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CallaFirestormBW -> RE: Should i bother going to work tomorrow? (9/10/2008 11:51:22 AM)
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Actually, the danger of the black holes isn't expected to occur for some months -- not until the collisions are started (which, according to scientists at the CERN facility, will not be for another 3 months or so).
As far as cheapskates and funding research in the basic sciences, my Darling is a biochemist, and a basic science researcher doing cancer research. Federal grants funding basic science research have been cut 30-60% a year for the past 6 years. Research projects on vital basic comprehension of cancer that she has been working on have been closed down -twice- because they weren't 'sexy' enough to qualify for non-government funding, and the government was no longer funding basic research -at all- on those tracks. (Factoid: Basic research is almost NEVER 'sexy science'!) Because the research she does is basic research (not clinical research directly focused on drug development), drug companies and other sources of private funding, feeling crunched from the heavy pressure on their own funding systems from the withdrawal of government funding on basic science projects, no longer fund basic research and are funneling all resources into high-profile, high-return drug options.
If people want our country to be able to take care of itself and continue to make new discoveries and expand on current understanding in -all- hard-science fields, individuals are going to have to deal with the fact that they're going to have to pay for the research.
Maybe we'll all fall into a black hole and it will save us from ending up proving the movie Idiocracy to be prophecy instead of satire.
Calla Firestorm
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