The Molecular Ecologist

I’ve been talking myself into and out of writing this post since the 12^th day of the government shutdown.  It temporarily ended after a record breaking 35 days.  My delay has partly to do with procrastination (because of course), but also was impossible to predict when the legislature would actually mobilize to open the government, then prevent the next one.  The results were that the negotiations went down to the wire, again, (which is incredibly disruptive and harrowing for government scientists) and, bewilderingly, there is increased funding for a select few science-related activities in the continuing resolution… along with a national emergency.  

There’s an emergency all right, but it’s not a groundswell of immigrants clambering across bulldozed butterfly sanctuaries in southern Texas.  It’s the negligent if not disdainful regard for the role of basic research in government agencies and the role of science in informing policy decisions by the very leaders appointed to uphold the missions of those agencies. This “partial” shutdown affected only about 25% of the government, but disproportionately affected science agencies such as the Department of the Interior that houses the USGS, the National Park Service, and the  Bureau of Land Management; the Department of Commerce that houses NOAA and the National Marine Fisheries Service; The Department of Agriculture, the EPA, and of course, the National Science Foundation. Noticeably absent from the list of science agencies impacted were the CDC and the NIH – those focused on human health.  Others that predict where earthquakes and hurricanes will hit and if volcanos will erupt weren’t funded, but were deemed essential and so worked without pay through the furlough. But those that work on the natural world outside of human health?  Those that work at the world class Smithsonian museums or Water Science Centers and study invertebrates, early hominid evolution, or fish disease and taxonomy? Not funded and not essential. However, it is inherently valuable and worthwhile to study our natural world.  Even if we can’t grind it up and cure cancer with it.  I worry about the fate of this basic research.

Michelle Curtis wrote this post as a final project for Stacy Krueger-Hadfield’s Conservation Genetics course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In pursuit of her life-long passion for learning about the ocean, Michelle earned a BS in Marine Science from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and a MS in Marine Biology from the Florida Institute of Technology. She is currently working towards her PhD in Dr. Jim McClintock’s lab where she is investigating how sea stars from the northern Gulf of Mexico might be impacted by ocean warming. Michelle tweets at @CurtisMichelleD.

What do an octopus, a Chewbacca action figure, and a notorious party drug have in common?

They were all key components in an experiment that helped researchers uncover the evolutionary conservation of the neurotransmitter systems guiding social behavior in octopuses and humans.