Innovation & Policy with Sudip Parikh

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Welcome to AMSEcast, coming to you from Oak Ridge, Tennessee,

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a global leader in science, technology, and innovation.

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My name is Alan Lowe, director of the American Museum

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of Science and Energy, and the K-25 History Center.

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Each episode of AMSEcast presents world-renowned authors,

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scientists, historians, policymakers, and everyone in between,

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sharing their insights on a variety of fascinating topics.

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Welcome to a special edition of AMSEcast as

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we celebrate 250 years of American innovation.

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With much appreciated support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services,

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or IMLS, we’re undertaking a series of AMSEcast interviews focusing on American

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innovations as part of our commemoration of the nation’s semi-quincentennial.

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On this episode, I’m honored to be joined in

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person in Washington, D.C. By Dr. Sudip Parikh.

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With undergraduate studies in journalism, and then in materials science at

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University of North Carolina, and his PhD in macromolecular structure and

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chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute, Sudip has an amazing career

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that’s included service as science advisor to the Senate Appropriations

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Committee, as vice president at Battelle, senior vice president and managing

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director at DIA global, and today as the 19th chief executive officer of the

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American Association for the Advancement of Science, or AAAS, and executive

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publisher of the Science family of journals, a post who began in January 2020.

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Sudip, thanks so much for joining us on the AMSEcast.

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Thanks so much for having me.

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I’m honored to be here.

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It’s a real, real pleasure.

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You’ve had such an amazing career that’s touched on so many points of science

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and engineering, I kind of thought we would look at our key theme of innovation

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by approaching it in three big buckets, if that’s all right with [laugh] you.

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So, kind of, dissemination of information, advocacy, and product development.

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So, I know you were an expert in developing

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a host of healthcare products and therapies.

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When you were in that business, what did you find were the primary

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instigators of innovation, and what were the primary obstacles to innovation?

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That’s a great question.

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The instigators were really when disciplines got together.

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That’s where it got exciting, particularly at a place like Battelle.

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When you can bring together molecular biologists and engineers,

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and you can build a device to deliver a medicine, it’s exciting.

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And it’s exciting for the basic part of it,

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which is, I just love great engineering.

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You know, seeing a little gadget that can make something happen in a perfectly

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precise way every time, no matter who does it, is a feat of engineering.

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And then there’s the audacity of thinking that we can work with

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molecules, at the molecular level, in living things and fix things.

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There’s an audacity to that that’s incredible.

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And so, you put those things together, and

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you realize the power that is in our hands.

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And then you think, my gosh, what if we brought

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together four or five of those disciplines?

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What if, in the mix, you add computational power, AI now?

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You know, there’s just so much that comes together

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when you bring these disciplines together.

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So, that’s the instigators.

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Things to hold you back: silos.

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You know, in every organization, no matter how wonderful they

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are, you have silos that build between these disciplines.

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Some of those silos are real in terms of walls and buildings, and some of them

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are in our minds, which is the jargon that we have to create for precision.

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And so, how do we lower those real barriers and those virtual barriers?

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And at a place like Battelle, one of the things we did for the physical

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barriers was just to say, hey, we’re all going to be in a room.

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We’d have big rooms that you could set up in any way

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you wanted, and the teams would all be based there.

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You bring the molecular biologists and engineers into the same

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room, so you could break down the concrete walls that way.

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The mental barriers are harder.

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They require actually spending time together and getting to know one

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another, and talking over a table, maybe while you’re having lunch,

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and seeing, oh, now I see what that three letter acronym means.

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It actually is something relatively simple.

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I just needed to understand that.

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And that can happen over time, and I think we’ve got

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to do more of it if we’re going to get more innovation.

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I think in this day and age, too, not to sound like the old

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guy here, but as we do social media, and emails, and that

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type of thing, in terms of our communications, that back

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and forth over the lunch table, I think, is getting less.

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So, how do we keep those silos, if we break them

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down, how we keep them broken down is a challenge.

