In the early hours of Saturday morning (Beijing time), a Bolivian telecommunications satellite launched from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in China’s Sichuan province, Xinhua reports. The launch, observed by Bolivian President Juan Evo Morales Ayma, was one more example of China’s growing space diplomacy.

On December 9, 2013 at the World Bank senior officials from the Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian governments signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly manage the shared water resources of the Red Sea, Jordan River, and the Sea of Galilee (commonly known as the Lake Tiberias or the Kineret).

Infectious diseases that leave victims with cognitive deficits or malnutrition instead of killing them do not typically elicit fundraising galas or research dollars, especially when the illnesses disproportionately impact the poorest of the poor. But a new coalition of funders is now trying to throw these neglected diseases a financial lifeline.

The United Nations General Assembly may approve a plan soon for the world's space agencies to defend the Earth against asteroids. The plan, introduced last week, is expected to be adopted by the General Assembly in December. It would do two things: create an International Asteroid Warning Network so countries can share what they know about asteroids; and spin up a group of scientists from several countries' space agencies to look for smaller asteroids, as well as make plans to divert them away from the Earth.

It was the other guy’s fault, no question. That’s pretty much the explanation for why a major science conference scheduled for December came close to being torpedoed. Astronomers from all over the world were planning to gather at NASA’s Ames Research Center, in Mountain View, California, to talk about new results coming from the planet-hunting Kepler mission.

The Obama Administration has embraced the concept of science diplomacy as a way to bridge cultural and economic gaps between the United States and the rest of the world. The director of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, John P Holdren, regularly meets with his science policy counterparts from Brazil, China, India, Japan, Korea and Russia. The US State Department has sent a series of American scientists abroad as "Science Envoys" in hopes of using scientific relationships as an olive branch to the Muslim world

When I was referred to a documentary film on India’s scientific greats by its maker Raja Choudhury this week, I was wondering if there’d be anything beyond what I already know about them in the hour-long film. To find this out, it also meant dedicating an hour to watch the film on YouTube with its infamous buffering time. But I was ready to endure that, partly because the title of the film was inviting — The Quantum Indians — and partly because I had not been able to take up Raja’s earlier offer to feature in this film as an ‘expert’ on India’s science.