In any event, a number of my colleagues and I have been talking about acquiring an advanced microscope system for doing cell counts, brain mapping, and high-resolution imaging. So we figured it might be a good idea to use this opportunity to apply for these funds. That was on March 6, with the grant due on March 23. Not too onerous a deadline, unless one figures in that the proposal needed to be submitted to Research Administration in my institution one week before the NIH deadline.

Suffice it to say, I was able to put together a proposal in the time allotted, just in time for me to hop on the Limoliner to New York. As I sit here in my comfy leather chair taking advantage of the free Wi-Fi, I am enjoying the downtime to think about things other than proposals and driving my chairman crazy.

Tops on my list are the positive changes in the atmosphere for science that has occurred in the past couple of weeks, First, the dramatic short term change in funding for NIH. Obviously, I wouldn’t have written this proposal without the extra funding, and successful applicants will certainly help to keep equipment vendors afloat. Interestingly, this program has, if anything, somewhat of a negative impact on the finances of the scientists themselves because this type of grant (unlike most) doesn’t pay any overhead costs to the institution. Moreover, this institution is expected to kick in some money to help manage the machine. So even though we’d be really happy to be fortunate enough to acquire this piece of equipment, the institution’s attitude can best be summed up as “meh.”

To be sure, there is a good deal of stimulus money going toward investigator-initiated research, and many are working toward tailoring their proposals to fit the needs of the different institutes at NIH. Those of us with grants currently under review are hopeful that extra money in the coffers of NIH will increase the number of proposals that are funded.

Another good thing, of course, is the administration removing the restrictions on stem cell research. There are enormous potential benefits of this type of research, and I know that scientists are ecstatic that they will no longer have to set up walls between their NIH-funded and private foundation stem cell work.

There are two good takes on this. The first is a piece by Frank Rich in the New York Times. The second can be seen below.

I originally said that “people claim,” because I really don’t know anyone who prefers the latter. Personally, I know that the quick rip is always better than the alternative, but I believe that this is probably related to excessive amounts of body hair, so much so (and I don’t mean to brag here) that I am considered to be the equivalent of Mel Gibson among certain species of apes.

But I digress.

I have been watching presidential addresses to joint sessions of Congress since the mid 60s, and the constant interruptions with standing ovations have always been annoying. They are most often done by rote—the president delivers a controversial line like “…and that’s why the United States is the best country in the world,” and the Speaker of the House and Vice President jump up out of their seats as if propelled by grenades. After a while, you get used to it and recognize that it is part of the kabuki dance that is American politics.

That said, I lost all patience for this show during the last administration. I suspect that some of it was that I rarely agreed with anything that guy said. But I came to realize that it was more than that. I wanted to end the ovationeering so that I wouldn’t have to listen to Bush mangle the language any more. Just like a bandage on a hirsute arm, I wanted him to rip off his 5,000-Word Jumble as quickly as possible. Each interruption simply postponed the time when my ears would stop bleeding.

Which brings us to Obama’s speech last night to a joint session of Congress. Obviously, there is no comparison between the styles of Bush and Obama. Leaving aside whether one agrees or disagrees with what’s being said, the quality of Obama’s speech writing and the ease of his delivery stands in stark contrast to what came before. The applausorupptions, however, were even more annoying. One might assume that if one wants to quickly dispose of pain, then the converse should be true, namely that one would want to draw out pleasurable stimuli. But clearly, this isn’t the case. I would actually like to hear what the man has to say in the natural flow of a speech, rather than the chopped up sound bites that get presented. Which is why reading the speech today was so much fun.

But now to the point of this post. I have written before about how it appeared that Obama “gets science” (see Barack on Track, Changeling). As many of you know, the stimulus package increases the budget for NIH by $10 billion and NSF by $3 billion (a 34% increase overall). That clearly shows his administration’s belief in science as one of the drivers of our economic future. As he said last night.

Thanks to our recovery plan, we will double this nation’s supply of renewable energy in the next three years. We’ve also made the largest investment in basic research funding in American history, an investment that will spur not only new discoveries in energy, but breakthroughs in medicine, in science and technology.

But is was these lines in last night’s speech that really sent me out of my chair in wild applause.

