Big Money For Big Science

By Author: an ward
Total Articles: 9
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U.S. SCIENTISTS whose research fundsare in limbo every time Congress is late inpassing a budget may want to move to Europe, especially if their areas of research arethe human brain or grapheme. Last week, the European Commission selected two Europe-wide initiatives—“Grapheme” and “The Human Brain Project” (HBP)—thatwill each receive sustained funding ofaround 1 billion euros disbursedover a period of 10 years.

For comparison, the Manhattan Project, the U.S. effort to produce the first atomicbomb, cost a total of $2 billion from inception to completion (1939–46). Building the Large HadronCollider, near Geneva, Acetic Acid. Last summer, theparticle accelerator verified the elusive subatomicparticle responsible for mass, aka theHiggs boson. Clearly the European awardslast week are on the scale of big science.

Since their discovery, the single-anorthic planar sheets of sp2 -bonded carbons called grapheme have captured the imaginationof researchers worldwide. The materialis the thinnest imaginable, C&EN’s MitchJacoby ...
... noted in a story about the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics. The award went to Andre K. Grimond Konstantin S. Novoselov, both of the University of Manchester, in England, fortheir discovery of the material. Grapheme is “exceptionally strong and stiff yet stretchable, exhibits outstanding thermal and electronicproperties, Citric Acid,”according to Jacoby. “As a result … graphemehas quickly become a top choice for advancedcomputing applications, digital displaysand various types of flexible electronics,and advanced composite materials.”

Now, the two Nobel Laureates join “Grapheme,” one of the European Commission’stwo Future & Emerging Technologiesflagship projects. The team consists of 126groups in 17 European countries and is coordinated by Jeri Kina ret, a physics professorate Chalmers University, in Gothenburg, Sweden. It aims to develop graphene-basedbreakthrough technologies for communication, transport, energy, and sensing. Grapheme “will revolutionize multiple industries and create economic growth andnew jobs,” the European Commission says.

HBP, the second flagship, marries neuroscienceand computing technology. It aimsto re-create the human brain in a supercomputerand bring to the model all that isknown about the most complex of humanorgans in hopes of learning its relation tothe mind. The project will develop informatics,simulation, and supercomputingcapabilities to collect data from all over theworld and integrate the data in brain modelsand simulations. “The ultimate goal is toallow neuroscientists to connect the dotsfrom genes, molecules, and cells to humancognition and behavior,” HBP says.

The HBP group consists of 80 researchinstitutions, including some in NorthAmerica and Japan. It will be coordinated by Henry Mark ram, a neuroscience professorate the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne. By incorporating clinical data incomputer models of the brain, the team willstudy the mechanisms of brain diseases andhopes to find ways to diagnose and then curebrain diseases. The team also aims to makenew robots and computing systems basedon the brain’s circuitry, HBP says. “The newsystems will use detailed knowledge of thebrain to address critical problems facingfuture computing technology: energy efficiency,reliability, and the huge difficulties inprogramming very complex systems.”

In the U.S., meanwhile, researchers dependenton federal grants are still uncertainabout their 2013 funding because Congresshas not passed the fiscal 2013 budget. U.S.scientists have long clamored for multiyearfunding of research such as the kind theEuropean Commission awarded last weekto the flagship projects. Recently, the President’sCouncil of Advisors on Science &Technology added to the call for more stablefunding. “Unpredictable budgets causeprofound problems for science,” reported Andrea Widener.“Science at its core is a long-term endeavor.”

Congratulations to those who are part ofthe European flagship projects! For the next10 years, they can concentrate on advancingscience rather than searching for funds.