and K-12 science educators.