FABBS reports on items of interest to many communities – scientists, policymakers, and the public. In our news, you will see updates on science funding and policy, articles that translate research for policy, and descriptions of the research contributions of scientists at all stages of their research careers.
House Committee Flat Funds NSF Research in FY 2018; Senate Committee Cuts NSF Research Funding
July 27, 2017
House Appropriators have been busy, reporting out all twelve appropriations bills for consideration on the House floor. The spending allocations (known as “302b’s”) for most of the twelve bills were reduced, meaning that a number of agencies and programs included in the twelve bills would be cut.
The Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) bill (which funds the National Science Foundation, NASA, Department of Justice and other agencies) was no different, receiving $2.7
read moreHouse Committee Moves to Increase Funding for NIH, Flat-Funds IES in Fiscal Year 2018
July 27, 2017
The House Appropriations Committee reported favorably the Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill. The bill recommends funding for key agencies including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) within the Department of Education. The bill, which passed the committee on July 19 on a party line vote, is now ready for floor consideration by the full U.S. House of Representatives.
NIH
read moreWhat We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us: Toxic Chemicals, Science, and Policy
June 21st, 2017
Environmental protection is the subject of heated debate these days. In February of this year, President Trump signed an executive order to roll back the clean water rule, which limits corporations’ ability to pollute about 60% of U.S. waterways. The irony is that we know more than ever before about how toxic chemicals adversely affect people, and we can be certain that what we don’t yet know can hurt us. Scientific research on potential chemical contaminants is both
read moreFABBS Honors Brian MacWhinney
June 21st, 2017
Brian MacWhinney obtained his PhD in psycholinguistics at the University of California, Berkeley in 1974, working under the direction of Susan Ervin-Tripp and Dan Slobin. In his dissertation, titled How Hungarian Children Learn to Speak, MacWhinney focused on children’s acquisition of complex morphological rules for plural formation. This represented the first in a long line of studies that aimed to provide a comprehensive account of grammatical development applicable to
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