Change you can believe in...

might just have been an election slogan but this is even better - change that might fund our research! From the Science section of the New York Times (probably the best thing about Tuesdays):

The law gives the National Science Foundation $2 billion in stimulus financing for research grants, and the foundation also has until September 2010 to spend the money. But the foundation will act much faster, pushing nearly all of that money out to scientists within 120 days, said Jeffrey Nesbit, an N.S.F. spokesman. (Last year, the science foundation’s $6.1 billion budget included $4.8 billion for research grants; Congress has not finished work on the budget for the current fiscal year.)

The spending increase comes after six years of nearly flat research budgets at the N.I.H., the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and other agencies, and growing desperation at research universities, which depend on the agencies to underwrite much of their scientific faculty and laboratory infrastructure.

To speed the process, the science foundation will not put out any new calls for proposals from researchers, but will instead use the money to finance a higher fraction of proposals already under review and to finance old ones that were judged meritorious last year but were rejected for lack of funds.

So, that proposal we submitted in January might really pay off!

Hooves crossed,

- Mr. Ed