Science Funding and Future Prosperity of the Nation, All On the Line

How are y'all doing? Me, I am scared shitless. The exact situation that scientific bodies had warned about last September has finally come to pass. Late on the night of Friday, the 1st of March, the studied intransigence of the Congressional Republicans on fiscal matters bore fruit and President Obama signed the order that put the across-the-board, indiscriminate, $85 billion spending-cuts (a.k.a sequestration, or the Sequester) into grim effect.

Time for an "Occupy Science" in India?

Yes. Yes!! Oh, yes! This was my reaction while reading a commentary in April 12's Nature.

In a policy commentary article titled Bold strategies for Indian Science (Nature 484, 159–160;12 April 2012), Gautam Desiraju, a professor of Chemistry in the prestigious Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the current president of the International Union of Crystallography, held forth forcefully on what he thought were the bottlenecks that seem to be holding back the progress of Indian science. I found much to agree with.

Underfunding of Basic Sciences in Arab world: does religion play a role?

Today's Nature Middle East published an interesting and thought-provoking commentary from Dr. Nidhal Guessoum, an astrophysicist and professor of physics at the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, entitled: Does the Arab world (not) need basic science?

The accompanying blurb nicely summarizes the main argument in the commentary.

The Arab world cannot afford to ignore curiousity-driven basic research in favour of applied research, if the different states hope to produce an enlightened science culture at home.