Pancreatic cancer is so deadly, in part, because early detection is so difficult. The pancreas can become dangerously inflamed if examined directly, so routine inspections for at-risk patients are usually not an option. By studying tissue extracted from an area adjacent to the pancreas, the researchers were able to screen all 51 patients with little risk of inflammation or other complications.

The results build upon prior studies with colon cancer and support the "field effect" hypothesis that suggests initial cancer stages, even pre-cancerous lesions, can cause minute, potentially detectable changes throughout an entire organ. If similar results are found in other organs, the effect could have broad impact in the timely treatment of breast and lung cancer. For more on this new diagnostic tool, see NSF's press release.

What do a portable imaging device, a material for cardiac stents and a process for creating strong and flexible plastics have in common? All are inventions that have been developed by trainees in NSF's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program (IGERT).

IGERT, an NSF-wide program that educates Ph.D.-level U.S. scientists and engineers who will pursue careers in research and education, brings together interdisciplinary backgrounds, deep knowledge in chosen disciplines, and technical, professional and personal skills.

Since its inception in 1998, NSF has granted a total of 196 IGERT awards. The awards enable universities to offer stipend support and tuition allowances to graduate students to engage in research and educational training in critical interdisciplinary areas of science and engineering.

Read NSF's "Young Inventors' Research Transforms the Marketplace" for more on the benefits of IGERT awards.

The National Science Board recently approved a resolution authorizing NSF to fund the acquisition and deployment of the world's most powerful "leadership-class" supercomputer. This "petascale" system is expected to make arithmetic calculations at a sustained rate in excess of a sizzling 1,000-trillion operations per second (a "petaflop" per second) to help investigators solve some of the world's most challenging science and engineering research problems. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will receive $208 million over 4.5 years to make available a petascale computer, "Blue Waters," which is 500 times more powerful than today's typical supercomputers.

A second resolution authorized funding for a system expected to bridge the gap between current high-performance computers and even more advanced petascale systems under development.

The award will fund an extremely powerful supercomputer at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville Joint Institute for Computational Science. The $65 million, 5-year project will include partners at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Texas Advanced Computing Center, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The group will provide the research community with a system with a peak performance of just under one petaflop. See NSF's "National Science Board Approves Funds for Petascale Computing Systems" for more information on the powerful machines.

Heavy investments in science and technology during the 1990s by some Asian nations are paying notable economic dividends in high-tech areas important to the United States, according to a recently released report by NSF's Division of Science Resources Statistics.

The report, entitled "Asia's Rising Science and Technology Strength," states that Asia's research and development (R&D) activity may have surpassed the European Union in 2002, and by 2003, was nearly 10 percent greater. In 2003, Asia's R&D investment may have been as much as 80 percent of that of the United States, largely reflecting Chinese growth. While precise comparisons are technically problematical, there is little doubt about China's rapid advancement into the group of leading R&D nations.