R&D budget should ease biomed envy

President Clinton’s science budget for 2001 proposes to narrow a gap that has yawned in recent years between lusher funding for biomedicine and leaner support for physical sciences.

The proposed budget invests in efforts to arrange small clusters of atoms as tiny machines, such as this fine-motion controller. Institute for Molecular Manufacturing

Between 1994 and 2000, funding for the National Institutes of Health soared more than 40 percent.