Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, as with many of these issues, there is truth on both sides. On the good news side, the fact is that the number of science and engineering workers in the U.S. has actually been rising almost 3 percent a year, rising faster than the workforce. And the supply of PhDs in these fields is also increasing. So we do have people working in these areas, and more and more of them are working in these areas. I think what's changed is that it used to be the U.S. was very dominant in the world in science and engineering, and that is no longer the case.

"Developing countries in Asia, particularly China and India, are rapidly increasing number one, the amount of money that they are spending on scientific fields, and they are increasing the number of scientists very dramatically. So I think the day is not far off where we'll be at parity. And we may even see the day where the scientists in China and India will dominate our scientists and engineers just in raw numbers. Now the concern is whether that will cause us to slide back or not. Some worry that the big increase in scientists in Asia will mean that all the scientific work will go there. Others say, 'No, no, there will be enough increased work to go around, Asians will do their scientific work and the U.S. will do their scientific work. And there will be more for everyone.' So we'll obviously have to wait to see what happens."