Looking for a great place to stay for that big trip? Maybe you just want to find that right restaurant in downtown Seattle. More and more people are turning to social media for these answers. But is that affecting the experiences we're actually having? I'm Dire Oxley, and on the next episode of Meet Me Here, I'm chatting with travel expert Rick Steves and two Seattle girls to help navigate a world where everyone can be an online expert. Listen to Meet Me Here on the KUOW app or wherever you get your podcast. Three, two, one. People everywhere followed along as Artemis astronauts made their historic mission around the moon. Yeah, from the cabin of integrity here is we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth. But what made that possible was research. And that kind of scientific discovery is in jeopardy. American universities on edge, staring down federal funding cut to the tune of billions of dollars. This could potentially impact everything from higher education to health care research and small businesses. The pullback in federal research funding has long-term implications for the economy here. A poll from the journal Nature earlier this year found that 75% of researchers in the U.S. are considering leaving the country. This is Booming. I'm Monica Nicholsberg. And I'm Joshua McNichols. For decades, the University of Washington has received more federal research money than almost any other public university. It's helped make UW the city's largest employer, and it's the reason many science-based companies thrive here. Today, what could federal research funding cuts mean for Seattle's future economy? That's coming up. In the face of overwhelming odds, I'm left with only one option. I'm going to have to science the shit out of this. So, Joshua, you know I'm not a huge space person, but even I couldn't resist the Artemis mania. It's just like such a great positive story amid all of these tough headlines. And there was something about watching my four-year-old take pictures of the TV with his little digital camera while the rocket took off into space. I don't know. It got me. Well, I watched it at the Museum of Flight in Tukwila. They had this sort of launch party, watch party there. And what was really special about that to me was that along with just regular space geeks, it brought together a lot of people from local aerospace companies who actually had a hand in building the equipment that made the mission possible. Like I talked to one person, Jennifer Domonowski, who worked for L3 Harris in Redmond. They make lots of different kinds of thruster rockets, including the ones that kept Artemis II correctly positioned during its critical re-entry stage. She was so excited at the launch. It's an honor to be able to provide NASA with the propulsion that they need to carry out their missions. I'm a Washington native, so growing up, I didn't always realize what role that we played in the space industry. And so to just know that, hey, we're here and we're building these rockets and we're powering astronauts to the moon and beyond, it's just so very cool. That's so fun. So you were there with people who had real skin in the game. Yeah, for sure. And then there were also a lot of students there who want to get hired by these companies someday. Like Erica Wood from the UW's Husky Satellite Lab. It's run by students and they put satellites into orbit and use them for research. Our lab is a hotbed for direct industry jobs. And it looks really great that you've worked on satellites. You've actually worked on something that's gone to space. And you have that technical expertise. So watching the launch with all those folks really underscored for me how many people in Seattle are involved in some kind of science or technology work. And it made me wonder how federal funding cuts might change that. Like the University of Washington, for example. It's been hit hard, especially when it comes to money for new scientific experiments. Generally, the amount of money awarded to the university has dropped by 20 to 30 percent. But on top of that, a lot of the money never arrives. And when you measure that, I got some numbers for research funding from the NIH. The drop at the UW is more like 50 percent. And very few departments are immune to those kinds of changes. Okay, so funding to get new research off the ground is way down. Is that affecting Erica's lab? Yeah, Erica says the lab has never been pay to play before, but that's changing because of the budget cuts. Students are being charged to access the lab now, and she's worried about who that shuts out and how that slows the work down. That means that we are being stunted from our own educational abilities and also hands-on engineering applications, making us more ill-prepared and having a harder way to network into industry positions later on. That drop in UW funding is part of a much wider trend nationwide, and that puts financial strains on universities. You know, traditionally, they are sort of like these economic engines for the communities that they're embedded in. They produce skilled workers and jobs, but now those