Impatient for solutions to AIDS, tuberculosis, and infectious disease, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation put out a call for anyone who thought they had an idea — and more than 4,000 poured forth. A second request for grant applications goes out today.
As vaccine research retrenches, scientists seek to provide a stopgap with new approaches to HIV prevention that were first explored with help from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Four years after Paul Allen won the X Prize with SpaceShipOne, Virgin Galactic has unveiled WhiteKnightTwo, bringing space tourism closer to reality. But in terms of achievement and fundamental technologies, we're merely watching a glitzy remake of the 1960s with private funding.
Traditional methods of scientific research have not produced the medical breakthroughs he expected. Now he's going to use his money, through the Gates Foundation, to challenge old ways. The man is breathtaking.
Boeing's new Dreamliner reflects the tiny gains that can still be extracted from the old technology arc, and the conservatism of airliner design.
