There is a bill circulating in the House of Representatives, sponsored by Lamar Smith of Texas, that aims to give Congress the power of oversight over government grants for scientific research. Grants from the National Science Foundation are given out to basic research projects based on their scientific merit, as determined by a system of peer review. Lamar Smith's legislature hopes to "improve" science funding (= reduce government spending) with this proposal:
The President's BRAIN Initiative
At three pounds, 100 billion cells, 10,000 as many connections, the human brain makes Facebook look like child’s play of a network, not without reason: our brains are solely responsible for our every thought, emotion and action. The human brain is the most complicated machine in the known universe. It is fitting then, that President Obama announced this week that the state of our knowledge of brain function is in a sort of swamp despite tremendous progress in the past century, and it is time to pave our way out in an effort to solve how the brain functions.