This year, it seems that everywhere we go Brazilian scientists pop up touting for businesses for their synchrotron, the only one in the southern hemisphere, and from what we hear , offering a pretty good service. While solving a few scientific problems, it creates many more for those concerned with development issues, where south south competition seems to be something to be avoided as it wrecks the established notion of a north-south divide in terms income, internet, nanotech per capita consumption of walrus blabber or availability of world class research facilities.
So those naughty Brazilians are at it again, with the announcement of a whopping $30m nanotech initiative over the next year (hmm, do we believe that timescale?), which is set to dwarf initiatives in other developing giants such as India.
While its good to see progress being made in the developing world, it should act as a wake up call to some of those sleepy southern European states who are still saying nano -que?