Funding Space Exploration: Benefits Beyond Space

Shaelyn Silverman shares her ethics & society case study, which she completed as part of our Young Scientist Program. On July 20, 1969, a surge of national pride rippled through the entire nation when Neil Armstrong uttered what has become one of the most famous and beloved phrases in the history of the United States: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” [1]. Armstrong had just become the first human to set foot on our moon […]

September 20, 2016

Prioritization in Funding Among Competing Projects

Selen Çetin shares her ethics & society case study, which she completed as part of our Young Scientist Program. Given a fixed amount of funding and a series of problems to solve that are related to our future life as human beings; such as the need to explore space, millions of cancer patients awaiting to get cured, or billions of people that cannot afford getting a proper education, suffering from poverty. Which one of them should be of top priority? […]

August 4, 2014

#NoPricks Campaign by Prometheon Pharma

Prometheon Pharma is a startup biotechnology company founded by BMSIS research scientist Dr. Steve Hsu (MD/PhD), and the company launched its international Indiegogo #NoPricks campaign (July 28-Sept 8) to eliminate painful needle injections for insulin, growth hormone, other injectable drugs, as well as vaccines. Prometheon is developing simple, convenient, 7-day, and biodegradable needle-free drug patches that do not need refrigeration. The company is raising funds to support costly studies that will allow it to obtain approval to begin human clinical […]

July 13, 2014

Podcast: Are science appropriations appropriate?

Our “Beer with BMSIS” podcast for April features a conversation with our own Dr. Jeff Bowman titled “Dispatch from the AAAS-CAS workshop: How a bill becomes a law, what you can do about it, and are science appropriations appropriate?“. Science today is characterized by uncertain funding cycles that largely are dependent on government support, and many scientists–including professors at large state universities–will receive only partial salary at one (or many) points in their career due to a lack of available […]

April 13, 2014

BlueSciCon Episode 28: Dispatch from the AAAS-CAS workshop: How a bill becomes a law, what you can do about it, and are science appropriations appropriate?

Dr. Jeff Bowman Beverage: Third Shift Amber Lager (United States – Texas) Handout: [click here] Listen: [mp3 download] [ca_audio url=”http://beerwith.bmsis.org/BwBMSIS_28_APR2014.mp3″ width=”500″ height=”27″ css_class=”codeart-google-mp3-player”]

February 24, 2014

Astronomy Magazine: A new funding method for SETI?

Astronomy Magazine’s blog features a story about the SETI Lottery Bond devised by BMSIS research scientist Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra. Although this idea may be a long way from implementation, novel sources of funding will ultimately be needed if SETI is to conduct the long-term search required for its success. Written by Suzanne Jacobs, a graduate student in the MIT science writing program, the article examines the SETI Lottery Bond idea from a variety of perspectives in hopes that SETI will […]

December 2, 2013

Pubs: Funding SETI with a Lottery Bond

A new paper led by Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra proposes lottery bonds as a mechanism for funding science research by appealing to investors, rather than donors. The paper is titled “Funding the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence with a Lottery Bond” and has been submitted for publication to Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. In a new episode of our podcast series “Pubs with BMSIS”, join Brendan Mullen in a conversation with Dr. Haqq-Misra about this new proposed method of funding SETI. […]