So tonight I ask every American to commit to at least one year or more of higher education or career training. This can be a community college or a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship. But whatever the training may be, every American will need to get more than a high school diploma. And dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It’s not just quitting on yourself; it’s quitting on your country. And this country needs and values the talents of every American.

It is clear that he is placing a lot of weight on the shoulders of our institutions of higher learning. Large portions of the NIH and NSF budgets will be going to fund research at these places (hopefully, a small amount to my lab). He is also making it clear that he understands how important science and education are to the future of this country. And by calling out parents, students, and educators as he did, he is setting a clear tone of responsibility that is more than a little welcome. It is difficult to overstate how important it is to have a president that values science, education, and responsibility.

For those of you who point out that last night’s speech lacked specifics and was overambitious, let me say this about that: Nerts! I’m sorry to use such language, but it has to be said. The venue last night wasn’t the place for specifics, so hold off until you see what the administration’s budget contains. And if there is one word I’ve learned to hate over the years, it is “overambitious.” This is often used pejoratively in critiques of grant proposals, as if it is a crime to aim high. I want my president to aim high. The worst that will happen is that he comes up a bit short, but will accomplish quite a bit on his way to these lofty goals. That, my friends, is called leadership.

So it is now obvious that I have a man crush on the president. I used to think that everyone felt the same way, but then I saw this:

Well, whatever it was, it was pretty damn good. You simply have to love an inaugural (THAT’S the word!) address where he mentions “data” and “statistics” in the first 5 minutes.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable, but no less profound, is a sapping of confidence across our land; a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, that the next generation must lower its sights.

Not only did he use the words, but he used them correctly. I’m simply not used to a President that does that. Of course, later in the speech, he made my heart soar with the following words:

We will restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its costs.

All in all a forceful, appropriate, and, dare I say, hopeful, speech (That sentence, by the way, has set a new standard in the use of the comma). It takes some pretty large cojones to delineate the changes his administration will make while his predecessor is sitting right there. His moves in the first few days of office, although expected, were still pretty stunning in setting a new course for this country. And it seems like most people, save Fox News, are willing to give him a break for the first couple of weeks. See this clip from The Daily Show for the alternative view.

In the spirit of change, my relationship to social media is also undergoing a little spruce up. The first year anniversary of this blog is coming up shortly, and I’ve decided undergo a little facelift. Some of you may have noticed some changes in the sidebar, and I will be making some other changes that will improve the world’s access to all things Glenn.

Toward that end, I started twittering last week. For those who don’t know, Twitter is a social networking site that asks the question “What are you doing right now?” Users post 140 characters describing what they’re doing, and those that subscribe to their feed can read these “tweets.” I approached this with some skepticism, but I am finding it somewhat entertaining, and it has fun to follow the few people I know on the site and see what they’re up to. If you are on the Twitter, you can find me at “jbsaywhat.” I’ll follow you if you follow me.

As if that wasn’t enough, I am using FriendFeed, which is a sight that aggregates all of my social networking feeds (blogs, twitter, Flickr, etc.) in one place. It is a free site, and even though I’ve only been using it since the weekend, I can see where it would be very useful for families and friends to keep in touch. Here’s the link to my feed.

So that is all for now. Keep an eye out for what might be a major redesign of the blog. Or just minor tweaks. Either way, it will made with you, the loyal reader, in mind.

Some people are all too willing to say good riddance to the old style of journalism. They point out that the internet allows for information to flow faster and with fewer barriers than with print technology. Often, the proliferation of the blogosphere has been cited as further spelling the doom of print. Bloggers are more nimble, and can quickly cover the news as it happens.

As a nascent blogger myself, I say this: Phooey! Before I first started blogging, I surfed around to see what blogs looked like. While many special interest blogs were fascinating, with people waxing rhapsodic over their peculiar obsessions, the “news” and “gadget” blogs were another story. These bloggers weren’t reporters who went out and gathered news. Rather, they were regurgitators who simply linked to other stories that hard working reporters had gathered and then added their own snarky comments to make it their own.

Don’t get me wrong, I like a snarky comment as much as the next person. And in the history of this blog, I have not been above this type of behavior. But it is clear that without the kind of in depth and thoughtful reporting that goes on out there, the “news” blogosphere would implode. Imagine a world with no New York Times, London Times, Washington Post, etc. If all of the news we received was from untrained monkeys with typing skills (much like myself) who aren’t actually reporting anything, where would we be? Without Woodward and Bernstein, would Nixon have served his full term? What about the Pentagon papers?

