Some Good News

Howard Hughes Medical Institute has spent $500,000,000 building a pure reserach laboratory in Virginia. The lab will be modeled on the old Bell Labs, which produced the transistor, and the Cambridge, England Lab, of double helix fame: no expectations of an immediate payoff, no teaching duties, no administrative duties, no grant writing, no pressure to meet quarterly milestones, a collaborative environment of small groups spending their time doing basic research. Sounds idyllic. If it works, look for Nobel Prizes ten - twenty years hence and, more importantly, some giant scientific advances to make this world a better place.