It -isn't- real.

Not until they're actually being produced.

So yes, this is vaporware (at least for now)

What business does the site 'director of social media' have in tracking anonymous posters by their IP and reporting them? Even if he was posting it from a school IP, that's an issue for the IT director at the school itself to handle -- not some nosy, nitpicking newspaper site manager. The guy is a moron for using a work computer, but at best he's due for a warning or something. It wasn't child porn or anything like that.

Frankly, I think the idiot who reported him needs to be fired for being a total tool.

And the sort of misunderstanding perpetuated by the OP is exactly why I'm of a duality when it comes to making the underpinnings of scientific funding and research available to the general public.

It's not that I think people shouldn't have access to and be able to find out where their tax dollars go (I pay them too!), but it's all too easy for someone not in the hard sciences to look at what's going on and say, 'Where's my output?' or, 'Why are they studying cannabis. Isn't that illegal?'

Having said that, the way we go about funding science is a real mess. Peer reviewed grant proposals may be the best method we have right now, but it certainly could be better. Never mind the infighting, petty bickering and constantly-shifting requirements from both the university's research foundation (at least in my case) and the granting institutions (NIH).

You scientists will know what I'm talking about...

That's absolutely true. In my particular example, we re-submitted a grant that had already been rejected (after making the requisite changes, of course). I expect that happened quite a lot, since the alternative was writing a whole new proposal in a very short span of time.

That's not to say that none of the things proposed weren't fundable-quality, but more that the recovery act funds aren't going to say, make new jobs. Technicians who are already hired will stay hired, postdocs like myself will get another year or two of funding, and so on. One surge of extra funds into the research establishment isn't going to do anything in terms of increase our scientific output (but I get the feeling you know that).

It's important to note that this stimulus funding (they're also called 'Recovery Act' grants) were under a very short submission cycle.

Essentially, we only had a few months to prepare and submit a proposal to get funded, which isn't a lot of time -- unless you already had a proposal ready (or nearly ready) in the wings. What this means in a practical sense is that a lot of what the stimulus funds would have ended up going to is work that's in-progress, or stuff that larger labs want to do as pilot projects.

Also: someone in here suggested shorter-term studies. That's not how real science is done. We try to encapsulate some specific aims in the grant time-frame, but what really happens fundamentally is that we end up using the grant funds to answer enough questions that we can go and apply for another grant.

It's a much-less cohesive and efficient system than many people realize.

Probably too late for that. Sigh :(

(Disclaimer: I am a scientist, so this isn't anecdotal)

Mod my parent up. This is -precisely- true. The idea that we test a hypothesis and refine it based on experimental outcomes is utter BS. In all but the most -basic- of processes, there simply is no way to account for all possible results of testing a system; this is further compounded in my field, where an 'in vitro' experiment may yield different results than one 'in vivo'. To make matters worse, those 'in vitro' experiments may in fact yield different results in /different cell types/, given all other conditions being precisely the same.

Without going into too much detail, the real nature of science is that we already have a fairly good idea of what we -want- to happen before we begin testing. I may have a vague theory about the experiments will come out, but more often than not we end up writing the theory to fit the facts around the time the data is published, in such a way that it fits the data we've collected, even though that final theory may not have any relation to the initial expectations.

Some of this is also attributable to the funding system (at least in the US). Submission of a grant (money to do experiments) requires that you already have (preliminary) information, and a fairly tight and detailed set of theories to explain how what you propose to do will result in a conclusion, as well as what those conclusions will be. Essentially, you need to present some data in order to get funding to obtain data. Give too much preliminary research, and you won't have enough theory and interesting suggestions to get funding, but if you don't have enough research done (how you do this without money is a nice conundrum), you won't get funding.

In practice, this often means researchers with no active funding will dust off old unpublished work, and write theories around it, in order to talk the NIH into paying out money so real work can get done (since once you're funded, you can really do whatever research you want -- especially if we're not talking about a renewable grant).

So it's really a messed up system all around, but the scientific method as you know it has virtually no role in it either way.

.... an idiot tax on us for electing these complete and utter morons to positions of power.

Play the Repub/Dem line all you want - we the people are to blame for electing them in the first place.

Whenever things like this happen, we all go 'ohh, that was a mistake. Should we not have done that?', then come election-time, we vote the same old sleaze into office.

Well, once again - we reap what we sow.

THIS.

Thank you. This myth that HFCS is somehow -different- than sugar in terms of metabolism is utter nonsense.

Truth of the matter is that HFCS is just a stupidly cheap way for super-processed food to taste sweet.

I mean, really.. does bread need HFCS in it? Really now. No, but it does make the hyper-processed mostly nutritionless bread-like product taste better, so we'll buy it.

Yuck.

I don't think so. Whoever it is is holding a chair over their head and he looks angry. ...

Do not feed the trolls.

In a world where you can be (relatively) famous for the ability to eat more hot dogs in five minutes than anyone else in the world, I can't see how gaming is all that bad.

(Why not combine the two? Oh, wait. There's already a competitive eating video game. Holy crap, I think I might just explode.)

Note I said 'when you uninstall the application'.

I didn't feel it was necessary to point out the entire process, merely the portion TFA was referring to.

Also, in reference to another comment here - I'm fairly certain if you choose 'no thanks', it just isn't rated -- that doesn't result in a one star rate.

Does he own an iPhone/iTouch?

When you uninstall the application, there's a large button right below the stars that says 'NO THANKS'.

It's very clear, and .. oh, useful -- when you uninstall an application but don't feel like rating it.

Maybe his eyes are broken.