AAAS

“Science seems to be collateral damage to these [downsizing] efforts that are almost random, by date of hire or date of promotion. It’s not strategic. It’s not based on the needs of the future, the needs of science.” - AAAS CEO Sudip Parikh

If it weren’t for an accidental laser injury, bladeless LASIK eye surgery, which has helped to improve the vision of more than 24 million people since 2002, may have never been developed. 30 years ago, a graduate student at the University of Michigan’s Center for Ultrafast Optical Science caught a stray laser beam in his eye that left exact and perfectly circular damage to his retina. This mishap led to a collaboration between the graduate student and a Nobel-prizing winning physicist, a research scientist and medical student, which resulted in a bladeless approach to corrective eye surgery. Bladeless LASIK has revolutionized the field by using a femtosecond laser, rather than a precision scalpel, to cut into the human cornea before it is reshaped to improve patients’ vision. In 2022, Detao Du, Gérard Mourou, Donna Strickland, Tibor Juhasz, and Ron Kurtz received the Golden Goose Award, which honors federally funded research that has ultimately benefitted society. Their work was supported by funding from the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

What could cuts to research and development funding mean for the U.S.? While we are currently the global leader in R&D funding, other countries are investing more intensely in R&D and could soon take the top spot.?Learn more ?? ?Read the full analysis: https://lnkd.in/gCXRNXnd???

"March 14 becomes a really important day because that’s the day that we have to have a new spending bill for the United States government. And that will set spending levels for the rest of fiscal year 2025 for the federal government and the federal agencies." AAAS CEO Sudip Parikh told Science Friday. "Those spending levels take a long time to increase, and the United States has been investing in science for 80 years. And we could tear a lot of that down with the stroke of one signature and the votes of the legislative body." Listen to the full segment: https://bit.ly/41JR86v

The U.S. news landscape is complex and ever shifting, and speaking with the media is most advantageous when you’re prepared and are aware of the benefits and risks. Join Matt DeRienzo, Director of SciLine, on March 13 at 12 pm ET for a live Expert Q&A on AAAS Member Community. Submit your questions now on communicating with the media in turbulent times ?? https://lnkd.in/eTH8Azqh

I did this interview with Robyn Williams of ABC (Australian Broadcasting) while at the AAAS Annual meeting. I see why he is a legend - a short, informative, humorous, and delightful conversation in ten minutes. I hope you’ll have a listen. We talk about several things including the fact that though I am deeply worried, the story of US science is still being written. Using every policy tool at our disposal, we are working around the clock with Congressional and Administration champions of science to protect budgets, infrastructure, and talent inside and outside the federal government while being open to new ideas. While remembering greats of the past, we also talk about the energy and excitement I see in the next generation of scientists. We even name drop a few. If nothing else, it’s worth listening for the friendship and admiration Robyn obviously feels for American scientists.

Investing strongly in #STEMM is proven to boost the economy and increase worker productivity. Yet federal research & development funding has stagnated over the last several years. Here's why that needs to change ?? Read the full analysis: https://lnkd.in/emhwuzEi

I've updated the dashboard with the R&D accounts that got anomalies in the CR bill text. All accounts that were not called out will stay at FY 2024 levels and thus show up as blank in the dashboard since there's no change. For a couple, there were topline changes to parent agencies to programs I track in more detail. For those I scaled the FY 2024 numbers down to the new toplines - so take NOAA OAR and Defense S&T values as an estimate, not a truly final number. https://lnkd.in/eNKVqyfh

In the 1970s and '80s, a group of cognitive scientists developed a new model using neural networks to explain human cognition. The idea failed to become an effective model for early work on artificial intelligence. Years later, thanks to huge improvements in computing power and the curation of large data sets, the framework, called Parallel Distributed Processing, proved instrumental to laying the groundwork for modern advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning. In 2024, researchers David Rumelhart, James McClelland and Geoffrey Hinton received the Golden Goose award, which honors federally funded science that has ultimately benefitted society. Hinton went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2024 for this work. Their work included funding from the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation.

Congratulations to our new president-elect, Marina Picciotto, deputy chair for basic science in psychiatry, professor of neuroscience and pharmacology, and director of the interdepartmental neuroscience program at Yale University! AAAS Members also elected Gabriela Popescu of the University at Buffalo and Roger Wakimoto of UCLA to the Board of Directors. https://lnkd.in/eBJ5AdRX