Looking for Answers? Ask a Scholar!

NAS is partnering with Intellectual Takeout to answer questions that call for scholarly judgment and can't be answered by Wikipedia. Have you ever wondered, for instance, whether science fiction is literature, or whether Russia is part of 'the West'?  Email NAS or use Intellectual Takeout's 'Ask the Professor' form to submit your questions. "Ask a Scholar" is a complimentary service provided by NAS to serve our readers. We match each question to an expert and post the answers on NAS.org. We've gotten a great variety of inquiries, including ones on literature, chemistry, foreign languages, education theory, rhetorical devices, economics, and grammar, and sociology. Two questions were recently answered by economist and recently elected congressman King Banaian: one on state discount rates, and one on the question of who pays for America's health care. Would you like to help answer Ask a Scholar questions? We'll start listing unanswered questions in our email newsletter - look for them soon!