“The peculiar demands of our granting system have favoured an upper class of skilled scientists who know how to raise money for a big group. They have mastered a glass bead game that rewards not only quality and honesty, but also salesmanship and networking.”

Cambridge researcher Peter A. Lawrence, in PLoS Biology, on the costs of funding science in fits and starting grants.

“The higher incidence is mainly because diagnostic techniques and monitoring capability have improved, as well as more and more women are delaying having children.”

Anonymous Beijing health officer, quoted in Beijing Daily story on the doubling birth defect rates in the last decade in China.

“The government must find these other two ships.”

Silvestro Greco, the head of Calabria’s environment agency on the next step in an Italian investigation that revealed a sunken ship containing toxic waste, buried at sea by the Mafia (Al Jazeera).