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Brazil

Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil is the fifth largest country by both area and population. Brazil is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline. It borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile and occupies 47.3 % of the continent of South America. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to diverse wildlife, a variety of ecological systems, and extensive natural resources spanning numerous protected habitats. This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 mega diverse countries, and is the subject of significant global interest and debate regarding deforestation and environmental protection.

Geography of Brazil

Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world, and third largest in the Americas. It spans four time zones; from UTC−5 comprising the state of Acre and the westernmost portion of Amazonas, to UTC−4 in the western states, to UTC−3 in the eastern states (the national time) and UTC−2 in the Atlantic islands. Brazil is the only country in the world that lies on the equator while having contiguous territory outside the tropics. Brazilian topography is also diverse and includes hills, mountains, plains, highlands, and scrublands. The northwestern parts of the plateau consist of broad, rolling terrain broken by low, rounded hills. Brazil has a dense and complex system of rivers, one of the world's most extensive, with eight major drainage basins, all of which drain into the Atlantic. Major rivers include the Amazon (the world's second-longest river and the largest in terms of volume of water), the Paraná and its major tributary the Iguaçu, the Negro, São Francisco, Xingu, Madeira and Tapajós rivers.

Status of economy, research and development

Brazil is the largest national economy in Latin America. Brazil has been the world's largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years. It has become the fourth largest car market in the world. Major export products include aircraft, electrical equipment, automobiles, ethanol, textiles, footwear, iron ore, steel, coffee, orange juice, soybeans and corned beef.

Status about the different subjects in which extensive research is going on

Technological research in Brazil is largely carried out in public universities and research institutes, with the majority of funding for basic research coming from various government agencies. Technological research in Brazil is largely carried out in public universities and research institutes, with the majority of funding for basic research coming from various government agencies. Brazil's most esteemed technological hubs are the Oswaldo Cruz Institute, the Butantan Institute, the Air Force's Aerospace Technical Center, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation and the INPE. The Brazilian Space Agency has the most advanced space program in Latin America, with significant resources to launch vehicles, and manufacture of satellite. Owner of relative technological sophistication, the country develops submarines, aircraft, as well as being involved in space research, having a Vehicle Launch Center Light and being the only country in the Southern Hemisphere the integrate team building International Space Station (ISS). The country is also a pioneer in the search for oil in deep water, from where extracts 73% of its reserves. Uranium is enriched at the Resende Nuclear Fuel Factory, mostly for research purposes (as Brazil obtains 88% from its electricity from hydroelectricity) and the country's first nuclear submarine will be delivered in 2015 (by France). Brazil is one of the three countries in Latin America with an operational Synchrotron Laboratory, a research facility on physics, chemistry, material science and life sciences. Brazil also has a large number of outstanding scientific personalities. Among the most renowned Brazilian inventors are priests Bartolomeu de Gusmão, Landell de Moura and Francisco João de Azevedo, besides Alberto Santos-Dumont, Evaristo Conrado Engelberg, Manuel Dias de Abreu, Andreas Pavel, e Nélio José Nicolai. Brazilian science is represented by the likes of César Lattes (Brazilian physicist Pathfinder of Pi Meson), Mário Schenberg (considered the greatest theoretical physicist of Brazil), José Leite Lopes (only Brazilian physicist holder of UNESCO Science Prize), Artur Ávila (the first Latin American winner of Fields Medal) and Fritz Müller (pioneer in factual support the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin).

Peter Medawar

Sir Peter Brian Medawar was a British biologist born in Brazil, whose work on graft rejection and the discovery of acquired immune tolerance was fundamental to the practice of tissue and organ transplants. For his works in immunology he is regarded as the "father of transplantation". He is remembered for his wit in real life and popular writings.