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Central America: Panama's big ambition

Nature volume 469, pages 462–463 (2011)Cite this article

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Researchers in Panama suffered under a dictatorship and were overshadowed by the United States. Now the country is attempting a scientific renaissance.

When Carmenza Spadafora Mejía left Panama in 1997, she walked away from a bloody history. In 1985, her brother Hugo had been decapitated by henchmen of the military dictator Manuel Noriega, after Hugo publicly denounced him. For years, Spadafora and her family fought to identify the killers. But the brutal murder helped to spark an uprising that culminated in a US invasion and the imprisonment of Noriega in 1990. After her family won convictions against some of those responsible for the murder, Spadafora felt ready to leave to start a PhD in Spain.

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References

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  1. Rex Dalton
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Rex Dalton is a writer based in San Diego, California.

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Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

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Dalton, R. Central America: Panama's big ambition. Nature 469, 462–463 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/469462a

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