As Katie Worth of Slate reports, those are just some of the advances that were made when the government started pumping megabucks into science while trying to reverse an economic downturn at the beginning of 2009.
Of the $800 billion in stimulus funds, one third of it tried to create jobs and invest in infrastructure and innovation by funding shovel-ready projects - or in the case of science, microscope-ready projects. This led The National Science Foundation to the purchase of a long-wanted Arctic research vessel. NASA spent around $160 million designing a next-generation crewed space shuttle. Close to every research university in America scored new lab equipment. The cancer genome was expanded and electric cars were improved.
For all the scientific projects that lacked validation, there were others that would benefit the country in the long run: The world's largest photovoltaic solar plant and wind farm were financed. Research tested new treatment strategies for Alzheimer's disease.
All of the stimulus grant money had to be spent by Sept. 30, and any unspent money had to be returned to the government. Of course there were a handful of exceptions.
So now that the stimulus money has been put to use, the question remains: Did it stimulate? If you ask the government, they'll say yes. The main goal of the stimulus was to create jobs and it certainly did that.
The stimulus also silently spurred advances in science and healthcare. The agencies and organizations that received and dished out the funds say that the results speak for themselves. The National Institutes for Health (NIH), for example, received more than $10 billion and developed new strategies for the treatment of alcoholism, better approaches to fight childhood obesity and a new national database for autism research just to name a few. Even better, the stimulus money and extra projects created more jobs within NIH.
Though it's up for speculation, it's important to note that had the projects not been funded by the government through the stimulus, it's possible they wouldn't have been funded for quite a while.
To check out some of the projects that angered conservatives (like the measuring of duck genitalia, a study on how men feel about condoms and a different study that gave cocaine to monkeys) check out Worth's full report. Here you can also find commentary from experts and other projects that advanced the science realm.
