[Aracelis]

an unwillingness of Americans to do hard core research that keeps this population chasing phantoms in medicine instead of direct causes.

This needs to be said over and over! Cut out pure research and you cut your own throat.

You folks like your little Postie-Notes? A chemist in the 1950s was doing pure research and discovered a nifty adhesive for which there was no use at the time. 3M paid the man and shelved the product until they discovered a use.

Or how about wireless cardiac telemetry units that can monitor grandma while she's walking the floor with her grandchildren. The space-race gave us that invention.

I'm not even sure we will be a tertiary power when the rest of the world fills in the cracks we are missing with our "morality" and budget cuts.

[Nebullis]

You folks like your little Postie-Notes? A chemist in the 1950s was doing pure research and discovered a nifty adhesive for which there was no use at the time. 3M paid the man and shelved the product until they discovered a use.

Can you source this? Your dates are wrong by about 20 years. Nobody shelved this. It took others with "applied" research sense to come up with a use. I know a polymer chemist at 3M and the real story is not as tinfoiled as you'd like to believe.