engines are running low on gas. Aren't we all? Or maybe it's more like they're running low on engine oil in a car, because when you run out, you can do long-term damage. I met Roger Myers. He's an aerospace consultant who used to work at Aerojet Rocketdyne, which later became L3 Harris. He was at the Artemis event, and he talked about the long cycle of research and development. Without the foundational scientific research, there is nothing to engineer and we don't develop the new products. The jobs of today are spawned by the basic research of yesterday. And the jobs of tomorrow are spawned by today's basic research. I'm just struck by how imperiled the jobs of tomorrow feel right now for all kinds of reasons. Let's just back up for a minute. Where did we get this idea that the government should fund research in the first place? It started during World War II. Of course it did. Everything started during World War II. There was this science guy named Vannevar Bush who was advising President Roosevelt and then Truman And he wrote a report a manifesto really called Science the Endless Frontier Very dramatic Very dramatic He argued that basic research is the foundation of national security, economic growth, and a rising standard of living. Hi there, this is Vanover Bush, and this is something I wrote about the frontiers of science. Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for the exploration of the unknown. That campaign eventually led to the creation of the National Science Foundation. And it worked, because the U.S. became the technological leader of the world. And experts say we've been enjoying the fruits of that scientific dominance for well over half a century. But they say now that could be fading. Okay, so we've been talking a lot about rocket science because Artemis is the moment. But this area has other tech-based industries too. So what's happening in those industries as a result of these cuts? Yeah, another area that's being hit hard and is also important in Seattle is biotech and medical research. As an industry, it's worth over $43 billion a year for the state, according to Life Science Washington. Take Fred Hutch, the Cancer Research Center. Yeah, we did an episode on Fred Hutch and the work that they're doing to use AI with local companies and big tech companies to develop new therapies for cancer. Right. And in a way, it demonstrates what's unique about the biotech scene here. It combines biology and AI. Same thing at the Institute for Protein Design at the UW. Its founder won a Nobel Prize for using AI to create new proteins to fight diseases. I remember that. It's a big deal. And in both those cases, even with support from the private sector, the research wouldn't be possible without federal funding. Fred Hutch, for example, gets 70 percent of its research funding from the federal government. That's a lot. It is. And much of their ongoing research is still getting some of those federal dollars, but they're getting fewer new grants approved. And even when they win funding awards, often the federal government doesn't send the money. Okay, and you said basic research is what's being threatened here across all of the sciences, from aerospace to biotech. What is basic research? Can you give me a few examples? Yeah. It's science that you do without knowing exactly where it will lead. Like, you don't necessarily have an end product in mind. Like the research that led to the discovery of the double helix, or the work being done in particle accelerators, just to figure out how atoms work. Like, foundational stuff. I guess you, yeah, I mean, you can't have a local fusion industry if you don't know how atoms work. Yeah, exactly. Or going back to our moon example, the U.S. plans to go to the moon again and build a moon base there in the 2030s. But there's a ton of basic research that needs to be done for that mission to be successful. Like how to keep people and plants alive for long periods on the moon. And they say funding for that kind of research has almost stopped. Okay, I'm getting an image in my mind now of the Martian, which isn't the moon, but Matt Damon, if you remember, is a botanist and he's trying to figure out how to grow potatoes on Mars. Yes. So that's the kind of research we're talking about. Exactly. It's been 48 souls since I planted the potatoes, so now it's time to reap and re-sow. And that's one of my favorite parts of that movie, too. Well, you can tell we're both gardeners. And that scene hints at something important. Like, we don't really know how to grow food using moon dust as soil. The dust particles on the moon are super sharp when you look at them under a microscope because there's no wind on the moon to help smooth them out. That's fascinating. Yeah. And breathing them in could be dangerous over long periods of time. We just don't know. And one person who's really concerned about this drop in science funding is Mary Ann Feldman. She's a professor of public policy at Arizona State University, and she studies the way research funding supports the innovation economy, especially medical research and biotech. There are