02.25.2013 – GOLLYGEE!

The Obama administration is calling for more access to publicly funded research. From the New York Times:

In a memorandum issued on Friday, John P. Holdren, science adviser to President Obama, called for scientific papers that report the results of federally financed research to become freely accessible within a year or so after publication. The findings are typically published in scientific journals, many of which are open only to paying subscribers.

The new policy would apply to federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture, that finance more than $100 million a year of research. The agencies have six months to submit plans for how they would carry out the new policy.

The hope is that broad access to scientific results will encourage faster progress on research and will let anyone apply the knowledge for technological advances.

In this week’s Science Magazine, Adrian Cho brings word of a looming shortage of helium in America:

For the second time in 8 months, a bill has been introduced in Congress that would prevent an acute but wholly self-inflicted shortage of helium from striking later this year. The shortage would hamstring research in a variety of fields. “Unless Congress takes swift action, the U.S. will float off the helium cliff,” said Representative Doc Hastings (R–WA), chair of the House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee and co-sponsor of the bipartisan bill, during a hearing this week.

Here’s the problem. Since 1996, the U.S. government has been selling off its vast reserve of helium, a legacy of the Cold War, which is held in an underground reservoir near Amarillo, Texas. Those sales supply 42% of the crude helium consumed in the United States and 35% of the crude helium consumed globally. But by law, they will continue only until the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which controls the reserve, recoups the $1.4 billion cost of developing the reserve. BLM will reach that break-even point by the end of this fiscal year, 30 September. At that point, BLM will have no authority to sell the remaining helium unless Congress acts.

More here.

GOLLYGEE!

Date: 02.25.2013

publicly funded research should be accessible to the public

america’s impending helium shortage