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There’s so many things that I can—you know, we sort of look down

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on social media sometimes, but, you know, it’s a great start.

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It’s a great start.

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It’s a great exposure.

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In the right spaces, social media is a wonderful place for a

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biologist to interact with an ecologist to interact with a physicist.

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But then there’s going to be a next step.

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And that next step really requires some real time

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together, where you can get to know one another.

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And there’s also that bond of trust that you create when you do that.

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When you create that bond of trust, then it’s fun to have an intellectual

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exploration of what’s possible, and it’s hard to do that over 180 characters.

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And you’re right.

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I’ve seen this in just about every field.

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Before I ran science museums, as I told you, I ran presidential museums, and

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great staff members, but silos would develop just almost naturally over time.

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So, how you are aware of that, how you break

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those down and keep them down is important.

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So, I want to get to AAAS.

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Can you tell us a bit about what AAAS is, when it was created, and what it does?

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The AAAS, the American Association for the Advancement

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of Science, was created in 1848, 176 years ago.

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It was founded by a group of scientists in the United States who

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wanted to get together and talk about science, and they modeled

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it after the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

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87 of them got together in Philadelphia—they were all guys because

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it was 1848—remember, this pre-Civil War, right, so anytime you

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have an organization that’s 176 years old, they are of their time.

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Now, the thing I like to talk about with AAAS is that over that 176

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years, it has both had evolution and revolution so that it is still

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relevant, and I would say, boldly at the front of innovation, and also

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in creating a scientific enterprise that looks like America and that

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takes advantage of the creativity that comes from a diversity of thought.

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And so, that’s happened through evolution and revolution.

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I know, talking about the evolution of creativity in America

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and what makes America unique in that way—in many ways, I

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think—what do you think the role of immigration has been of

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getting in new ideas from around the world into this nation?

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The United States has such an amazing story.

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I love everything about the story of

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immigration, and the beacon that this country is.

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It has drawn folks for, you know, two centuries, over two centuries, and

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when you look at the innovations that have happened in the country, they

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are a mix of both people that are here and people that have immigrated here.

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They are a mix of hard work and sweat that must happen after an idea.

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That doesn’t happen just because you have an I—there’s

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a bazillion ideas out there; most of them never amount

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to anything because people don’t follow through.

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This is a place where you can do that.

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It’s a place where it’s encouraged, and it’s a place that, over the

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past 80 years, we’ve also said we’re going to support science and

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the scientific enterprise, and we’re going to support technology.

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And when you put that mix together—Ronald Reagan had a great quote at his very

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last speech where he says, you know, “There’s one thing to celebrate about

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America is this, which is that, you know, when you move to another country,

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you can be a person in that country, and you can even participate in it, but

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when you move to America, no matter where you are from in the world, you can be

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an American.” And that’s why you end up with an organization that’s 176 years

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old and has a CEO named Sudip Parikh, and has a board that is majority women.

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And it’s still Nobel Prize winners, it’s still National Academy

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members, it’s still leaders in scientific fields, but it changes

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over time because this country has this great aspiration, and that

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aspiration is powerful, it’s inspiring, and it’s never quite reached.

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It’s always asymptotic, right, if I’m talking to scientists.

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We’re never going to reach perfection, but we’re always going

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to be working harder to make it just a little bit better.

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And sometimes we have setbacks.

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Immigration is a key part of that story, and it’s a part of the story that I

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hope we never change because it is, you know, when you’re calling on 7 billion

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people from around the world for creative talent, it’s amazing what’s possible.

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You had service on Capitol Hill.

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We’re sitting here in Washington, D.C. Today, and we talk

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about America, this being our wonderful nation’s capital.

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When you worked here, what did you find were the key

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elements when you were working with members of Congress?

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How did you garner support for innovation?

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Because innovation, by definition, can be risky, unknown.

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How did that work with folks who most likely

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were not coming from a scientific background?

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Yeah, you know, most of our politicians are lawyers or

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business people by background, and what I found, though, is

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that in Congress, most if not all, would tell you they support

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research and development, they support science and technology.

