•Several of America's key agencies for scientific research and development will face a retirement crisis within the next ten years.

　　•Less than 6% of America's high school seniors plan to pursue engineering degrees, down 36% from a decade ago.

　　•In 2000, 56% of China's undergraduate degrees were in the hard sciences; in the United States, the figure was 17%.

　　•China will likely produce six times the number of engineers next year than America will graduate, according to Mike Gibbons of the American Society for Engineering Education. Japan, with half America's population, has minted(铸造)twice as many in recent years.

　　"Most Americans are unaware of how much science does for this country and what we stand to lose if we can't keep up," says Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. David Baltimore, president of the California Institute of Technology and a Nobel laureate, puts it bluntly:" We can't hope to keep intact our standard of living, our national security, our way of life, if Americans aren't competitive in science."