Podcast: American Science Struggles through Budget Cuts

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In this NPR podcast, Tom Ashbrook looks at how the sequester and budget cuts are affecting American science and research.

American leadership in science has been a given for most of the last century. About a third of science research and development in this country has been supported by the federal government. Funding for about 60 percent of basic research in science comes from Washington. We’ve celebrated the results, from moon shots to the Internet. Now Washington’s cutting back, and it’s hitting American science — just when competitor nations are plowing more cash into the science frontier.

  • Alexandra Witze, correspondent for Nature
  • Paul Alivisatos, director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He’s also a professor of chemistry and materials science at the University of California Berkeley
  • Ann Bonham, chief scientific officer at the Association of American Medical Colleges and professor of pharmacology and internal medicine at the University of California Davis
  • Barney Keller, communications director of the Club for Growth, a 501(c)(4) organization that promotes reining in government spending