http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/01/english_is_the_language_of_science_u_s_dominance_means_other_scientists.html

I learned English as a second language. Becoming an Anglophone turned out to be a crucially advantage in a brief scientific career years later. (I once worked as a medicinal chemist.) English is de rigueur for many things, but especially for science. More than three-quarters of scientific papers today are published in English—and in some fields it is more than 90 percent, according to data compiled by Scott Montgomery in his book Does Science Need a Global Language?.