[Interested in this topic? At the bottom of this post you can find more resources on the intersection of politics, big business, and the public's perception of science.]

Try Nerdy is intended as a completely apolitical blog, but it turns out that politicians sometimes speak out on nerdy topics; the most well-known of these instances happen to involve members of the Republican party. I am not here to critique the political strategy of politicians putting down pet projects, but instead I hope to tell you what you need to know to be able to decide for yourself whether those projects represent government money well-spent, or not.

“You’ve heard about some of these pet projects, they really don’t make a whole lot of sense and sometimes these dollars go to projects that have little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France. I kid you not.” (Emphasis mine)

So said Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on October 24, 2008, in a speech about running mate John McCain’s policies on children with disabilities:

Palin was most likely referring to research about the olive fruit fly, which has wiped out tons of olive trees across Europe and is now a serious threat to California’s olive trees, an industry worth $66 million per year in a state with many recent bankruptcy issues. The flies were probably introduced accidentally by some French import to the state, so in 2008 California Representative Mike Thompson (D) earmarked $200,000+ dollars to study the fly in France. The idea was to research ways to stop the olive fruit fly from destroying the olive tree economy in California, and to study the fly in a location that had many more years of experience with the pest: the place from which the flies most likely came in the first place.

“233 million for a bridge to nowhere. Outrageous… Three million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Unbelievable… A million dollars for a Woodstock Museum—in a bill sponsored by Hillary Clinton. Predictable… Who has the guts to stand up to wasteful government spending? One man. John McCain.”(Emphasis mine)

Senator John McCain (R) made several statements similar to these in speeches during his 2008 presidential campaign. This quote in particular was taken from one of McCain’s 2008 campaign ads, an admittedly poor quality version of which is here:

(Although the figure for the bear research was probably more like $5 million.) McCain was taking a shot at the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project, which is concerned with preserving the grizzly bear population. The project is based specifically in Northwest Montana, which is one out of six recovery zones for grizzlies, which are currently on the endangered species list.  One aspect of the project is to strategically place barbed wire in the Northwest Montana area to snag bear hairs that can be recovered later for DNA extraction. Sequencing this DNA can provide information about how many bears are in which parts of the region and what the male-to-female ratio is – important information for maintaining the grizzly bear species, which may or may not be McCain’s top priority.

“This year, they sprinkled in $2.5 million for potato pest management and research, $1.4 million to study mosquito trapping in Florida, and $800,000 for catfish genome mapping in Alabama. Taxpayers have been on the hook for this fishy earmark since 2001, for a total of $3.4 million.”(Emphasis mine)

Although not a politician, CBS News’ congressional correspondent Nancy Cordes had some tough words for government funding of several research projects in a piece she wrote last year: “Earmarks: Who Brought Home the Bacon?” Although the “potato pest management” is probably a story similar to the olive fruit fly problem and the “mosquito trapping in Florida” is most likely an attempt to curb mosquito-borne illnesses, it’s not immediately obvious what mapping the catfish genome would be good for (in Alabama or elsewhere). As it turns out, Alabama is the second biggest producer of fish by farming in the U.S., and catfish pull in $100 million to Alabama farmers and $125 million to Alabama processors annually. The earmarked project she mentions would map genes in the catfish genome that contribute to disease susceptibility, growth rate, and intelligence — then, hybrid fish could be bred to be healthier, grow faster, and be dumber (smart fish are harder to catch). The monetary benefits as a result of this project would potentially be substantial for Alabama fish farmers, who in the U.S. are considered part of the “heart of our country,” (as are olive tree farmers and potato farmers). Not to mention, the hybrid fish model could possibly be adapted to other areas of fish farming.

These brief stories only scratch the surface of how the interactions between politics and science can play out on the public stage. If you found this article at all enlightening, I suggest you check out these books that delve much deeper into these topics — do your research!
 
“Does the Bush administration ignore or deny mainstream research to please its conservative base? Have business groups and certain religious lobbies helped it do so? Does Bush-era treatment of scientists differ from that of Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Reagan? Has a Republican Congress passed laws designed to disable clean air and water efforts, and has it dismantled safeguards, such as the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, meant to give legislators unbiased advice? Mooney’s passionate, thoroughly researched volume answers these questions with an urgent “yes.”"

“For those who think of science as an honest and objective broker in policy making, this volume paints a very different picture, and it’s not pretty. But it’s the ugly side of the regulatory process, where scientific research is often distorted to serve questionable ends, that badly needs greater exposure. This book is an eye-opener that not only documents the problems, but also takes great pains to make sensible proposals for reform that merit serious consideration.”

“Drawing together a host of little-known but dramatic cases, this landmark book documents more comprehensively than any previous study, what has been suspected for years: how extensively scientific data are misused and abused in regulatory and tort law. Society depends on science to guide public policy on health and safety, but as McGarity and Wagner show, many interest groups do all they can to influence –and undermine– independent and honest research. Bending Science shows just how far science has been corrupted, and offers a road to reform.”

“We live in an age of unprecedented disinformation, misinformation, and outright lying by those in power. This important book shows who profits by misleading the public-and who ultimately pays with their health.”

