The Latin American docta

The Argentine National Atomic Energy Commission. Established in 1950, it was the world's first outside either the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. and had produced a research reactor by 1957.

Argentina is sometimes referred to as the Latin American docta (in Spanish: La docta Latinoamericana)^vague^{citation needed}. This originates in the Latin docta (learned). Benefitting from Latin America's highest literacy rates since shortly after President Domingo Sarmiento made primary education universally available in the 1860s and 1870s, Argentine researchers and professionals at home and abroad continue to enjoy a high standing in their fields. Bernardo Houssay of Argentina was the first Latin American awarded with a Nobel Prize¹ in the sciences. Though this could have taken him anywhere in the world, Dr. Houssay went on to establish Argentina's National Research Council, a centerpiece in Argentine scientific and technological development, fifty years on.² Many other Argentines have contributed to scientific development around the world, though sometimes having to emigrate to do so.

This country, with its high level of multiculturalism³ and blessed with ample natural resources, has seen its share of instability and lost many of its most talented professionals over the years. Yet it continues its commitment to cultivate the most educated work force possible and, recently recovering from years of malaise, education and scientific training is still a work in progress -- as in other Latin American countries and, indeed, the world.⁴

1 Eminences in their fields
2 A well-educated work force
3 References
4 See also

Eminences in their fields

Literacy Level

Despite its modest budgets and many setbacks, education and the sciences in Argentina have had a global standing in excellence since before World War I, when Dr. Luis Agote devised the first effective means of blood transfusion (saving untold millions of lives). Argentina has been further honored since then with three Nobel Prize winners in the sciences: Bernardo Houssay in 1947, Luis Federico Leloir in 1971, and César Milstein in 1984. Argentine scientists are still on the cutting edge in fields such as nanotechnology, physics, computer sciences and cardiology, the latter of which Dr. Domingo Liotta revolutionized with the first purely artificial heart, in 1969.

They have likewise contributed to bioscience in efforts like the Human Genome Project, where Argentine scientists have successfully mapped the genome of a living being, a world first.⁵⁶.

A well-educated work force

Four out five Argentine adults have completed grade school, over a third have completed their secondary education and one in nine Argentine adults have college degrees⁷, making the Argentine work force the most educated in a region (Latin America) that itself enjoys the highest educational standards in the developing world⁸ Likewise, Argentina has the highest rate of university students in Latin America, besides having more within the southern hemisphere with professors and institutions awarded prestigious prizes and fellowships from philanthropic institutions like the John S. Guggenheim Foundation⁹ awards or the Howard Hughes Medical Institute¹⁰¹¹ and so on. Official sources recently reported roughly 1.500.000 college students within the Argentine University System¹²; this represents the highest rate --relative to its total population-- of academic students in Latin America and exceeds the ratio in many developed countries.

References

^ Sulek, K (1968), "Nobel prize for Carl Ferdinand Cori and Gerta Theresa Cori in 1947 for discovery of the course of catalytic metabolism of glycogen. Prize for Alberto Bernardo Houssay for discovery on the role of the hypophysis in carbohydrate metabolism.", Wiad. Lek. 21 (17): 1609-10, 1968 Sep 1, PMID:4882480, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4882480
^ Bernardo Houssay Official Site (Castilian)
^ Argentine Educational Promotion Site Multiculturalism in Argentina
^ 2007 IMFGDP PPP Estimate
^ Science and Education in Argentina
^ [1]
^ [2]
^ UN Demographic Yearbook, 2005
^ "Argentina as the main beneficiary of Guggenheim scholarships" La Nacion Press, June 13
^ "Talent that astonishes" La Nacion Press June 18
^ Carolina Trochine: Fascination for Science
^ Study in Argentina