Scientific Obama

Not to neglect science:



How exciting that the president-elect is actually talking about science - he seems to genuinely care about the environment and the future of the country in terms of its competitiveness in science and technology. Kudos for picking Harold Varmus as one of his advisers! Varmus is a Nobel prize winner for the discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes and the president of Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where a lot of my friends and classmates work, across the street from Cornell. He is also the previous president of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), so he is someone who has experience with the politics of science. Finally it seems that people in Washington are paying attention to the issue and that Obama is surrounding himself with brilliant people who have experience in policy making. Hopefully this means that soon the situation with funding and opportunities for scientists will improve. Certainly, things cannot get any worse and I am excited to see how this new administration will deal with the issues.