News in a nutshell
| 3 January, 2011 | Adie Chan |
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Science funding boost overlooked
The United States Capitol. Image by Kmccoy; Wikimedia Commons.
On Tuesday, December 21st, Congress passed the America COMPETES Act, long-awaited legislation calling for $46 billion in science and technology research funding over the next three years — a $7.4 billion increase over 2010 levels. The boon for US science, however, received little attention from media outlets or even the President himself. During a December 22nd speech, Obama hailed legislation on food safety, gays in the military, and tax cuts, but failed to mention the COMPETES Act, ScienceInsider reports. The omission may signal trouble, as passage of the act does not guarantee the funding, Wired Science noted; Congress will decide how much money will actually be spent within the next two months.
More in Congress…
Also on December 21st, Congress passed a key shark conservation bill, banning the practice of shark finning, cutting the fins from sharks — valuable due to rising demand for shark fin soup in Asia — and tossing the shark back into the sea, where it soon dies. The new bill requires vessels to land sharks with fins attached, and prevents non-fishing vessels from transporting fins without their carcasses, according to the Washington Post.
And yesterday marked a major date for greenhouse gases. Under the Clean Air Act, greenhouse gases are now officially regulated pollutants. As a result, new 2012 cars must adhere to stricter fuel efficiency standards, and power plants, refineries, and big factories will face increased emissions regulations. But lawsuits already seek to shut down the budding regulation. Read more on the potential roadblocks at ScienceInsider.
Animals dying in Arkansas
Over 100,000 dead fish washed up along the shores of the Arkansas River in northwest Arkansas last week, the state reports. Disease is likely to blame, Keith Stephens of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission told CNN. But that wasn’t the only strange wildlife occurrence in Arkansas to mark the New Year. About 100 miles east of the fish graveyard, up to 5,000 blackbirds fell from the sky just before midnight New Year’s Eve. Biologists believe the bird deaths were stress-related from either fireworks or weather and are unrelated to the fish kill, CNN reports.
Robust peer-review
The peer-review system is not overburdened by rising submissions, according to a recent analysis by editors at the journal Molecular Ecology, published in the December 23rd issue of Nature. Examining reviewer data over the last ten years, the editors found that Molecular Ecology’s reviewer pool expanded in proportion to the increased submission rate (which doubled between 2001 and 2007) and that there was no increase in the average number of reviews by individual reviewers. “The reviewer pool still seems able to accommodate the increasing number of submissions,” they concluded.
New cancer trials
The National Cancer Institute is gearing up for major changes in its clinical trials program, which enrolls over 25,000 patients each year. On Thursday, December 23rd, the NCI announced that it will consolidate nine groups that currently conduct adult cancer trials into four new entities after an April report from the Institute of Medicine found the current trials system to be inefficient and overly complex, according to Advanceweb.com.
Pharma drought continues
Twenty-one new drugs were approved in 2010, according to the FDA, a drop from 25 in 2009 and 24 in 2008. The slip may reflect tougher safety regulation at the FDA, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Placebo, please
There’s no need to deceive patients who are taking a placebo, a new study finds. Even when a patient knows they are taking a placebo, the inert treatment may still have a positive effect, Harvard Medical School researchers reported on December 22nd at PLoS One. When 37 patients with irritable bowel syndrome were given pills described to them as “placebo pills made of an inert substance, like sugar pills,” they still reported more symptom relief than 43 patients who met with doctors but did not take the placebo.
Related stories:
[19th May 2010]
[22nd July 2009]
[9th December 2002]
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Better to give the science funds back to small business in tax cuts. Small business innovation beats government wastefull funding anyday.
Re banning shark finning:
Of course the ban will succeed because prohibition, laws against drug use, laws against prostitution, etc. have worked so well in the past. People are still hooked by the illusion of the words in a ban or regulation working like the words a shaman uses to accompany his incantations. The words written on a paper or uttered by beaureaucrats and politicians mean nothing in the real world – what exists is reality,and no magical political mantra exists to controlling reality.
It’s okay though, both libs and conservatives believe that they posses the magic to make reality do their bidding. No such magic exists, just individual actions guided by rational minds.
Hey Ed,
It is allright to give Tax cuts but I need the funding first.
No, it is not a Government organization.
Josephus, We can no longer have our cake and eat it too. Business bake the cake and grant seekers want to slice it up to suit there own needs.
RE: Tax cuts
A great idea. Give tax cuts to businesses that actually produce innovations. They could apply for tax relief on the basis of data based on real proof of concept research results.
Doug,
Thats better than giving it to university researchers, but better not to reallocate
any money from small business into the hands of government ‘policy”
makers.
ed,
Perhaps equivalent but not better. A little of both judiciously done is a good mix
One doesn’t work without the other.
who are these idiots claiming you can compare scientific research to small business “innovation”?
NASA is more innovative than all the small businesses combined.
Business big and small is inherently conservative, shy of taking risks on unproven the new.
Most businesses big and small try to play it safe, and copy something else already proven successful.
Hello IPad, hello 100 copycats – where’s the innovation.
Hello 300 varieties of corn chips.
Government funded scientific research is the source of most of today’s biggest innovations.
Of course, I don’t expect these guys to bother looking to the source, the beginning. They think every “new” thing on the market is courtesy of the “label” on it.
Government gets more bang for its buck and serves the people most wisely funding scientific research, as in NASA.
SCIENCE IS THE INNOVATOR.
The technological break throughs thanks to NASA would have NEVER HAPPENED if we relied on private enterprise to make them, for they often came from unproven ideas with NO promise of return on investment.
Private enterprise is at its best after a discovery is proven exploiting it to make a profit and employ people making it and selling it, but discovering it and developing something totally new – that’s the role of scientific research funded properly by the Government IN THE INTEREST OF ALL THE PEOPLE.
As the constitution says, a government of the people for the people.
Oh Johnny,
I would certainly agree that NASA would not have been developed by private enterprise, but your dualistic position is unfounded and shallow. There are many small businesses that take huge risks to develop new and beneficial technology.
Certainly, also, there are many profiteering copy-cats. The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980
was drafted specifically because 95% of government innovation was not brought to market (ie, was a waste of the taxpayers money). However, with the passage of
Bayah-Dole we have another serious problem:conflict of interest and commercial bias. Today, one small business can hijack government funding to get a competitive edge over other self-funded small businesses in the same field of innovation. With Bayah-Dole we may bring more government funded innovation to market, but at what cost to the free enterprse system and the evolving quality of innovation?? You need to more homework on market efficiency VS government
efficiency (its already obvious to most of us).
520 years ago it was “obvious to most of us” that the world was flat. It took a government sponsored project to discover a New World. It usually does.
Fatmouth Johnny is all mixed up in his knowledge! Government has never done anything!!! It was the Freedom that “we the people” were able to USE and jumped ahead of every other country!!!!! You better start thanking the founding fathers Johnny morales instead of gov’t! It has ALWAYS been the independent thinker that creates the innovations….NOT gov’t!!
Small business is what got computers where they are today! Look at Texas instrument’s!!! They had calculators, then you got ACER…you wouldn’t even have a IPAD if it weren’t for plain old GOD fearing AMERICANS,…..NOT GOVERNMENT. PEOPLE,….not THE government,………….fuck