Group items tagged

"Many of the patrons, they say, are ignoring basic research - the kind that investigates the riddles of nature and has produced centuries of breakthroughs, even whole industries - for a jumble of popular, feel-good fields like environmental studies and space exploration." [One might ask analogously what military funding of science has done over the decades since WW2]

"In recent years, Mr. Perl said, his father traveled in India and Japan lecturing about creativity and his concern that science education was becoming too rigid. He urged students to keep a journal and write down crazy ideas. But he also urged them and his colleagues not to get too far ahead of the fundamental truth of experiment in science. In a blog post last year he wrote: "The time scale for physics progress is a century not a decade. There are no decade-scale solutions to worries about the rate of progress of fundamental physics knowledge. My advice is (a) study calculus and machine shop in high school and (b) have a long life as advised in the old song by buttoning up your overcoat and eating an apple every day. "On the other hand," he continued, "occasional scanning of the obituaries in The New York Times indicates that financiers live longer than physicists, so perhaps start a hedge fund in high school.""

Fully funded -- no need for scientists to chase grants No responsibilities besides research -- no teaching load, no administration All scientists have to be hands-on -- at the bench A focus on a fairly narrow set of difficult, high-payoff research challenges No tenure -- senior scientists have a five year term and then may or may not be re-signed (My favorite) Research groups can have no more than 6 members. This means that they cannot possibly have all the skills they need inside their team and so will have to get out of their own lab and get to know the other people in the place so they can get the help they need. All of this is nestled in a facility with amenities intended to increase mingling, interaction and ultimately collaboration.

"Beginning in 1946, U.S. Public Health Service investigators in Guatemala, funded by the National Institutes of Health, engaged in immoral, unethical, and illegal experiments infecting victims with bacteria that cause sexually transmitted diseases, without the victims' informed consent. The U.S. has left the victims untreated and uncompensated to the present day."