In Episode 8 of The Week in Science, I outline the details of the 2026 presidential budget request for science funding, highlighting some new studies that detail the complex migration of humans from Africa. This being the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Steven Spielberg’s movie Jaws, there’s news about the science of sharks, too! […]
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During a discussion about whether government funding of academic science was a good idea, I argued that it was a net negative—a prominent physicist once told me that there was no particle physics before World War II. I remember thinking to myself: “Who’s going to tell him? No particle physics? Maxwell? Planck? Rutherford? Einstein?” My […]
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The era of Big Science began formally in 1950, when the National Science Foundation opened its doors. Its mission was to fulfill a hopeful promise: for government to fund the very best academic science, to explore science’s “endless frontier,” in the inspiring words of Vannevar Bush, President Roosevelt’s—and subsequently President Truman’s— science czar. There was […]
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