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Dear Colleagues, The US National Academy of Sciences, the US National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine have released an update to the 2005 "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" report. The updated report was authored by a 17-member committee chaired by Norman Augustine, a former CEO of Lockheed Martin corporation, and composed of representatives from both business and academia. One can order a printed copy of the report, or download a free version in PDF format online at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12999 The original 2005 report can be found at: http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11463 Nature magazine has a short news article on this update in which they note " The updated report diagnoses a "system failure" in the US political process in which amounts authorized by Congress for key science agencies are not appropriated in practice. Currently, the versions of the House and Senate Appropriations bills for fiscal year 2011 fund key science agencies at levels below the amounts requested by President Barack Obama and below the doubling path set out in COMPETES. " You can read this article online at: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100923/full/news.2010.491.html As Nature magazine noted in a previous editorial: "... it is important for supporters of the competitiveness initiative to remember that they, too, have a responsibility, which is to keep on communicating to legislators and to the American public at large why America COMPETES is more than just a ‘Full Employment For Physical Scientists Act’." http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7192/pdf/453133b.pdf Sincerely, Norman Graf