SciDev.Net

Thailand is pumping money into nanotechnology but a dearth of scientists and engineers could be a barrier to success.

Afghan farmers are weaning themselves off illegal poppy cultivation and branching out into other crops, reports T. V. Padma.

Vaccines for non-infectious illness could help developing nations tackle the growing burden of chronic disease. Maryke Steffens reports.

Priya Shetty explores the truths and the myths about chronic diseases in the developing world.

Leading geneticist Samir Brahmachari explains why India should kickstart a new open source approach to drug discovery for diseases like TB.

Jacob Palis, president of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, talks about shared responsibility and a rosy future for South–South research collaboration.

Prudence Mutowo, winner of a 2006 L'Oreal UNESCO fellowship, speaks to SciDev.Net about her experiences as a woman in science.

David Baltimore, Nobel laureate and last year's AAAS president, tells SciDev.Net what it takes to develop good scientific institutions.

The Gulf States are investing in radical initiatives to strengthen science but results are not guaranteed, reports Waleed Al-Shobakky.

Priorities for research into mental illness in the developing world are not the same as those in the West, writes Katherine Nightingale.

Plagued by debt and insufficient funding, Chinese universities struggle to rank alongside the world's best, write Hao Xin and Dennis Normile.

Climate change threatens food crops across the world. Now scientists are re-focusing their efforts on crop resilience, rather than yields.

Ehsan Masood talks to the founders of four think tanks in the developing world that are proving to be a success with policymakers.

Traditional healers are joining forces with plant chemists in Kenya to develop antimalarials isolated from plants, reports Tatum Anderson.

Brazil's successful sugarcane ethanol industry owes much to massive investment in infrastructure and research, reports Carla Almeida.

Biofuel holds promise for Africa but research is not yet in place to fully reap the rewards, or analyse the pitfalls, reports Kimani Chege.

Local efforts to put an end to aflatoxin outbreaks are helping groundnut farmers back to prosperity, reports Charles Mkoka.

A US-sponsored course is helping increase South America's capacity to respond to disease outbreaks, write Andreas G. Lescano and colleagues.

An eminent Indian scientist believes India can close the urban-rural divide with information technology, writes Daemon Fairless.

Despite pest and pricing worries, many Asian farmers welcome GM crops. Jia Hepeng heard their stories during a farmers' exchange programme.