opinion

many researchers in industrial countries think the only problem of third world researchers is money but it is not true. I worked as a researcher for four years in one of this third world countries.

Computational and Theoretical research dont need much money as like as lab dependent research. because freeware and opensource became popular and (the copyright laws are not strict in these countries unfortunately).many experimental works also can be done with available facilities in these universities.

In Singapore, I have seen students who lost their relatives in last earthquake. I am very sorry about this, but I think there should be lessons for us in such disasters.  Is'nt any cheap and easy way to reinforce building in the face of earthquakes? I hope such disasters make researchers concentrate on such important topics.

One of the things that I've thought about often in relation to mechanics is:

The research funding environment we are all experiencing is extremely frustrating, and has the potential for long-term damage to academics and the nation. You may be interested in reading the letter to the Wall Street Journal by two Nobel Prize winners, David Baltimore and Ahmed Zewail.

The US National Academy of Engineering has published a list of Grand Challenges for Engineering. Ths US National Committee on Theoretical and Applied Mechanics is interested in developing a discussion on the implications of these Grand Challenges to the Mechanics community.

I think it would be useful to collect a list of most useful sites, to start with iMechanica-look-alike.  Not exactly similar but a good site for CFD is http://www.cfd-online.com/.  This incidentally suggests us some "ways" to improve iMechanica.  (see my other blog PROPOSAL for iMechanica node/2996)

Hello imechanica users: I launch a few ideas. Can we improve imechanica stealing ideas from successful web systems like google, amazon, wikipedia, myspace, youtube? Taking the best of the various worlds to improve our imechanica?