I recognize that newspapers won’t die completely—the best of them have excellent web editions—but I mostly fear for the day when I won’t be able to hold some newsprint in my hand over my morning bagel. Not to put too fine a point on it, but there are certain places where I won’t take New York Times iPhone app, if you know what I mean.

All this by way of saying that while I am rarely someone who toots his own horn, preferring instead to let others who recognize my greatness speak for me, today I simply can’t resist. A few weeks ago I wrote a post called “Barack on Track,” in which I laid out 1) the Bush war on science, and 2) the hope that Obama will restore the scientific method to the decision in the White House. It was, as always, a well-reasoned and exceptionally erudite post (you’re welcome). Today, Olivia Judson in the New York Times wrote and excellent blog called “Back to Reality,” that makes many of the same points. I am honored and just a wee bit humbled to know that the Times and I agree on such an important point, especially since I thought of it first.

Incidentally, those of you that point out that her post is better written and has better citations are missing the point.

Washington, DC is also, I’ve been told, the seat of our government. As such, it is as good an opportunity as any to talk about the upcoming transition in the executive branch. I have been reading pretty intensely over the past couple of weeks about the Obama and McCain campaigns–what went right and what went wrong. For those of you who haven’t overdosed on this stuff, I would strongly recommend the special Newsweek issue entitled “44″ and a number of articles in last week’s New Yorker, including this, this, and this.

What is clear from these articles is how dramatically the candidates personalities influenced the campaign. The successful campaign of Obama (dubbed “No Drama Obama”) clearly reflected Obama’s even temperment—not allowing himself or the campaign to get too high or too low. In contrast, the McCain campaign was impulsive, and lacked a coherent message and strategy.

What was even more encouraging, however, were some descriptions of Obama’s management style. In meetings with his campaign staff, he would solicit the advice from everyone in the room–if a participant hadn’t talked much during the meeting, Obama would seek his/her opinion directly. What struck me as particularly encouraging was that, by all accounts, he would never tip his hat as to his own thoughts on the topics being discussed. The purpose of this was to make sure that the advice he was getting was not colored by his staffers natural inclination to try to make the boss happy by telling him what they thought he wanted to hear. When the meeting concludes, he weighs the unvarnished opinions that were offered, and then makes his decision.

This is a particularly refreshing departure from the leadership currently ensconced at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave (when not spending >800 days on vacation). What it also demonstrates is, dare I say it, an empirical approach—a relatively dispassionate assessment of the facts as best as can be determined, and the subsequent generation of a thesis based on these facts.

Along these lines, it was quite interesting to read this morning that Obama admires the approach of FDR during his first 100 days in office, whereby FDR would try a number of different programs to help ease the US out of the depression. Those that worked, he stuck with, those that didn’t were axed. This is, of course, exactly what a good scientist would do. You generate hypotheses, test the hypotheses, and then let the data tell you whether your hypothesis was correct or not.

The bottom line for me appears to be that Obama clearly respects the scientific method. My wife has always said that kids are born scientists—curious about the world and how it works—and only begin to lose interest, if they do, when they go to school and get their curiosity bored out of them. Clearly, our current president lost his interest in “fact based ideology” quite a while ago. As a working scientist, I am more than a little hopeful that Obama will be more sympathetic to the important role the scientific and technological research will play in the keeping the US competitive in the coming decades. A good first start would be to immediately rescind the ban on stem cell research in the US. A second move would be to devote a large amount of R&D dollars and tax incentives toward the development of green technologies. Finally, he should restore the cuts to the NIH budget and work toward bringing future budgets more in line to where they have been in past.

I surely recognize that science isn’t the be all and end all, and that not all problems are amenable to the scientific method. But it is nonetheless true that ignoring pesky facts, silencing voices that disagree with your own, and limiting exploration of new knowledge has clearly hurt our country. There is every reason to hope that this will change in mid-Janaury, and the sooner the better.

I am tempted to leave this as an exercise for the reader, but I am sure that you’ve all guessed the real reason. I am, in essence, quite lazy. It seems that I would use pretty much any excuse to avoid writing. I knew it was bad when the televised version of the World Poker Tour held my interest for nearly a half hour. To be sure, I have had a pretty busy couple of months at work. The past two weeks, for example, were spent preparing four scientific posters for the annual Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting which takes place next week in DC. It takes a fair amount of time to put together an attractive graphic layout, not to mention making up all the data. (To quote Foghorn Leghorn “Ah say, it’s a joke, son”).