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But then there were champions, and that was really critical.

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There are some folks who would make this their number one issue to

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say, I want to see more funding go into research and development.

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I want to see investment in basic research.

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And that’s where the conversation had to happen, which

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is, how do you have a conversation about basic research?

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How do you do that in a way that makes sense to folks?

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And what I found is that, as scientists and engineers,

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we’re taught to be both precise and accurate, right?

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It’s that whole thing about a target, and if you’re precise, the three

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arrows end up right on top of each other, and if you’re accurate,

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they also end up in the middle of the target, in the bull’s eye.

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And we’re taught to be both.

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We want all three arrows in the center of that target.

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But to have precision requires having jargon.

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It requires being able to talk about things in very specific ways, and when

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you do that, you are unintentionally creating a barrier to communication.

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And so, you have to realize that when you’re talking in terms of policy

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or you’re talking to politicians, you have to modulate, do I need

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to be precise in this conversation, do I need to be accurate in this

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conversation, and how much can I modulate it so I can get the point across?

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And so, you know, examples of that are, if you’re talking about an

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experiment in biology and you want to use the name of a molecule, my gosh,

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those names, you know, as a structural biologist, I get confused by them.

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And so, you have to take that and say, is that important to this conversation?

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And one of the things that came out while I was

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in Congress was the structure of the ribosome.

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Now, the ribosome is a beautiful molecule that is really critical to life.

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Life doesn’t exist without it.

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And the beautiful thing that was learned at that time was that

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the protein is gigantic, but actually the thing that does the

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catalysis, where the critical reaction happens, is done by RNA.

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And there’s something profound about that.

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What it tells us is that reaction critical to life began with RNA,

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not protein, and what that means is that there’s implications for

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the development of life overall, there’s implications for medicine.

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And so, I took this to one of the senators, and I said, “Gosh, Senator, look

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at this. This is the structure of the ribosome. Look what it’s telling us.

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It has all these implications about life.” And the senator

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looked at me and said, “Sudip, that’s a great thing.

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It’s a great argument for an agency that’s a few billion dollars, but

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the National Institutes of Health is a, at that time, $24 billion agency.

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Tell me something else.

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Tell me something more.”

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And you know, you can say that, well, gosh, the ribosome is different in

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different species and in different—germs versus humans—and I said germs, right?

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You don’t say [unintelligible] . You say germs—and suddenly you

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realize, ah, it can be the basis for therapies and treatments.

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And suddenly it becomes valuable for a $24

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billion agency, not a $7 billion agency.

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You have to be able to have those kinds of conversations, be able to

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modulate precision and accuracy for what you’re trying to accomplish.

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Always curious, those champions you talk about on Capitol Hill.

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What differentiates them?

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Why do they become champions?

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Is it a matter of personal interest, constituencies,

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that type of thing, or is it something else?

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You know, it can be a unique story every time.

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Sometimes it is the fact that they happen to

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represent a district that has a large facility in it.

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You know, usually the person who represents Oak Ridge is a champion

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for the Department of Energy, almost always, Democrat or Republican.

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So, that’s one way.

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The other is that they have a story.

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For example, in support of biomedical research, they might have a story

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in their family where biomedical research has made a difference, and that

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becomes a powerful source of their entry into support for the sciences.

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And then in other cases, it is just that they happened to

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be put on a committee that they didn’t even realize what it

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was, and they learned about it, and they became intrigued.

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And we see that all the time.

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You know, the current ranking member on the House Science

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Committee is Frank Lucas, a wonderful member of Congress.

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He will tell you, you know, he’s a farmer, and he’s also one of

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the best champions of science that we have in Congress because

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he recognizes the value of science and technology to the country.

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As a former farm boy, I can tell you, I’m proud of that.

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That’s great [laugh] . So, from your experience again on Capitol Hill, if you

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look back at our history, are there any specific policies you see that came

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out of Washington, you say were really important to helping spur innovation?

