Anne Hope Jahren (born September 27, 1969) is an American geochemist and geobiologist at the University of Oslo, known for her work using stable isotope analysis to analyze fossil forests dating to the Eocene.
Anne Hope Jahren (born September 27, 1969) is an American geochemist and geobiologist at the University of Oslo, known for her work using stable isotope analysis to analyze fossil forests dating to the Eocene.
The US paid $86 billion for basic research in 2016, the majority of that being corporate money. More and more corporate money is funding research. It will continue to grow. Then you have the many billions in “black budget” research such as DARPA projects. Ditto the space program.
When scientists complain about lack of science funding, it usually means in THEIR little specialty. They can’t seem to get a grant or something so they complain. There’s only so much money out there. Competition is fierce. TANSTAAFL.
She was taking about non-for military or for-profit research. Such as environmental research. Curiosity research.
As someone in the university research community, I can tell you both of you are right – there still seems to be lots of defense money, competition *is* fierce, but there is a lot less money for basic research (and even not-so-basic research) than there used to be. I mean, I’m in cancer research, which you think would be a dead cert for people wanting to throw money at, but even that goes up and down. We depend a lot on government agencies like the NIH and NSF, but some administrations are….how shall we say? more “open” to the concept of science than others. There is a lot of corporate money around, especially in disease research, but that has to be approached with caution – they are ultimately interested in a) something that will make them lots of money and 2) research that will head off any attacks on their product/industry. So sadly, if you want a hope of being independent, you have to rely on the government…and not always even that.
I’ll have to look up “Lab Girl” By the way, you may have said this, but you do a lot of audio books – are you getting books on tape (or whatever the current equivalent is), or do you have Audible or something like that? I’m trying to figure out how to get more reading into my life. I tend to spend my evenings knitting, and I also have cats. I can do any two in combination (read, knit, pet cat on lap)…but not all 3.
Libraries! It is exceedingly common for libraries now to have a wide selection of downloadable audiobooks, as well as books on cd if you wish to do it that way (Audible is great, but I could never afford it). 🙂
You’re in the Crowsnest Pass? So close!
Cool! 🙂