A few of us got to share our stories of science funding–why it matters to us, how we use it to make the world a better place, how you have benefited from scientific advances–in the opening kickoff video. We’ve all got stories, though, and now is the chance to share yours. You don’t have to be a grad student or a scientist… Everyone is welcome to give us your perspective, whatever it is.
Give us your story in the comments, or throw something up on youtube and share a link. You can even offer to have your video put into a story mashup like the kickoff video by emailing standwithscience@mit.edu.
I work on several projects using light to both measure and alter brain function. These are high risk/high reward experiments, and the reason they are funded is because of the increases in NIH funding a few years ago. That funding allowed for new kinds of grants focused on exactly this kind of ground-breaking, totally novel work. And it is succeeding… cuts now would be devastating to progress that is already on its way towards helping Americans.
Do you work at Stanford? I saw a talk there this summer about this and it was amazing what you guys are doing, even for me, a cynical ex-grad student! It re-opened my eyes to the capabilities of what science has to offer.
I’m a graduate student doing interdisciplinary research on cancer biology. I’ve been supported by both the NSF and the NIH. My research is too early in the discovery pipeline be supported by pharmaceutical companies, and it depends on funding agencies that can afford to support new experiments and approaches. I’ve discovered a number of signaling pathways that contribute to cancer. This is science that will turn into new treatments in five, ten or twenty years. Failure to invest now will cost money and lives in the future.
The worst thing that can happen if funding is reduced : All the hard ongoing science that has already been underway (in some cases,years) will not be completed. A sad scenario for “dark ages” in the USA.
Para mi que soy madre de un niño de 11 años, ver el titular que decía que se había creado un chip que imitaba el cerebro humano, inmediatamente me dije: Esto lo que mi hijo necesita. Él nació con parálisis cerebral, sus funciones motoras no responden, se afectó en gran parte su lenguaje, pero lo que mas me preocupa es que no puede caminar, lo mismo que invalido, no ha respondido a la terapia física; percibí una esperanza cuando observé el artículo, pero luego de escribirle al Dr. Chi-Sang Poon, he visto que los congresos son muy parecidos en todos los países, recortan presupuestos a programas e instituciones de gran importancia; unamos los esfuerzos para conseguir el objetivo común.
For me I am the mother of a boy of 11, see the headline that had created a chip that mimicked the human brain, I immediately said, This is my child needs. He was born with cerebral palsy, motor functions do not respond, was affected much of their language, but what worries me is that you can not walk, as invalid, has not responded to physical therapy, I noticed when I saw hope the article, but after writing to Dr. Chi-Sang Poon, I have seen that the congresses are very similar in all countries, cut budgets for programs and institutions of great importance; join efforts to achieve the common goal.
I’m a postdoc in HIV and (now also moving into) Hep C research. I’ve been so concerned with science funding the past few years, I’ve started my own Facebook group:
http://www.solving-for-x.org
Please join, read the posts, and share your stories. The way I look at it, the more we speak out, tell our stories, what we work on, how important science research is/what it means, and to whom we advocate, will make all the difference.
At Nanovea, we have attended MRS for several years. As 2011 ends, we can proudly announce our facility growth expansion and multiple hires, both engineers and administration. Not to mention the business we continue to send to our local fabrication partners. Although we attend multiple shows throughout the year, no other provides the traffic MRS is capable of within the materials science sector.
There is many ways science is supporting economic growth, lets just say MRS should be considered high on that list. Our partnership with MRS has always and will continue to be a central part of our communication efforts to the world.
And with the support of MRS, Nanovea has quickly become an american manufacture of measurement instruments providing across the globe.
The desire to explore and comprehend the universe is intrinsically human and transcends all ideological and cultural boundaries.
The questions we ask in science echo billions of inquiring minds across thousands of generations, and are as simple in form as they are profoundly complex to answer: Who are we? How did we get here? What came before that? How does it all work? How will it all end? And, among an estimated 300 billion trillion stars in the known universe, are we alone?
In the few dozen revolutions about our local star each of us will likely share, is it not a worthy endeavor to attempt to answer these fundamental questions?
Moreover, the technological and scientific advancement of our species is inextricably bound to our destiny.
Yes, we must do everything in our power to solve the domestic issues of our cosmic oasis, but the long-term survival of our species depends on our capacity to discover, explore, travel to, and inhabit other worlds, all of which require vision that far transcends the fleeting political aspirations of our time—vision that spans generations; centuries.
Stand with Science.
-Raphael Perrino