Golden Goose Awards honor "silly" science
(LiveScience) Science that's seemingly silly -- but is actually significant -- received some enchanted recognition recently. Discoveries involving glowing jellyfish, radiation waves and tropical coral have garnered the first Golden Goose Awards Thursday (Sept. 13) night.
"We've all seen reports that ridicule odd-sounding research projects as examples of government waste," said Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tenn.), who had the original idea for the award. "The Golden Goose Award does the opposite. It recognizes that a valuable federally funded research project may sound funny, but its purpose is no laughing matter." Cooper originally came up with the idea to educate the public and Congress on the value of federally funded basic scientific research.
<snip>
One Golden Egg Award went to a team of four scientists from different fields who came up with an ideal bone-graft material from a coral discovered in the South Pacific Ocean. In the early 1970s, three Penn State scientists, Rodney White, Della Roy, and the late Jon Weber, along with scientist Eugene White, discovered the coral had the same porous, mazelike microstructure as human bone, a structure that may foster natural tissue growth on its branches.
The team used the coral's structure as a model for creating a ceramic prosthetic with intricate porosity rivaling human bone. They also used a pressure-cooking technique to give the actual coral chemical and mechanical properties of human bone; the resulting structures, which could be used as hardware for low-stress bone and joint repairs, would likely eliminate any chances of rejection by the body. Funding for the project came from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
The discovery of a jellyfish protein that glows light green in daylight and fluorescent green under ultraviolet light has led to a trove of medical advances -- and a Golden Goose Award. Turns out, the green-glowing jellyfish protein, called GFP, can be connected to gene switches or genes, allowing scientists to observe chemical reactions happening inside cells. The trio of scientistsresponsible for the protein isolation and following GFP discoveries is made up of Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NIH. [10 Wackiest Animal Discoveries]
<snip>
more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57513283/golden-goose-awards-honor-silly-science/
Everybody should be made aware of this. It drives me crazy when Congresscritters ridicule studies just because of their title. Some studies are wasteful, but you have to look at what the potential new ideas that could be found. This is what gives you a better idea.
Some studies still don't appear to have a useful end, but funding them is still important. The US has been falling behind in basic scientific research for years. You can't skip steps and jump straight to wondrous results. You have to allow time for people to build from those basic steps.
I worked with scientists at Quantico in the '80s, and funding on basic research was being cut even then. Most of our dollars appear to be going to military or security research. We will soon have the most cutting edge items and ideas protecting people whose standard of living has dropped into the subsistence category.
= new reply since forum marked as read