Actually, I don’t think I am all that lazy. The truth is that I really didn’t have that much to say that I thought would be all that interesting. What is interesting about the speed with which information now gets conveyed, is that it becomes increasingly difficult to have a thought that is somewhat unique. Like everyone in the US (and beyond, I gather), I followed the Presidential election very closely. Trust me when I tell you that I had tons of pithy and incisive comments to make about the debates, Palin, the environment, elitism (again), etc. But as I began to write them down, I soon realized that they simply weren’t all that original. I understand that not having novel viewpoint doesn’t necessarily preclude one from speaking one’s mind—Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity would be out of work if that were the case—but it just didn’t seem right to me.

I also found that when I would go on a rant in with my friends and family, it basically turned into a “group think” in the worst way possible. The sad fact is that I live in a part of the country and work in a place and live with people who basically think pretty much the same as I do. (I understand that that might be scary thought for some of you, but rest assured that most of these people are otherwise quite normal.) While it is sometimes nice to get a “call and response” type interaction going, it is less fulfilling that getting a good discussion going among people who honestly disagree.

Which brings me to my in-laws. One of the few good arguments I had about certain aspects of the election occurred when Jim and Dena visited a few weeks back. At one point, we needed to get actual facts to bolster our discussion. I used Cha Cha, which is a free service that allows you to phone in or SMS any question and get an answer via SMS in a few minutes (did you know, for example, that the top 5% of US wage earners pay 57% of the taxes?). In any event, that was fun discussion.

But back to Jim and Dena’s visit. Once we had settled our argument (I won), we decided to go and visit the Institute of Contemporary Art at its new home on Fan Pier in Boston. There was an installation by Tara Donavan that is a must see. She basically takes common objects—toothpicks, plastic cups, cellophane tape, styrofoam cups—and makes absolutely beautiful pieces out of them. I can’t remember an exhibit where all four of us were so smitten.

After we left the museum, we wandered down to Rowe’s Wharf and then onto the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, which is the new parkland area built on top of the big dig. What we saw while there gave me hope in mankind. If the people who work on signs have this kind of sense of humor, then perhaps all is not lost.

In any event, I promise to post more often. And the letter is in the mail.

I thought that this was pretty clever, especially when considered in light of the fact that it was apparently put together in 24 hours. I had a suspicion that it wasn’t original, but I couldn’t recall if/when I had seen something similar.

When I sent this out, I got back a link to the following video put together by Chabad House of Bel Air (thanks Jeff):

Hmmmmm. There are certainly a number of similarities between the “Curb Your Enthusiasm” show and this movie. I’m not saying that the “Karma” video stole the whole script–in many ways the Karma movie is actually funnier than the original episode from “Curb”—but the key idea that drives the plot is identical. Still, the Karma movie is a little tarnished in my mind.

On the positive side, I got another link (thanks Ralph) for yet another similarly themed movie.

During a segment in which Fox & Friends co-hosts Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade labeled New York Times reporter Jacques Steinberg and editor Steven Reddicliffe “attack dogs,” Fox News featured photos of Steinberg and Reddicliffe that appeared to have been digitally altered — the journalists’ teeth had been yellowed, their facial features exaggerated, and portions of Reddicliffe’s hair moved further back on his head.

In this article they show the before and after pictures of Steinberg and Reddcliffe, and it is worth your while to look at these. I will say ahead of time that I am not one of those people who generally see anti-semitism around every corner. That said, what is obvious about these amateurish retouchings—at least of the one of Steinberg—is that they seem to use the same kind of exaggerations of physical characteristics that were originally made popular by Joseph Goebbels. As an example, here’s a picture I purloined from The German Propaganda Archive from the infamous film “The Eternal Jew“.

“

So what was the purpose of Fox News changing these photographs? In the best case, it was simply a try to make these guys look a bit uglier. (From a personal perspective, I’m sort of annoyed that that they accomplished this in one case by making Reddcliffe look balder). In the worst case, they are playing into the old anti-semitic chestnut about the Jews controlling the media.