these hotspots, and Seattle has the potential to be one of those. It's just that these funding cuts and slowdown in allocation of resource receiving grants is really stalling the process. And I think that there's not enough private money to step in to really sort of facilitate that. Marianne says that funding squeeze puts companies and research institutions in a precarious place, which she calls this kind of valley of death. The valley of death. OK, what does that mean in science? Well, the valley of death is where important scientific discoveries die before they get developed into real products like vaccines. One expert told me you can't go to the doctor and get a vaccine out of a scientific paper. Somebody has to take the risk of turning it into a product. Marianne says the valley of death could claim a lot more of the scientific discoveries made in and around Seattle. And so researchers who would have stayed here are moving to places where there's more stable funding, like San Francisco and Boston, where there's more private money, and Europe or Canada, which are actively courting U.S. researchers with ads, or China. As the federal government retreats, well, we then need the private sector or the state government to step in and try to smooth out these funding cycles. Marianne mentioned private funding, and I'm just wondering if realistically the government is not going to fund research at the same levels that it used to, then could the private sector step in? I mean, I'm thinking of like pharmaceutical companies. They've got a lot of money. Right. Well, they're far more interested in shovel-ready projects that can quickly turn a profit. So switching to for-profit companies changes the type of science that gets done. I reached out to Fiona Wills, and she runs CoMotion, which helps UW researchers turn their ideas into startups where they can truly create jobs. She says universities fill a role that the private market cannot. The type of research going on in a university is more cutting edge. In contrast she says private companies have to be focused on pleasing shareholders There were research teams within companies and some companies still have them that were really thinking about the basic research But these days they much more focused on what's going to become a product. We've been talking a lot about the downsides to these funding cuts, but I'm wondering if there's any sort of a silver lining here, people who think that there could be a good side to this. Not necessarily because they're anti-research, but there are a lot of people who think that the way that we fund science needs reform because there can be perverse incentives like scientists working harder to get their paper published than to make real scientific progress. Yeah. And I spoke to someone like that, Julia Lane. She's an economist and a professor at New York University. And she used to help run the National Science Foundation. Now she studies how science is funded. And her chief complaint is that we don't do a good job of measuring whether the projects we fund as taxpayers are really benefiting us. Are they really all worth it? I'm a boring economist. I don't get excited very easily, but I get very excited when it comes to very bad data. I mean, don't get me wrong. I am a fervent supporter of science and technology and R&D. But she says the way we fund science today is too arbitrary. It's based on too many anecdotes, too many stories of sad scientists whose cancelled research seems important. The inertia in the system is so strong and it's because it's never been a big issue before because they just kept writing chips, sending more money because science magically created innovation. I totally get that point that we need to be precise with taxpayer money. But at the same time, I'm thinking again of that example, which I mentioned in a previous episode of how GLP-1s were discovered because somebody was studying Gila monsters. And I do think that to achieve real progress and breakthroughs, it does require a little bit of unleashing scientists in a sandbox and just letting them kind of play and follow what they're interested in because you don't know where the next big discovery is going to come from. Yes. And I should add that there are plenty of people who disagree with her on this, but she offers a perspective that I don't often hear. Yeah. And I think she makes a valid point. So I'm curious what she thinks we should do instead. Well, she wants the U.S. to create a nonpartisan National Center for Data and Evidence built on existing work at universities. It would study big questions like which investments actually help people. Research on what to research. Yeah. Or at least like adding rigor to the process of choosing what research to fund. Like she says, right now, we're measuring the impact of research on the economy by throwing money at science and then looking at jobs numbers and census data to try and estimate whether that research has benefited the economy. That's like staring at the clouds for a long time until you see a face. You might think you're seeing a pattern, but it could just be