This in my inbox today from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. They are soliciting ideas. The WUWT readership may want to send some along.
Here’s the political spin pitch:
Join the Conversation on the Future of Science
As a part of its efforts to introduce fully open government, the White House is reaching out to the at-large scientific community to discuss America’s national scientific and technological priorities.
Through AAAS, and our new Expert Labs program, the Obama administration wants to draw on the collective wisdom of scientists everywhere in deciding which scientific and technological challenges should be the focus of policy initiatives in the coming years.
In 2009 President Obama provided some examples of what these challenges might be:
- Complete DNA sequencing of every type of cancer.
- A universal vaccine for influenza that will protect against all future strains.
- Solar cells as cheap as paint, and green buildings that produce all of the energy they consume.
- A light-weight vest for soldiers and police officers that can stop an armor-piercing bullet.
- Educational software that is as compelling as the best video game and as effective as a personal tutor.
- Biological systems that can turn sunlight into carbon-neutral fuel, reduce the costs of producing antimalarial drugs by a factor of 10, and quickly and inexpensively dispose of radioactive wastes and toxic chemicals.
Now, the White House wants your help in shaping the federal government’s current and future scientific priorities. As scientists and concerned citizens, we have a great responsibility and a unique opportunity to be the voices that are helping to define the White House’s scientific agenda. Make your voice heard. Submit your ideas today.
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@ur momisugly Gary (06:22:11) :
A “Civilization” game that demonstrates how free markets and laws that respect the individual’s rights prosper while totalitarian and socialist regimes are doomed to fail would be cool and educational.
Other than the light-weight bullet proof vest for soldiers and maybe the influenza vaccine (since it could be construed as a defense of the nation) why is the government getting involved in such efforts? Every one of them would be a huge money maker for a developer and so if they could be done they would be done. They undoubtedly will be done when the science and the technology reach the point at which they can be done.
Unless the effort is in support of defending the nation from enemies domestic and foreign the government should stay out of it. This smacks of an effort to take over and/or control areas of science as they are doing with finance, education, medicine, housing, energy, and communications.
I want to know it is is possible to employ sheep’s bladders to prevent earthquakes.
If he puts the development of zero calorie chocolate cake onto that li’l old wish list of his he’ll be onto a winner…
Where to focus science & engineering going forward?
Hands down winner: Synthetic Biology
The article says this is a new field but it really isn’t. Back in 1986 I read the seminal work in nanotechnology, K. Eric Drexler’s Engines of Creation hot off the press. I’ve been watching the roadmap he laid out unfold over the intervening 25 years. We’re getting close to the “tipping point” now. The big milestone is the ability to custom design bacteria mixing and matching capabilities already extant in the biological realm and programming them to accomplish given tasks. The leader at the forefront of this effort currently appears to be Craig Venter
If my attempt to embed the video in a comment doesn’t work here’s the link to Venter’s talk at the 2008 TED conference.
This technology will have a greater impact on civilization than fire, agriculture, metallurgy, medicing, and electrical engineering combined – although these were all prerequisites to it. I’m not exagerating.
Obama and those advising him prove once again that they are functionally illiterate about science, history and economics. God help us if the GOP fails to win control of at least one house of Congress in the November elections.
Well I thought that President Obama had Stanford prof John Holdren as his science advisor; he’s a fellow traveller with Dr Steven Schneider, and Dr Paul Erlich, some of the other Stanford luminaries.
Wel You don’t see a whole lot of the calibre of Prof Frederick E. Terman around that institution anymore.
I can’t remember if Nobel Laureate; Energy Secretary Dr Steven Chu, is also a Stanford emissary.
If the government would just get off the backs of industry; so they have money to do their own research; it wouldn’t be necessary for AAAS to be looking for ideas on what science to do.
You can trace a lot of the science rot back to that wonderful government project to bust up The telephone Company, which resulted in the essential destruction of the Bell Telephone Laboratories; one of the former great research institutions of the world.
Government needs to get out of the driver’s seat, and then get out of the way of the industrial research labs that once were perfectly capable of handling advanced scientific research.
Yes I know there’s a lot of folks out there; who just have to swill at the public trough in order to maintain their life style, in the manner to which they have become accustomed.
Unicorns! He forgot to list unicorns.
The political nature of the AAAS has caused me to drop my membership this year after being a member for about 30 years. Agenda driven drivel is not advancement of science, it is usually suppression of science.
“Obama’s” list of science projects appears to be very inward looking: how to deal with the problems of fixed and, in some instances, diminishing resources amid an ever growing population and demand. It appears to look at sciences that will homogenize society and control the environment through eventual control of people. DNA sequencing, exa-scale computing, polyglot transformation; all are laudable goals ripe for political (ab)use.