I generally give organizations and the people that comprise them the benefit of the doubt. In this case, Fox News has proven itself over and over again to be a highly partisan, non-fact-based news organization. That they resorted to ad hominem attacks is not particularly unusual for them—it is how they can best fight when the facts are against them. But this is an all-time low. I wonder how Bill Kristol, a main commentator on the network who is of Jewish origin, will react to this.

My fellow Americans: We are a country in debt and in decline — not terminal, not irreversible, but in decline. Our political system seems incapable of producing long-range answers to big problems or big opportunities. We are the ones who need a better-functioning democracy — more than the Iraqis and Afghans. We are the ones in need of nation-building. It is our political system that is not working.

And then:

That’s us. [The economy is] at a 34-year low. And digging out of this hole is what the next election has to be about and is going to be about — even if it is interrupted by a terrorist attack or an outbreak of war or peace in Iraq. We need nation-building at home, and we cannot wait another year to get started. Vote for the candidate who you think will do that best. Nothing else matters.

As is often the case, Friedman is right. What I am having difficult imagining, however, is a politician with the guts to say something along these lines:

“I know you are concerned about terrorism. Our government has made a promise that the events of September 11 will not happen again. I intend to keep that promise. As your president, I will work tirelessly to ensure the safety of all Americans.

“All countries of the world, however, are fighting an even larger foe—global warming. It is now time to take our heads out of the sand, and carefully evaluate what is now not debatable. The world is warming up, and it is due in large part because of what we are doing. We need renewable sources of energy. We need to cap CO2 emissions. We need to tackle this problem quickly and decisively.

“And we need to do more. We need to make certain that America remains a country worth protecting. Our economy is failing. We are no longer the world leader in manufacturing, and the main driving force of our economy is consumer spending. The recent economic events clearly show us that this is not sustainable in the long term. If we do not correct these problems, the negative effects on this country will far exceed any that would result from terrorists.

“The beauty is that we can attack both of these problems together. By making the US the world’s leader in alternative energy research and development, we can create billions of dollars of new investments, as well as reaching the long term goal of alleviating our dependence on natural resources from other countries, some of whom may not have the best interests of our country in mind. We can change our infrastructure to accommodate more public transportation.

“This won’t be easy. It will require a lot of tough choices. It will require strong investments in education at all levels. It will require a fundamental change in the way our government currently operates. It will require sacrifices by all of us, both in terms of our time and our pocketbooks.

“How will we accomplish these goals? I have a number of ideas in mind. But I am not arrogant enough to believe that mine are the only ones that work. We need to get the best minds on the planet together to think clearly and deeply about what needs to be done. As politicians, we need to sit down together and work with determination to achieve a workable plan that will allow us to the accomplish the goals that we have laid out.

“And all of us, my fellow Americans, need to stop listening to the chattering heads on cable TV. Let us no longer seek out only those voices that agree with our own. Let us challenge ourselves to critically evaluate all the information that is out there. Let us agree that there are common problems that need to be solved, and let us have wisdom to work together to find the best way to make America a vibrant, tolerant, and strong force well into the next century.”

It could happen, right?

Many of you know that we live in the suburban paradise known as Newton, Massachusetts. While it is perpetually trendy to bash on the purported vacuousness and bland homogeneity of suburban lifestyle, I will never do that to my town. As I’ve mentioned before, we live in a fantastic neighborhood, and this was a great place to raise a family.

Of course, our town is not perfect. For example, if you were to ask most people what attracted them to Newton it would be (in no particular order) 1) proximity to Boston (we’re only 7 miles from downtown), and 2) the school system. I think it is safe to say that while the school system is quite good, it has had trouble maintaining its reputation over the past couple of years. There are a number of reasons for this, that I’ll talk about in another post. But it is clear that much of the success of the Newton students is often despite the school system, rather than because of it. The school budget is continually under pressure, and there appears to be inordinate amount administrative rather than teaching positions.

