In 2013 alone, NIH, the primary federal spigot for projects impacting human health, will be forced to cut $1.7 billion from its budget. Government agencies across the board are making similar reductions in their research budgets as well. The length of some grants have been shortened, while others have decreased in size and still others have been eliminated altogether. Though they aren’t supposed to do so, university officials have begun siphoning money from funded projects to those feeling the pinch, in hopes that if they hang on long enough, help will eventually come.

 

At the University of Virginia, hopes are wearing thin. After our first phone interview in July, Dutta ended the conversation with thanks. “I appreciate you doing this story because we need your help, buddy,” he said. “We are in deep shit.”

via Sequestration Ushers In A Dark Age For Science In America.

And while the Republicans cheer blind “spending cuts”, they also lament any slippage in the U.S.’s technical and scientific rate of achievement….never putting two and two together.