Discussion on:

What happens to science if Romney wins

It really depends on what the Federal budget situation is. Obama says he likes science, but NSF and NOAA science has been nearly flat-lined (maybe a bit decreased after inflation) under his administration. It was also flat under Bush Senior and increased modestly under Clinton, and "W" after taking hits during the Reagan administration. Therefore, given the perilous state of the economy, I wouldn't bet on any big increases no matter who wins.

and how would be allowed to vote.

People like you voting, is what has already doomed the U.S., and eventually the "earth". (Next time, try the word, "world".

Lets examine Romney Repulican's contributions to congressional Science committees - Todd Akin - who at best is utterly confused about biology, Joe Walsh who thinks no woman was ever saved by abortion - and thus ignores the history of high mortality during childbirth from just a century ago, and my favorite - Paul Broun from Georgia who told his followers recently that "Evolution, embryology and the Big Bang are Lies from the Pit of Hell". Perhaps that explains why he is no longer a Doctor and instead is a Republican House member for the Science and Technology committee. Any wonder why America is having trouble advancing it's technological prowess and investments in fundamental research lay moribund - while Europe discovers the Higgs and China plans a trip to the Moon?

So...you must like Obama's team members and friends, Weather Underground members (Bill Ayers), Van Jones - self avowed communist and the whole raft of others who have dedicated themselves to the destruction of the United States in the past? Fascinating.

Unlike the people you named the ones gigabob named are in Congress or running for Congress.

That may be, but they are subject to election/re-election. The raft of the ones I mentioned are either friends, associates, mentors or politically appointed "czars" who we have no way to elect/re-elect. They're simply there at the president's wishes. As such, they're an extension of the president since they're his choices.

Under Obama, Chu, Immelt the basic research of the DOE's Hydrogen Initiative (funded with $1 Billion by Bush) was gutted in an attempt to force specific technologies, developed by crony companies on the American people.

Now almost every other nation is pursuing hydrogen while failed battery technology car companies litter Wall Street.

Billings Energy had working hydrogen fueled buses, cars and trucks on the road in 1978, funded by DOE. Roger Billings even had better fuel tanks than most current Hydrogen vehicle programs have today. Metal Hydride tanks can store more hydrogen per cubic liter than any cryogenic liquid tank can. The hydrogen is released when heated. Engine exhaust heats the metal fuel tank just fine. If the tank is ruptured, all that results is a sputtering flame, not the explosion you get with cryogenic tanks, nor the huge fire ball of a gasoline tank.

What killed the use of hydrogen then, and now is the cost of getting hydrogen. We live at the bottom of a nitrogen-oxygen atmosphere. Hydrogen burns well with both of those gases, producing ammonia or water. The bonds produced are also quite strong. It takes a lot of energy to separate hydrogen from what is in the air, and it's quite easy to have it then burn with air, and so lose it. Hydrogen is more flammable than gasoline.

That is the only reason we didn't have a hydrogen economy in the late 1970's.

Well, it's been 40 years, and we still don't have any inexpensive way to get large quantities of hydrogen for use as fuel.

I remember hearing the same things in the late 1970's from people who were talking about hydrogen as fuel from the 1930's.

The problems with a hydrogen based energy economy are all related to getting the hydrogen in the first place. That is something that I haven't seen any deliverable systems, just lots of promises that quietly disappear before the pilot plant is ever built.

It isn't the Oil or Gas Companies either. All of them would love to be the Hydrogen Company.

The existing Natural Gas piping systems would handle hydrogen distribution just fine, as Natural gas is a mixture of hydrogen, methane and a few other hydrocarbons, along with a little bit of water vapor and CO2. Natural Gas is already close to half hydrogen.

No new technology needed, just smaller jets on your stove and water heater, and a little different mixer on your car.

It's too bad that hydrogen costs more than 10 times as much as gasoline.

It will turn out just like This Website, TOO MANY Ads and POP UPS

AdBlock Plus and Firefox do a wonderful job of eliminating that irritant (to the Website, not science).

I didn't think that SmartPlanet was an arm of the Obama misadministration. I will be deleting my subscription.

