Lmst

South Korea is ramping up investment in basic science, but experts warn that without building 'science capital'—a culture that values and supports science—such efforts may fall short of fostering a robust innovation ecosystem.
#YonhapInfomax #ScienceCapital #BasicScience #NationalScientist #STEMEducation #ResearchFunding #Economics #FinancialMarkets #Banking #Securities #Bonds #StockMarket
https://en.infomaxai.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=91094

Ireland in CERN!

Photo by Pietro Battistoni on Pexels.com

I saw the news today that the Republic of Ireland is now officially an associate member state of the Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire, better known as CERN. This has been in the pipeline for a while: I blogged about it here, for example. But today’s the day that Ireland formally joined.

I think this is a very good move for Irish physics, and indeed for Ireland generally. I will, however, repeat a worry that I have expressed previously. There is an important point about CERN membership, however, which I hope is not sidelined. The case for joining CERN made at political levels was largely about the return in terms of the potential in contracts to technology companies based in Ireland from instrumentation and other infrastructure investments. This was also the case for Ireland’s membership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), which Ireland joined 7 years ago. The same thing is true for involvement in the European Space Agency, which Ireland joined in 1975. These benefits are of course real and valuable and it is entirely right that arguments should involve them.

Looking at CERN membership from a purely scientific point of view, however, the return to Ireland will be negligible unless there is a funding to support scientific exploitation of the facility. That would include funding for academic staff time, and for postgraduate and postdoctoral researchers to build up an active community as well as, e.g., computing facilities. This need not be expensive even relative to the modest cost of associate membership (approximately €1.9M). I would estimate a figure of around half that would be needed to support CERN-based science. I am given to understand that some funds have been made available as part of the joining arrangements, but I don’t know the details.

As I have mentioned before, Ireland’s membership of ESO provides a cautionary tale. The Irish astronomical community was very happy about the decision to join ESO, but that decision was not accompanied by significant funding to exploit the telescopes. Few astronomers have therefore been able to benefit from ESO membership. While there are other benefits of course, the return to science has been extremely limited. The phrase “to spoil a ship for a ha’porth of tar” springs to mind.

Although Ireland joined ESA almost fifty years ago, the same issue applies there. ESA member countries pay into a mandatory science programme which includes, for example, Euclid. However, the Irish Government did not put any resources on the table to allow full participation in the Euclid Consortium. There is Irish involvement in other ESA projects (such as JWST) but this is somewhat piecemeal. There is no funding programme in Ireland dedicated to the scientific exploitation of ESA projects.

Under current arrangements the best bet in Ireland for funding for ESA, ESO or CERN exploitation is via the European Research Council, but to get a grant from that one has to compete with much better developed communities in those areas.

The recent merger of Science Foundation Ireland and the Irish Research Council to form a single entity called Research Ireland could provide an opportunity to correct this shortfall in funding for science exploitation. The reorganization won’t do anything on its own, however: the overall level of public sector research funding will have to increase dramatically from its current level, well below the OECD average. The recent Budget in Ireland for 2026 does include an allocation of €426 million for research under the National Development Plan, but how much of this will find its way into basic research generally and CERN science in particular?

#BasicScience #Budget2026 #CERN #ESA #ESO #EuropeanSpaceAgency #ParticlePhysics #Science #SciencePolitics

Now I get it. Couldn’t figure out why the current White House occupant and company are so desperate to kneecap scientific research. Good explanation. #repression #science #autocracy #basicscience #appliedscience #research https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/science/trump-science-autocrats.html?unlocked_article_code=1.iU8.FVsN.4GHPs6N0Wtq2&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

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Marta Burgay and Michael Kramer receiving the 𝟚𝟘𝟚𝟝 𝔽𝕣𝕠𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕠𝕗 𝕊𝕔𝕚𝕖𝕟𝕔𝕖 𝔸𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕕 on behalf of all the authors of the Kramer et al. (2021) Double Pulsar paper 👏 🎉 🌟

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The Age of Aquaticus
The #Radiolab team examines the impact of basic research, and then the effect that shutting down agencies of the US government will have not only on basic research but scientific advances that stem from it.
#BasicScience #PureScience #science #NIH #NSF #DNA
https://radiolab.org/podcast/the-age-of-aquaticus

/1 ‘Despair is not an option.’ How scientists can help protect federal research
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00290-1

* U.S. government scientists must be clear-eyed & continue to serve the public

#BasicScience #BasicResearch #epistemology #disease #health #PublicHealth
#NIH #CDC #NSF #academia #universities #OpenScience #FreedomOfSpeech

Mitochondria as you’ve never seen them
https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-025-00269-y/index.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42899168

Comments
me: former mitochondrial (mt) researcher, published
mt difficult to prepare/isolate intact/pure
extraordinary imagery shows why

Yet another "illustration" 😉 of crit imp. of fundamental research

https://www.niehs.nih.gov/research/atniehs/labs/gisbl/pi/mdnar
https://tools.niehs.nih.gov/polg/ --> mt. diseases ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrial_disease

#BasicScience #mitochondria #CellBiology #PolG #disease #BasicResearch #MolecularGenetics #PEO #mtDNA #NIEHS

The #conservative attempt to redefine #sex and #gender is #hubris at an Oedipus Rex level. #Trump may claim he knows #BasicScience, but he certainly doesn't demonstrate it in his rhetoric.

https://purpl.pw/trumphubris

#IdentifyYourself #trans #transgender #lgbtq #GenderIdentity #ScienceOfIdentity

Here are my summary thoughts, from a physics perspective:

The big finding about microRNA was its major role in gene regulation. Plenty of ways to regulate genes were known... but microRNA was found to be a dominant means.

To me, this is akin to the discovery that dark matter is 85% of the matter in the universe. We had SUCH a good understanding of normal matter, via the Standard Model, from the 1970s through the late 1990s. Then you find out normal matter is a small player.

#basicscience

At the #AACR23 Opening Ceremony, Dr. Lisa Coussens shared the importance of #basicscience for #CancerResearch.

Photo of Dr. Lisa Coussens at the AACR 2023 Opening Ceremony.

Arguing the world is a hologram is like asking why people behave like the sims. You're missing the point that the sims are simulations, not people. Holograms are like the universe, they are not the universe. Simply because we live in a universe with possibly more than four dimensions does not entail a computer made them; our models we develop simply have isomorphism to the universe. They are never 1:1 recreations. #universeisnotahologram #modelsaremodels #BasicScience #knowyouraxioms