your imagination. Right. So, Joshua, we started with this big question of whether a drop in science funding would permanently damage this engine of economic growth in Seattle, our research universities. Do we know the answer to that? Do we know? Well, we don't know yet, but we do know this. We're already seeing a hit to basic research, but there are some open questions like whether the funding will come back. You know, that depends a lot on what happens in the midterm elections because, you know, different politicians have different priorities in terms of what to fund. And if the funding does come back, can we draw scientists back to the region or back to their old jobs, which they may have left to go do something completely different, you know? Move to Canada. Yeah. And then finally, there's this larger philosophical question of how we determine, you know, what is in the best public interest, like what science is in the best public interest? Is it more important for us to sort of keep marching towards, you know, science, the endless frontier into the unknown where we don't know exactly what's going to come out of it, but we think it'll benefit us in the long run? Or is it more important to think about it as an economist where you're sort of saying, does this really create jobs? Does it create new companies? And these things are often mutually beneficial, like we need both things. But you can place your emphasis on different ends of that spectrum. All we have to do is figure out how we define the public good. Yes. Such a simple question. Such a simple question. We should put the scientists on that. Well, Joshua, thanks for this deep dive on the surprising things that our local researchers are building and the role our university plays in the economy. Yeah, no problem. Coming up next, The Endgame. SoundSide brings you beyond the headlines with news and conversation rooted in the Pacific Northwest. I'm Libby Denkman. Every week I sit down with local journalists for SoundSide's Front Page, where we give you a shortcut to understanding the latest news and cultural moments and how they affect us here in the Puget Sound region. It's all here on SoundSide, on the radio or streaming Monday through Thursday at noon and 8 p.m. on KUOW, on the KUOW app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to The Endgame. Our producer Alec Cowan is here. What do you have for us, Alec? Hey, guys. Well, great conversation about universities, their role as economic engines. I was a little bummed, though, Joshua. You didn't even mention the Bayh-Dole Act. Oh, yeah. The 1980 Baiduil Act that enabled universities to start to make some profit along with their researchers on their inventions and their discoveries. Very impressive that you just had that at your fingertips. So listeners, that's your homework, your extra credit this week. The Baiduil Act. Learn everything you can about it. There will be a quiz, not later, but actually right now because we've got an endgame to do today, guys. This is the quiz. We're going to get into that. The quiz is happening now. So I wanted to go over some of the interesting inventions, some of the unexpected inventions that have come through this unique partnership between universities, researchers, and government funding So are you ready Yeah Ready All right Question number one In the late 1960s at the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company also known as 3M for those in the know they were working on something sticky So this is a company where a lot of recent grads from the University of Minnesota would end up working you know kind of like you know their UW to employment pipeline So a scientist there was trying to create a super strong adhesive at 3M. What do you think they helped to invent with their adhesive tests in the 1960s? Post-its? Is it post-its? Scotch tape Okay so it is post-its Yeah Monica Shout out to Romy and Michelle's high school reunion Taught me everything I know They had a thing about post-its in that? Yes okay it's been a long time since I watched it But I believe one of the characters Pretends she is the inventor of post-its And then somebody knows The true origin story of post-its And she gets found out I wonder if that was product placement It's possible This guy was trying to make a super strong Super sticky thing ended up making something that was kind of sticky most of the time. A few years later, a colleague of his was having trouble with his bookmark in a book and was like, oh, it keeps falling out. I need it to stick. And had remembered this kind of sort of sticky thing and ended up inventing Post-its. And you two, for your homework, I highly suggest you watch Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. It really is a classic. It is a great movie. I've seen that. Yeah. So question two. So there was another collaboration in the 1960s between a bunch of universities and the Department of Defense, as many inventions over the years have come from that partnership. So the government was really interested in developing new technologies because this was not too long after the successful launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union. So the government put all this money into putting computers in a bunch of schools to start making new stuff. This was called the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA. I know this isn't a lot to go on right now, but what do you think ARPA ended up making? The internet. The ARPANET. You beat me. Sorry. Okay. Well, okay. People are much smarter than I am. Yeah. So they did do lots of important stuff. But, of course, the ARPANET was the biggest one. This was an era of switchboard telephones. And so sending information computer to computer would be really nice, wouldn't it? I'll let you take the story from there since you know it. I mean, that's basically all that I know. I feel like Joshua always beats me at the end game. And now I've got some traction. So I'm getting competitive. I know. Monica's like the Jeopardy sitting with the clicker. That's right. Trying to fire it off. But yeah, the ARPANET is like a term that is stuck in my memory and I know that it was the precursor to the modern internet. You know, it's not quite as catchy as internet, the ARPANET. I know. Yeah, it's clunky. Imagine if we had called it that. We'd be making verbs out of ARP. Like, I'm going to ARP this to you now. Oh, wow. Yeah. So the first message sent over the ARPANET was between UCLA and Stanford. Do you know what it was? Hello, world? I did at one point know what it was. is this thing on? No, they tried to send the word login, but actually the system kind of broke down halfway through, so it only sent L and O. So, lo. And behold, the first word on the internet. Oh, yeah. Very nice. We're two-thirds of the way to LOL. Classic ARP. All right, question three. So this is much earlier in the 1940s. There's a Swiss engineer who's hiking through the Alps, and he gets super annoyed by cockleburrs. So my first question to you, what the heck is a cockleburr, and what invention did it inspire? I bet it's a, it's a, well, I'm only jumping. I know you know this too, Monica. No, I don't know the answer to this one. Go for it. Well, it's probably these little seeds that have little hooks on the end that stick to your socks, your wool socks and stuff. And I bet it inspired the invention of Velcro. Monica, what is your theory? That sounds super right. I'm going to go with Joshua. Okay. Yeah. That's, it is. Yeah. Yeah. This Swiss guy, very annoyed with these cockleburs sticking to his dog, looked at them under a microscope and here we are. Lo and behold. Velcro. Velcro. Arp, arp. I bring this up. It's not an example of, you know, university or government funding interacting with each other. But it is a really cool example of biomimicry, which the UW doing lots of biomimicry kind of things, designing inventions based on things we see in nature. There's shark inspired fluid control. Sharks have spiral intestines, which I know you already knew that. No idea. And so they've been researching that as a kind of like hydraulic system for new things. Very exciting. And then lastly, stingrays, actually. They've been using stingray mechanics to build robots underwater. Wow. Sounds smart. Yeah. So there you go. I love this because it gets at what we were talking about earlier in the episode, which is that you kind of like you can't force scientific discovery. It can happen on a walk or it can happen when you're studying something completely different. It really does just require like curiosity and space for scientists to do science. Yeah. And I know a lot of times after scientists do some kind of research, they know, OK, this thing happens and they really have no idea what an end product would be. It's just like and sometimes they have to like talk with a bunch of like experts and consultants to figure out like, is there something that this could turn into an invention? You know? Yeah. Behold, the wondrous shark intestine machine. Well, this was really fun, and I think I might have won this endgame. I wasn't keeping score or anything. I was, and you did. Thanks, Alec. Thank you. Thank you. That's it for Booming. Thanks so much for listening. If you have an idea for a story that could make a good Booming episode, we would love to hear from you. You can email us at booming at KUOW.org or leave us a voicemail at 206-221-7158. And we always love to say thanks to people who are donating because, you know, we couldn't do it without you. So if you want to donate, go to KUOW.org slash booming. And thanks. Our producers are Lucy Suchek and Alec Cowan. Our editor is Carol Smith. I'm Monica Nicholsberg. I'm Joshua McNichols. And we'll see you next time. SoundSide brings you beyond the headlines with news and conversation rooted in the Pacific Northwest. I'm Libby Denkman. Every week I sit down with local journalists for SoundSide's front page, where we give you a shortcut to understanding the latest news and cultural moments and how they affect us here in the Puget Sound region. It's all here on SoundSide, on the radio or streaming Monday through Thursday at noon and 8 p.m. on KUOW, on the KUOW app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