Smart Planet isn't an arm of the Obama Administration. It is an outreach of the European 'Green' movement. Though, there is an element of pro-'Gee Whiz' in there too.

Just as with Al Gore, most of the Gee Whiz stuff doesn't work. 95% of the stuff this site pushes will never happen.

But, that's OK, I know that coming in. as an engineer, I find those articles, such as the undersea hotel, quite amusing.

Keep your politics to yourself.

and jimofil. However, did anyone think that when this site was offered to us that it wouldn't be filled with mostly left-wing propaganda? Every once in awhile, something non-biased slips through and even a lot of the other articles have useful information even if the leftist conclusions need work. I find a lot if it amusing and sometimes infuriating. A lot of the comments expose the authors biases and fallacies so that makes it worthwhile.

I'm not singling out the author of this biased misinformation. She is rather cute, though....

that we need more nano and space technology, not too much corporate ecology.
and BTW - Why the hell there is a political post on a scientific site, and it is Pro Obama?!
I say, Abiogenic Oil!
my personal oppinion is Romney, but I wouldn't do a Pro Romney article on this site,,,
there is a Polish saying - Nie idcie t drog! - don't follow that path!

I come to Smartplanet to learn about science not clap-trap, partisan politics. Shame on you liberal hacks!

Amen to that! Thanks, Janet Fang, for dropping my level of respect for Smartplanet.

I'm relatively new to msart planet and I am surprised at how politically charged some of these articles are. It definitely shows the strain that exists in the entire nation. I must admit I took the opportunity to flame a couple posts I thought were put by complete idiots. I will refrain from doing so here. I'll just say that $10.4 billion to the organizations mentioned in this article should satisfy their need for some years to come. What will science look like under Romney? To be short and to the point. I think we will see more application of science that has not yet made it into the market place.

Obama is a lawyer.
Romney is a businessman.
Neither of them have an inkling about scientific endeavors.
Obama knows how to give your money to his friends.
Romney knows how to give money to his too.
The difference is where it is coming from.
Government sponsored science will suffer under Romney.
(Their incentive is to spend your taxes)
Private enterprise science will benefit under Romney and pay us taxes.
You read this, think, and decide how to vote next month.

While I was somewhat miffed at President Obama cutting funding to NASA and cancelling the Orion program, I'm more frightened of Mitt Romney becoming president because I feel he will do more damage to the already ailing U.S. science effort. NASA already proved that it IS still needed when it landed the Curiosity rover on Mars, and I see Mitt Romney talking about NOT needing such explorations and the subsequent and residual benefits that result from such on going research. NO, private industry getting more INTO space and science projects IS great, BUT becoming exclusively private is wrong. Government and private interests and involvement in such areas should be a 50/50 involvement and NOT the exclusive domain of the other. For me; Romney NO/Obama YES ("REFUND NASA!!!!", but expand private space research as well.)

You listen to too many Political Commercials. The Romney you see in Democrat Party Ads is not even related to the real Mitt Romney. Romney does support Space, and will not ask for any major cuts to NASA. Perhaps SLS, but even there, one of the pushers for that boondoggle is a Republican Senator, so it's probably safe. Romney would like us to go back to the Moon before trying for Mars, but, other than that, Romney and Obama have the same NASA goals and plans.

Of course, the Obama you see in the Republican Political Ads is also not any relation to the real Obama either.

Politics is almost all lies. Especially when talking about the 'Other Guy'. Accept that and don't panic.

Did he think twice when he said "I will not create new embryos through cloning or through embryo farming, because that would be creating life for the purpose of destroying it"?

Because it clashes directly with the idea of sending young soldiers to war, where they will ultimately be killed or maimed, and they were created naturally, not artificially, but maybe for Mr. Romney natural life is less valuable that cloned life.

As Oscar Wilde said: "The best government is no government".

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The Americans keep describing the US president as "the most powerful man in the free world" . With the goings on in the US senate and congress I wonder if the above description is supposed to be taken as a joke or sarcasm! From the looks of it he can't get anything done at all ! So much for the most power man in the world.

