Sounding The Alarm For Basic Science Research Funding

This year’s Nobel laureates and more have sounded the alarm bell on funding basic science research.  We talk to them.  http://onpoint.wbur.org/2013/10/15/nobel-prize-research-funding

Karolinska Institute’s Chairman of the Nobel committee for physiology or medicine Juleen Zierath talks, as images of James Rothman and Randy Schekman, of the US, and German-born researcher Thomas Suedhof are projected on a screen, in Stockholm, Sweden, Monday, Oct. 7, 2013, as they are announced as the winners of the 2013 Nobel Prize in medicine. (AP)

A big American haul of Nobel Prizes in science again last week.  The United States, not alone but surely again the envy of the world on the Nobel stage.  But when those Nobel winners turned to speak of their prizes, there was a remarkable consistency in their theme:  America, wake up.  The great basic science research that won us these prizes, they said, is not going on in the way that it did in the USA.  It’s about leaner times.  It’s about imagination.  It’s about commitment.  They’re saying change now or it won’t be us on that stage soon.  Up next On Point:  Nobel Prize winners on American science now.

– Tom Ashbrook