Funding researchers, not research

I just spent ten minutes-- way too much time-- searching for a story I heard yesterday. I listen to NPR in the car, and on my way home I heard a great story about scientists... well, more on that later.

I searched NPR.org for every keyword I could think of, to no result. Science, scientist, fund, grant, Hughes, and combinations thereof. I even searched "600 million," which I remembered being a stat in the story. Nothing.

Then I realized that the story might have been on a program that doesn't live on the NPR site. I know it wasn't local news, so no WVXU... but what other program would it have been on? Let's see, I was probably rolling in around 6:30... ahh. Marketplace.

Sure enough, Marketplace has its own little site that isn't indexed on the NPR site and that I wasn't aware of. And the story, while essentially about money, didn't strike me as a Kai Rissdoll story.

Blech. Was there a better way to do this (without this thing)? A hundred keywords and ten minutes later, I finally found the story that I wanted to share with you: Funding researchers, not research

I am really interested in the idea of paying scientists to follow their passions, without so much micromanagement. I guess to me it feels like these hours I spend writing up blog entries about the things that I'm interested in, which in turn makes me smarter, more innovative, more aware and better at my job.

Naturally, I hope that these scientists make the kind of whirlwind discoveries that makes this bankrolling a regular practice. How can we not benefit from making science a highly desirable field to be in?