Mention Macau to someone familiar with the southeast China resort city, and you might conjure images of slow Sunday afternoons spent sipping wine or enjoying Portuguese fare. More likely, you'd bring forth images of the Cotai Strip, a glitzy, wide boulevard lined with casinos that in recent years, together with gaming centers in other parts of Macau, have brought in three times the gambling revenue of Las Vegas. One image the former Portuguese trading post probably wouldn't bring to mind is science.