Various outlets are lamenting the cuts and paltry increases to Federal science funding in the omnibus spending package passed by Congress and headed for the President’s desk. AAAS calculates that over all, “Federal funding for basic and applied research would decline in real terms for the fourth year in a row.”
The National Research Council of the National Academies convened a symposium Wednesday to explore approaches among “Future Directions in Research at the Intersection of the Physical and Life Sciences.” The intersections up for discussion ranged across the research spectrum: from synthetic biology to geoengineering to bioterrorism.
The most recent Technology Quarterly issue of The Economist highlights emerging technologies, several of which present new challenges to regulators and policymakers.
Senator John Kerry compares the decision to address carbon emissions with economic and policy reforms to Pascal’s Wager. “If we’re wrong,” he explained this morning at an event hosted by the Center for American Progress Action Fund, “we still have global development, clean air, a stronger economy here at home, healthier citizens, and no more addiction to the foreign oil that funds despots and terrorists.”
BIOETHICS
An interview with Allen M. Hornblum, author of Sentenced to Science: One Black Man’s Story of Imprisonment in America, on the history and ethics of practices largely hidden from public view.
Healthcare professionals helping patients with mental health problems have an increasing array of treatment and prevention tools at their disposal. But on the horizon is a preventative tool that poses challenging public policy questions about ethics and privacy: personal genomic sequencing.
Synthetic biology, which involves producing artificial life forms from genomes built on lab benches, promises to unleash a variety of chemical wonders, pose a slate of dual-use dangers, and ignite intellectual property battles over patents for the “software of life.”
The Minnesota legislature recently approved funding for biomonitoring research, which will track environmental contaminants found in the tissue of children and adult volunteers. In related news, the EPA eased reporting requirements for companies that dump toxic chemicals into the environment.
Drug-resistant staph, known as MRSA, began making headlines in October, when the CDC released a report indicating that many healthy citizens carry the bacteria, which kills more people each year in the U.S. than AIDS. Two recent stories, one on research on a possible MRSA treatment and another on the threat of the bacteria on factory farms, may put the “superbug” back under the public microscope.
SCIENCE AND THE LAW
It is estimated that approximately half a million frozen embryos are currently being stored by fertility clinics in the United States. Patients who have not used all the embryos they have created have several options from which to choose in deciding what to do with the embryos. An excerpt from the new report, Future Choices: Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the Law, from the Center for American Progress.
This week saw good news and new thinking on the power of technology to foster open and accountable governance: an article on “Wiki-Government,” a report on the “searchability” of government info, and the launch of a new site offering data on Federal spending.
This history of the San Diego biotech cluster; stem cell grants in CA; simple wireless Internet access to low-income communities; DOE opens test reactor for university experiments.
LIFE SCIENCES
Creating life in the laboratory is an inevitable scientific milestone, which means we need to discuss safety issues and other repercussions now.
Researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies recently created a chimeric mouse model for human liver disease to study drug efficacy. But research on chimeric models is drawing criticism from those who oppose the research on ethical grounds.
DEFINING SCIENCE
The latest scientific workforce debate underscores the importance of science graduates learning about something other than science.
Presenting at a policy summit last Wednesday, Dr. Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, offered recommendations for tax policies that offer “enterprise-focused” tax credits for Research & Development.
A profile of Shinya Yamanaka; developing a malaria vaccine; providing an overdose antidote to heroin addicts; the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speeches.
The prolonged closure of a Canadian nuclear reactor that supplies over two thirds of the world’s medical radioisotopes has severely hindered the ability of hospitals nationwide to perform a variety of procedures and diagnostic studies for diseases like cancer and heart disease.
The House Oversight Committee on Bush Administration interference with climate science; Atlantis grounded; framing nanotech; sex difference in math and science; Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies; VCs doubtful on carbon regulation from the government.
Spaceflight exacts a heavy toll on the human body, but the effect of weightlessness on the human immune system poses a considerable obstacle to long missions in space.
Science Progress and American Progress's Doing What Works project teamed up to produce a set of policy proposals that the Obama administration and Congress can adopt to reinvest in the building blocks of American science, innovation, and economic competitiveness. Read the overview of the five reports.
Science Progress proceeds from the propositions that scientific inquiry is among the finest expressions of human excellence, that it is a crucial source of human flourishing, a critical engine of economic growth, and must be dedicated to the common good. Scientific inquiry entails global responsibilities. It should lead to a more equitable, safer, and healthier future for all of humankind.