In an effort to encourage collaboration between Chilean and U.S. scientists, we have opened this newsgroup, for the purpose of information exchange both within the Chilean scientific community and between this community and scientists elsewhere on the Internet.
For those of you familiar with, working in, or planning work in Chile, it is hoped that you will make extensive use of chile.science to (A) inform each other of the news and happenings (cruises, conferences, field trips, projects etc.) that might be developed into fuller cooperative efforts, (B) exchange ideas and views on how science opportunities in Chile may be used and developed to obtain their fullest potential, and (C) report opportunities for, and results from, scientific work in and around Chile.
For those of you not familiar with Chile, there is both great depth and high potential for rewarding cooperative science in the country. For example, Chilean scientists have strong research interests in the Antarctic, Astronomy, Biology and Biotechnology, Agriculture and Aquaculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Oceanography, Medicine, Geology-Mining, and other fields of science and technology. In addition, Chile has a booming economy which is being reinvested to strengthen the scientific community's abilities for the approaching technology-rich century. Field access is rapid and extensive throughout the contry, almost all of the country is on digital switched telecommunications, and Chile exchanges more EMAIL internationally than all other countries in South America combined. Moreover, Chile provides a perhaps unparalleled natural laboratory from which to study (and provide ground truth) for troubling global environmental and climatic problems. Chile has high alpine valleys and glacial peaks, the driest desert in the world, and some of the finest native forests. Its length provides access to a cross section of world climate from 18 to 56 degrees south, and on south with its bases in the Antarctic. All of this comes with a strong scientific community that can support and collaborate on the long-term studies necessary to produce data on ozone depletion, desertification, ocean processes, and climate changes that future generations and governments will need to analyze and accommodate civilization's impact on the environment.
Therefore, please take full advantage of chile.science as a convenient point of cotact with Chilean science and scientists, and, we hope, help this newsgroup become a place from which we expand and open some really rewarding mutual research opportunities. Please DO ccontact us individually and DO use chile.science. Make us a regular CC for your announcements on topics of global and Chilean interest and happenings. Explore through chile.science what has been, what is, and what will continue to be a productive scientific environment here in Chile.
We suggest that contributions to the news group always place one or two leadoff keywords in the title in CAPS that describe the main fields of interest of the contribution----for example ANTARCTIC, BIOGENETICS, BIOLOGY, COMPUTER, GEOLOGY, etc.---so that contributions are easily searchable and sortable.