Migrants and asylum seekers coming to Western European countries provide a boost to their host country's economy.

Despite significant challenges ahead, the U.S. economy leads the world in high-tech manufacturing and technology-infused services, said Deborah Wince-Smith, president of the nonprofit Council on Competitiveness.

Learn more about the AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition.

Misconceptions about the effect of environmental regulations on the economy and jobs are complicating federal efforts to create sound environmental policies, according to panelists at the 38th Annual AAAS Forum on Science and Technology Policy.

The polarized debate over regulations pits environmentalists against economists and does little to help lawmakers and the public understand environmental policy, the experts said during a panel discussion.

With China training more English-speaking engineers than the United States and American school children continuing to lag behind their international peers in math and science, it is time for parents to demand that schools do better by their children, a blue-ribbon committee says.

The U.S. economy is slowly growing stronger. Unemployment is on the wane. In negotiations that led to agreement on the fiscal 2011 U.S. budget, an important core of science initiatives was largely spared from the deep cuts imposed on other programs, and President Barack Obama has proposed a healthy increase in research spending for 2012.

Despite these promising signs, however, the climate for federal science now seems likely to get much more difficult.