“For the past fifty years, science and technology supported with billions of dollars from the U.S. government have advanced at a rate that would once have seemed miraculous, while society’s problems have grown more intractable, complex, and diverse. Yet scientists and politicians alike continue to prescribe more science and more technology to cure such afflictions as global climate change, natural resource depletion, overpopulation…. Daniel Sarewitz scrutinizes the fundamental myths that have guided the formulation of science policy for half a century…but often fail to advance the interests of society as a whole.”

“University science is now entangled with entrepreneurship, and researchers with a commercial interest are caught in an ethical quandary. Science in the Private Interest investigates the trends and effects of modern, commercialized academic science.”
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lu J, Peatman E, Yang Q, Wang S, Hu Z, Reecy J, Kucuktas H, & Liu Z (2011). The catfish genome database cBARBEL: an informatic platform for genome biology of ictalurid catfish. Nucleic acids research, 39 (Database issue) PMID: 20935046

One of the first thoughts I had for Try Nerdy when I first started out was, “I really want the average non-scientist to understand why research costs so much,” and I originally planned to gradually incorporate that kind of information into my posts about research. I now realize, however, that this topic is definitely worthy of its own post, and would benefit from the direct approach. So, without further preamble, reasons why research is expensive:

1. Salaries/Stipends — Let’s say a “medium-sized” lab has something like 12 members: 4 graduate students and 8 post-docs*. In research, graduate students typically receive a stipend above tuition coverage, and this stipend is usually in the neighborhood of $20-30,000 per year, depending on the graduate program (more competitive programs tend to give larger stipends). Post-docs commonly have salaries of $35-45,000. Using the averages of these pay ranges, I calculate that this hypothetical lab is spending $420,000 per year to compensate its scientists.

2. Equipment — I cannot emphasize enough how expensive research equipment is. I remember when I first got started in research and I casually asked my mentor about the cost of the microscope we were using, expecting it might be similar to a sweet 40-inch Samsung TV, but she replied, “Oh, it’s maybe about the same as a small car.” We were probably using a microscope like this:

And it was probably accompanied by a camera and software like this:

So let’s say our hypothetical medium-size lab has two of these – that’s about $55,000 (my mentor was right about the small car comparison).

Another standard bit of lab equipment is a PCR machine, used to amplify small amounts of DNA into larger amounts. A good PCR system can fall in the range of $25-35,000 (or more), so let’s split the difference and say $30,000.

The lab will need to store sensitive materials at cold temperatures so that they don’t degrade; let’s be conservative and say this lab only has three of these (just 5 cubic feet each) for its twelve members:

And for long-term storage of things, like cells and tissues, for example — one of these:

That adds up to about $19,000 to keep stuff cold.

I could certainly go on with many more standard items that would fall under “equipment,” but for the sake of time I’ll move on to the next research lab expense:

3. Animal care — To compensate an animal care technician and cover the cost of  supplies (food, bedding, cleaning, etc.), the world-renowned cancer center and research mice provider The Jackson Laboratory estimates that mouse cages cost $550/cage/year. Again I will be conservative and say that this lab will need 100 mice between the twelve scientists (probably an underestimate). Each cage typically houses two mice; with 50 cages for the 100 mice, this lab shells out $27,500 per year to maintain mice. The cost of maintaining zebrafish, a research animal rising in popularity, is substantially lower per animal, but maintenance cost estimates are more elusive for fish, so I will leave in the mouse-based estimate.

4. Reagents — “Reagents” can mean a ton of things. A crude and incomplete definition would be to say that reagents are all of the liquids and powders that scientists use in their experiments, and every lab has a very large number of reagents. Some are expensive and some are not, so it is almost impossible to put an estimate on the total cost of lab reagents. While I feel confident that this cost would have to exceed $30,000 or even $50,000 (and exceed by quite a factor), my guess would be somewhat arbitrary, so I won’t include a specific number for reagents in this expense list.

5. Travel — The last thing I’ll mention is based on the oft-forgotten fact that, in science, information is essentially our only currency. I’ll say that again: information is the currency of scientific research. This means that conferences, at which scientists in a particular field will come together and share information, are extremely important to attend. Collaborations are made, invaluable suggestions are given, and connections are formed that can shape entire careers. That said, a lab will often foot the bill when members go to the occasional conference. This is another variable cost because conferences can be in your own town or halfway across the world. But again I’ll throw out a frugal number (maybe these hypothetical lab members stay at the Motel 6) of $500 for airfare and two nights’ stay at a conference, and maybe only three lab members go to one for the year: $1,500.

That’s $553,000 for one lab, for one year. A mid-size lab of 12 people. An estimate in which I’ve really only accounted for the several things that immediately came to my mind, when total expenses could easily be twice this number with everything that I forgot or didn’t mention. In any case, I hope this has at least given you a sense of what some of the expenses are in research and how easily they can add up. Maybe now you have a new appreciation for the types of things labs spend money on, and the next time you hear a news story about the possibility of cutting research funding by X dollars, it will be about more than just the numbers for you.

*A “post-doc,” or post-doctoral researcher, has earned a doctorate and is doing temporary mentored research to gain further skills.