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Obama offers green card as incentive for foreign engineers

New US President Barack Obama wants to get 60,000 young, talented scientists from all over the world to come to the US every year. He even wants to appoint a Chief Research Officer for that and spend billions of dollars. Obama’s goal: young academics are to expand his country’s technological predominance.

The transatlantic competition of who gets the best and brightest has been around for a long time – new is that the US now wants them even before they graduate from college. And after their master’s or bachelor’s degree, they are entitled to obtain a green card – a work permit. That is much sought-after. And who doesn’t dream of studying in San Francisco or New York? “If I were 22, I’d go, no doubt about that,” says Alf Zimmer (65), chairman of the association ‘Universität Bayern.’ “A stay abroad is necessary anyway.”

US universities also offered their students a lot more support and assistance, the psychology professor from Regensburg says. Facilities and laboratories are more modern. After graduation, the new engineers will be better paid – which, according to Zimmer, is also the case in Switzerland and England. The US government wants to improve even that: “Over the course of ten years they want to spend $100 billion in basic research. With that, they could get a lot of students.”

Last member of Jimi Hendrix Experience dead

Mitch Mitchell, drummer of the legendary band The Jimi Hendrix Experience, is dead. The 62-year old had been found dead in a hotel room in the state of Oregon, a spokesman of the local forensic institute told the US media. He made no official statement concerning cause of death, but on the official Jimi Hendrix website it was stated that he died a natural death. Mitch Mitchell, who was British by birth, had been the last living member of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He had just finished a tour (“Experience Hendrix”) through 18 American cities – a series of concerts where guest stars paid tribute to the music of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. “We’re all devastated to hear of Mitch’s passing,“ Janie Hendrix, in charge of „Experience Hendrix says. “He was a wonderful man, a brilliant musician and a true friend.” Mitchell seemed to be enjoying the interchange with the other musicians and the audiences. “There is no question that he was doing what he loved,” Hendrix added.

Legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix already died in 1970 at the age of 27 under mysterious circumstances in London. The third band member, British base player Noel Redding, lived to be 57. He died in 2003.

 

Planet outside our solar system has been photographed

With the help of a special camera of the Hubble space telescope, US scientists have succeeded in taking the first picture of a planet 25 light years outside our solar system. The planet was similar to gas giant Jupiter and in the constellation Southern Fish, said Paul Kalas of Berkeley University, whose team published the results. The photographed planet is in the orbit of the planet Formalhaut, that’s why it was called Formalhaut B.

Since 2005 researchers had suspected Formalhaut B’s existence, because they had seen an edge in the dust belt around Formalhaut. This visible edge led scientists to the conclusion that the dust belt around the planet Formalhaut was shaped by the gravity of the invisible planet. The pictures that have now been published prove Formalhaut B’s existence, Kalas said.

The two pictures are from 2004 and 2006. In most cases, pictures of planets outside our solar system are impossible due to complicated lighting conditions. According to the researchers, Formalhaut B may be surrounded by rings the same way Jupiter once was. Research on Formalhaut B could tell us about Saturn and Jupiter at the time when our solar system was still relatively young with an age of 100 million years, said Kalas. The Earth’s solar system developed approximately 4.5 billion years ago.

 

US universities affected by financial crisis

Since US universities such as Harvard greatly invest in the stock market, their funds are melting like ice in the sun. Apart from the Ivy League universities, public universities are also running out of money. The rescue plan: building freeze, hiring freeze, higher tuition.

The next year will be far from good for US universities, because the financial crisis quickly drains their budget. The rating agency Moody’s Investors Service calculated that this year alone could cost the universities 30 percent of their capital. Looking at, for example, Harvard’s previous capital, this would mean the gigantic loss of more than $10 billion, but the university doesn’t comment on numbers like this one.

Not only private universities are vulnerable, public universities as well are struggling with the crisis. Until the end of 2007, the University of Wisconsin still had $1.8 billion capital. 18% of that are gone now. Since the states also have less income in taxes, the states of Massachusetts and Arizona, for example, reduced their subsidies for universities by four and five percent.