With the stupid filibustering system it appears that only way a US president an get anything done is to command 2/3 majority in both houses. A far cry from democracy as I understand. We in India also have voter ID laws. But this is provide to every eligible ( by age) citizen on India at government's expense and at their doorstep, without anyone having to travel a long distance. US government does does provide so called unique social security number to each individual. All that one needs to do is link it to the national database for verifying their nationality. Franchise should be a fundamental right not something one has to make special effort to register and claim.

In spite of all the malpractices we in India enjoy a far more lively and and functional democracy than the US.

We are a "representative republic". In fact, the founders argued against a direct democracy. In fact, no where in the Constitution can it be found that we even have any right to vote for President. In fact. we didn't even get to vote for senators until 1913. They were appointed by the states. Talk of "democracy" in America didn't really appear in public discourse until the early 1900s.

to the state legislatures appointing Senators. It gave the states representation in Congress. The Founding Fathers were far wiser than many give them credit for.

You are under a few misunderstandings.

Filibustering is a rule in the US Senate only. Basically, it means that once a Senator starts talking in the Senate, you can't stop him/her, until they are done. The only exception for that is if two thirds of the other Senators agree that the one talking is wasting their time. It is used sometimes as a delaying tactic. But, actual use of a Filibuster is rare. Also, the person or persons talking can't stop talking, or they lose the floor.

The problem in the US Senate right now, is that the majority Leader won't allow anything to be scheduled for discussion. That does happen in India too.

For voters in the United States, and Voter ID laws, the voter identification is by State, not by the Federal Government. Each State can pick a different way of identifying people. The objections you talk about are nearly all false. They only want to delay past this election, as one party has a history of having dead people voting in large blocks.

In the State I live in, the State indicates citizenship status on the Drivers License. You have to show your Drivers License to vote. Some people don't have a Drivers License. Those people can get a non-Drivers License photographic Identification Card with the same information. Those licenses can be gotten in most cities, and in every county, usually less than a half hour away from anyone. There are judges who depend on political favoritism for any hope of advancement. Those judges are saying that it is unfair to make anyone prove who they are. There is a political party in this country with a saying "Vote Early, Vote Often". That saying comes from Mr. Obama's home town. Investigation has shown that over 100,000 people cast votes in Indiana, a few miles from Chicago, who were not legal residents. Most were dead people, whose names were used by someone else for a false vote. Obama won in Indiana by less than 30,000 votes. Without Indiana, McCain would now be President, according to some people.

That is what is driving the Voter Registration Laws. In the United States, people move about freely from place to place. So, there are many people in an area who may not be legally Citizens there. That includes migrant workers from other countries, who retain Citizenship in those countries, and people who are only temporarily in a State, but who keep their legal address in another State, where they vote.

No one should be able to vote more than once in any single election.

Please don't come here. We wouldn't want you to be miserable in our dull and dysfunctional REPUBLIC. I suggest you read YetAnotherBob's reply to your fallacies.

Unlike in India, the US founding fathers designed a system to prevent 1 party rule and force cooperation among elected officials.

It was designed to prevent mob rule.

It was designed to grind to a halt if the dominating party, in this case democrats since 2008, tried to force its will on the nation.

It has worked beautifully.

The most obvious display of the system at work was the Clinton administration. He came in aggressively like Obama and got his butt handed to him on his health care bill. In the midterm elections the democrats got their butts handed to them.

Clinton wisely moved his attitude to the political center and successfully passed a bipartisan welfare reform bill. He went on to win a second term in spite of his, lets say, human failings.

After a hell of a fight to get his healthcare law and the democrats losing badly in the midterms, Obama did the exact opposite. He grew more combative and more demanding. With republicans and more importantly with his own party members.

He was so bad he could not take care of the one core duty of the president. To set and pass government a budget. He could not even do it when democrats controlled both houses. His own party revolted against him. His last budget attempt did not get a single democrat vote in either the House or the Senate.

Not one budget passed in 4 years. The US system demands leadership. Obama failed.

....that this article would say something about science in general, not a list fashionable opinions that the San Fran set wants government gravy for.