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The House’s NSF spending bill would require the agency to award 70% of its $6-billion research fund to biology, computer science, engineering, mathematics and the physical sciences. The unusual provision would effectively impose a 16% cut to geoscience and social-sciences programmes, according to an analysis by the American Institute of Physics. By contrast, the Senate’s bill does not set funding levels for particular disciplines.

Powerful House Republicans, most notably science-committee chair Lamar Smith of Texas, have argued that the NSF should concentrate on basic research. Smith has also tried to highlight what he sees as questionable grants by the science agency, such as funding for a study of mental health in Nepal. But Gloria Waters, vice-president and associate provost for research at Boston University in Massachusetts, says that legislators often misunderstand the role of basic science. “People have this idea that science funding should go to something that should have an immediate and direct impact on society, but that’s not how science works,” she says.

Budget showdown leaves US science agencies in limbo : Nature News & Comment

(Source: nature.com)

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July 2, 2015


themercuryjones:

John Waters commencement address RISD 2015.

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