Also, the big dollars that are still required are more frequently coming from commercial entities who are waking up to the gains to be had from funding academic research.

This, however, is raising new issues of tainted research, with many journals finding they can no longer apply as rigerous independance standards as they used to. (There was a good discussion of this with experts recently on NPR's All things considered radio show. Looking through the story archives it must have been one of the recent stories on the American FTA's decision regarding the morning after pill—but I can't figure out which one since airing times here in Australia are a bit behind).

Some costly research, however, is still the domain of the US and big Europeans. like slowing a neutron to 15mph!! That's crazy talk! But apparently it has been done in Los Alamos, as reported by The Register article: Boffins slow neutrons to 15mph.

The first is an interesting article suggesting that learning to program in assembly helps you be a better high-level programmer. I think it has some valid premises. I would actually add that you should be able to design logic systems, program in assembly and write a basic operating system in C. But that could just be me...

Why Learning Assembly Language is Still a Good Idea [onlamp.com]

The second is a somewhat interesting essay that walks through the writeers quest for performance in a particular program. In the useful parts, the writer talks about our often misguided attempts to find efficiency in the wrong places.

Programming as if Performance Mattered [dadgum.com]