What has put Newton in the news lately, however, is the construction of the new Newton North High School, which has risen in estimated price from approximately $80 million to $200 million. (If you Google “Newton North High School Construction” you’ll get over 236,000 hits). Both of my children graduated from this school, and my wife has taught science there for the past 7 years. It is a very successful school in terms of the diversity of students it serves, and in terms of their student’s academic success. Spend a few minutes in the current building, however, and you can immediately see why it needs to be replaced. The HVAC system never worked well—the fluctuations in temperature from room to room are astounding—and the basic design is not “conducive to optimal learning” to quote from Chalk: The Musical. This Sunday’s Boston Globe Magazine published an article by Newton North grad and journalist Seth Mnookin that is the best I’ve seen detailing the history and some of the problems that led to the current state of affairs. One quote sums up quite nicely what has been obvious to those of us close to the situation:

The tragedy of this story is that during a time when teachers around the country, from New Orleans to Newark, are spending their own money on school supplies for their students, Newton could have had the exact same wonderful, new high school, with the same zigzag design, glass-walled cafeteria, and solar paneling, for tens of millions of dollars less, if only so many of Newton’s residents weren’t in love with the sound of their own voices.

It is a combined effort of the This American Life and NPR news teams, and is definitely work the download. Only you have to act quickly, as this week’s podcast is removed by Saturday. If you don’t get it in time, let me know and I’ll send you a copy (but don’t tell anyone). What is remarkable, is that you will find yourself asking the following question at least 5 times during the story “Why didn’t someone just say no?”

Here’s the description from the website (where you can download it):

A special program about the housing crisis. We explain it all to you. What does the housing crisis have to do with the collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns? Why did banks make half-million dollar loans to people without jobs or income? And why is everyone talking so much about the 1930s? It all comes back to the Giant Pool of Money.

Thanks for Val for alerting me to these pretty amusing advertisements.

From the department of irony, there is this BBC article reporting that Free Tibet Flags are being made in China

And lastly, a typically spot-on editorial from Tom Friedman of the New York Times entitled Dumb as We Wanna Be.

It doesn’t come as a surprise that politicians are self serving. It has to be part of your DNA if you’re going to put your livlihood in the hands of fickle voters. And we know from 8 years how the Clinton’s can compartmentalize, obfuscate, and use judicious selected memories to justify a range of misbehaviors. But lately I’ve just had it with these jokers. Juxtapose Bill’s comments during Kerry’s campaign four years ago:

One of Clinton’s laws of politics is, if one candidate is trying to scare you, and the other one is trying to make you think, if one candidate’s appealing to your fears, and the other one’s appealing to your hopes. You better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope. (See the YouTube clip here)

with his endorsement of the despicable 3 AM phone ad.

Watching the Clinton camp dissemble with relation to the delegate situation is sad indeed. Unless the laws of mathematics are repealed, she can’t get more delegates than Obama, Michigan and Florida notwithstanding. While I don’t exactly blame her for wanting to stay in the race, the way she is going about this strikes me as being at the very least disingenuous, and at worst dishonest. With regard to the electoral process, she has changed her tune more often than Roger Clemens changed hypodermic needles. As usual, Jon Stewart and The Daily Show summed it all up perfectly.

In any event, I bring this up because while I am not a real font fanatic, I do give some thought as to the fonts that I use in my documents and presentations. So I was curious about the headline in todays New York Times blog: McCain’s Optimum Look. The author, Steven Heller, solicited comments from a variety of type designers, curators, and critics of type design to analysze the McCain campaigns use of the Optima font. As I read through the surprisingly large number of comments, I found myself wondering whether I was missing something. Then I came across this last quote, which wraps things up quite nicely.

Rudy VanderLans, founder of Emigre Type

What does Optima say about Senator McCain? Nothing. It probably says more about the designer than anything else. Who, except designers, would judge a candidate by the typeface?

But America cannot simply assume its lead in science will continue. In recent years the science community has been starved of the resources it needs. Young, new, energetic scientists are the seed corn of nearly all new scientific development. However, our schools, laboratories and granting agencies all, in one way or another, discourage launching a career in the sciences. There are few grants to live on; and both schools and laboratories have long since lost the sense of joy we remember from our younger days. Science can be exciting and attractive. But convincing bright students to become scientists requires a lot more than we are now providing.

A young university scientist today spends much of his or her time scouring up funding rather than wrestling out the secrets of nature. And the young are not so young. At the National Institutes of Health, the average age of a first grant is 42 for a Ph.D. and 44 for an M.D. We need policies that nurture excellence and give scientists independence at a younger age. And we need to make American science attractive to both those who were born here and those who were born abroad.

Many thanks to my father-in-law, Jim, for pointing this out to me.