Obama has cut expenditures for the most critical area of outward vision and focus: exploration of space and the development of off world colonies. It is these areas where we can develop technologies for agriculture with limited water, land and energy resources, study disease and human body adaptation, augment our rapidly constrained and depleting resources of raw materials, create new trading partners, jobs, and, if history holds up, countries and governments. Migration has been the key to human development since our appearance in central Africa.
Constrained on this planet, the cancer that is the human species will eventually choke on itself and die. It must be allowed to spread and contaminate other worlds and in this way continue consuming, mutating and growing.
Ok over the top on the last paragraph but ….
(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration’s top science and technology official, who has argued for the economic de-development of America, warned science students last Friday that the United States cannot expect to be “number one” forever
So they do lower expectations and standards.
This whole topic is political and i suspect in the domestic case, Obama wants to fund friends of the regime. As for patents, give the technology away to foreign friends and destroy the company incentive to guard their own patents.
Sean Peake (08:34:36) :
I want to know it is is possible to employ sheeps bladders to prevent earthquakes.
I did that on the moon…see no quakes, no volcanoes, no nuttin.
rbateman (20:27:11) :
(…)
As for the armor-piercing bullet proof vests, Kevlar was the answer until a plastic-coated bullet (Teflon) came along and defeated the Kevlar. He does not understand the leapfrogging of weaponry that is never-ending.
(…)
Bad Science Alert. “Teflon bullets” is nonsense. The light Teflon coating was to keep the barrel cleaner longer (reduce bore fouling), just an experiment. The “armor piercing” came from a steel core in the slug. Teflon is not needed for ammunition to be armor-piercing. Actually any good hunting round suitable for at least deer will defeat a normal “bulletproof” vest. (Note that “bulletproof” means as much as “stainless,” indicates a high resistance but not true imperviousness.)
Meanwhile wherever they are still doing legal big game hunting (Alaska, certain parts of Africa, etc), they are having good results with solid copper bullets, they punch through thick hides rather well. So, you do not even need a specially-designed bullet with a penetrating core to have “armor piercing ammunition.”
Remember this next time helpful politicians talk about completely banning armor-piercing ammo solely for the protection of police officers, perhaps a worldwide ban that protects soldiers as well. I’m sure PETA would approve.
I am horrified to learn of the imminent catastrophic rise in the cost of paint.
I am however pleased with that Green House initiative. Perhaps my federal research grant application will be approved, investigating buildings that self-generate all the heating needed, since they are made of decomposing dung. “The Future Is Here! Houses That Are Green And Biodegradable! Be The First On Your Block To Own One!”
Transporter beam (ala Star Trek).
Think of the changes this would make to society (any of them).
Al Gored (18:42:39) :
Imagine elections for setting the thermostats. Hanging chads and all. It would be hilarious. We would have the ‘hot flash’ contingent. The ‘let’s keep all the little babies warm’ bunch. How about the winter sports people versus summer sports?
It would an insane asylum fighting over the temperature settings.
Check this out (a free-energy, anti-gravity device + supersonic aircraft/spaceship — on Coast-to-Coast AM Tuesday night):
http://www.johnsearlstory.com/
Here are a couple of wet-blanket articles on Searl:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Searl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Searl_Effect_Generator
Friends:
Development of a cheap material that exhibits superconductivity at room temperature is the one single technological development that would revolutionise developed economies and societies.
The bulk of all electrical energy is lost as heat induced by electrical resistance.
A cheap room temperature superconducting material would reduce existing electricity demand to at most a third of that now needed. It would reduce electricity costs by probably more than half. It would enable a world-wide electricity grid. And it would solve the potential problem of anthropogenic (i.e. human-made) global warming (AGW).
Hence, if the kind of monies now being spent on climate research to consider AGW were spent on material science to develop a cheap material that exhibits superconductivity at room temperature then the result could be many immense benefits including a solution to the AGW issue.
Richard
Just make research tax deductible, then get out of the way. The government should not fund general research directly, maybe defense research is an exception.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0415/Florida-Space-Coast-sees-economic-hardship-in-Obama-plan
Obama firing 8,000 space workers in Florida. He is down there to talk to them. Of course no “actual workers” were invited to his talk.
They can apply for jobs laying track for trains. Fast trains. Trains were polular before the space program started.
Richard is 100% correct. Either superconductivity or Fusion would be really big game-changers (not only for AGW (imaginary or not), but for cheap energy – such that hydrogen powered vehicles would be realistic and not totally dependent on natural gas). We should make them both THE number one research funding priorities of the government. Progress continues to be made on both, but at a snail’s pace. If we did the Manhattan (~$20B in year 2000 dollars) and Moon projects (~$141B in Y2K$), spend $17B/yr on the Shuttle, and have spent over $300B on DOE since its inception (and probably at least the same or more on EPA), we should be able to organize and accomplish such efforts. It just takes long term vision, conviction and commitment – something that does not appear to exist at either the Federal or private levels anymore.
Well, we missed an idea.
Have NASA go to an asteroid, then to Mars.
Change!