Stanford Report, February 8, 2006

In Print and On the Air

A Feb. 5 Time magazine cover story titled "Are We Losing Our Edge?" looks at whether years of declining investment in scientific innovation and fresh competition from abroad are threatening U.S. supremacy in science and technology. President JOHN HENNESSY said the current situation could have far-reaching implications. "Imagine that the next round of innovations in networking is done in India or China," he said. "How many years is it before either Cisco relocates to India or China and grows most of its new jobs there or the next Cisco is actually created there?" An accompanying article focused on the lack of scientific role models in America. "We have [TV] shows about doctors, lawyers, politicians. Where are our role models of scientific innovation?" Hennessy asked. "We need Eddie the Engineer or Sam the Scientist."

History Professor CLAYBORNE CARSON gave many interviews following the death last week of Coretta Scott King, widow of the slain civil rights leader. Carson, who heads the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, was quoted in the Feb. 1 issue of the San Jose Mercury News. "Her accomplishments since Martin's death were extraordinary," Carson said. "She was tireless and greatly admired for her energy and dedication and deep sense of commitment over the years, not only to her late husband's legacy but more generally in keeping alive the idealism of that era of tremendous change." Carson also mused about the future of the civil rights movement with the passing of King and the recent death of Rosa Parks. "We're losing that generation who I call the long-distance runners," he said. "It won't be possible for a new generation to have the same sense of connection to the momentous worldwide changes of the 20th century. Not every generation can say they helped eliminate Jim Crow, colonization or apartheid."

Mention the aging brain and most people think of decline, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times reported Jan. 31. But in one way, the aging brain actually improves. Psychology Professor LAURA CARSTENSEN has detected what she calls a "positivity bias" among older people, meaning that they pay less attention to negative information and more to positive information. "Mental health in older adults is much better than in middle-age and younger adults," she said. "They have lower rates of every kind of psychopathology except for Alzheimer's disease." The shift toward positive emotions may result, in part, from physical changes in the aging brain, Carstensen said, but older people also realize that they better make the most of the time they have left.