We just read this great piece from the Huffington Post by Todd Palmer and Rob Pringle on why including funds for NSF and NIH in the stimulus bill was a good idea (thanks to Ecotone for pointing us to the article). The great thing about the piece is that it doesn’t just make a cogent argument for the stimulus funds, but for why funding basic science is economically beneficial in general.

On Friday night we went down to London to see the final night of the English National Opera’s run of Doctor Atomic, the new opera from John Adams with a libretto by Peter Sellars. The opera focuses on the days and hours leading up to first test firing of an atomic bomb at the Trinity site on 15 July 1945.

Greg Wilson and others are running a survey on how scientists’ perception of and use of software is changing.

Mauro Cavalcanti brought Chris Anderson's The End of Theory article in Wired to my attention, part of the July issue on "The End of Science". Of course, the end of science is hyperbole of the highest order (as, indeed, is the "end of theory"). It is also ironic that in the same issue Wired confess to having gotten 5 predictions of the death of something hopelessly wrong (including web browsers and online music swapping, no less). However, I