If I may be serious for at least one post, I need to discuss Jocelyun Kaiser's blurb in Science (2006, 312, 1585) on the current budgetary situation the NIH is facing.
A House spending panel last week endorsed a flat budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH)--but told the agency to make room for a $3.2 billion children's health study that NIH says it cannot afford. Legislators also want NIH to make mandatory a voluntary program in which grantees submit their accepted manuscripts to a free online archive.
Continue below:
The situation is a serious cause for concern. Congressional leaders are piling projects and costs onto the NIH without a consummate increase in funding. This all translates into 656 fewer grants approved in 2007. It's already hard enough to get funding.
A number of non Americans read this blog (which is now almost 800 hits a day, if anyone is curious) and, to let you know, it pains me to see science funding being cut in Europe or anywhere. We are a community, one that is very dependent upon each other and, of course, money.
Because, I think, this blog is finally reaching people from so many states, I want to take this opportunity to encourage you to email your senator and inform him or her that scientific funding is an absolute necessity. We as a nation, indeed the world, will not continue to enjoy the quality of life we lead if we do not have the technical know how to over come the impending resistant bacterial strains, the aging population, looming nuclear threats, aggressive cancers, and the quest to actually find that last digit of pi. Not to sound like one of those infomercial douches, but please... email your senator. Go to the link below and find your senator's name. It won't take long. Honest.
http://www.senate.gov/...
I've included a sample email for you to just cut and paste (there is a `republican senator' and a `democrat senator' section in the sample email... don't send both) in the comments to make your life even easier!
Love,
Jeremiah