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Those of us in science policy, we all point back to 1945 and we

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point back to Vannevar Bush who was working for Roosevelt, and

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in 1945 he basically wrote himself a letter with some questions,

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and had Roosevelt sign it, and then he answered those questions,

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and that turned into something called the Endless Frontier.

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And it basically describes the model that we’ve built upon ever since then,

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which is this idea that the government ought to fund basic research, that basic

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research ought to be carried out, for the most part in academia, and that at

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the same time, would be training a future workforce, and that as discovery

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happened, the industry and the private sector would take it from there and turn

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it into products for consumers, and for the nation, and for national security.

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Now, that’s a beautiful idea in 1945, and we often give it too much credit.

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And one of the things that I say is that Vannevar Bush

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would be blown away if he saw the enterprise that we have

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today because it looks nothing like what he described.

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In fact, we have built organically on top of it, a much more beautiful,

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much more powerful, much more profound scientific enterprise.

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That enterprise has federal investment as heat and light,

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about $200 billion a year of federal investment, but then it

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has private sector investment of around $700 billion a year.

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Now, Buch never imagined that.

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He never imagined there’d be $700 billion

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worth of investment by the private sector.

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And philanthropy: billions of dollars of

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investment by philanthropy, he never imagined that.

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That higher education would take on roles related

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to product development, he never imagined that.

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And so, one of the things that I’ve become really an advocate for is

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to say, yes, we should give proper credit to that time in 1945, and the

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policies that were created then, but we also have to recognize what the

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enterprise looks like today, so that we can make the right kinds of policy

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prescriptions and recommendations that are needed to get us to the future.

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What got us to today, all those wonderful policy prescriptions

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that got us to today are not going to help us win the future.

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They’re not going to get us to where we need

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to be, and so we’ve got to recognize that.

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And so, when I think of what is a great policy prescription, one is just money.

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This country has been an incredible supporter of science and

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technology, like the world has never seen before, and what

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that’s meant is other countries are now following us, right?

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They’ve seen the power that comes from that because they

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recognize that economic growth, normally—when you’re

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an economist, you say it comes from a couple things.

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One is it comes from the growth of population.

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It comes from demographics.

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You get incremental growth because you added another person.

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The other way is a rise in productivity, which is that, hey, those people

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can do more stuff and make more stuff, and that increases your economy.

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But there’s another thing, and that is science and technology.

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It’s a wild card.

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It can lead to step function changes in economic growth.

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And if you can get step function changes in economic growth, you can

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build a society that goes to the Moon, that goes to Mars, that cures

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disease, that feeds eight billion people, you can do that when you

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have that kind of disruption, which is what the country invented.

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Our good friend, Guru Madhavan, who helped connect us here today,

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has spoken pretty eloquently to me in the past on AMSEcast about

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striking a balance between innovation and maintaining current

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systems and infrastructure, and how we do that moving forward.

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So, how do you see us striking that balance of having those disruptive

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innovations but also maintaining our infrastructure and systems that we have?

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It’s a really critical question.

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In 1945, if you’d asked somebody in policy, they would say,

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“Well, gosh, the federal government is in charge of the

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infrastructure.” Oak Ridge, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos,

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these are the places where big infrastructure is going to be.

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Big telescopes at Arecibo and elsewhere are going to be government funded.

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When you look at it from the point of view of 2024, we have to

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realize that infrastructure, now because of the fact that the private

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sector is also investing, some of that infrastructure that is the

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backbone of our technology, whether it’s the internet, artificial

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intelligence, or even in biology, is coming from the private sector.

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We have to be recognizing that there has to be a level of coordination

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and situational awareness between the federal government, and

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industry, and philanthropy that has never been seen before.

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Because we have to know what is the linchpin of

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this particular area of science and technology?

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We have to understand well, who’s supporting that?

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Who is making sure that if we are wanting to make our

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grid dependent upon lithium, where are we getting that?

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Is somebody taking care of the supply chain?

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Who is looking at all that?

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And in the past, we allowed that to happen organically, but we

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can’t do that anymore, and that’s part of what I mean when I

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say that what got us to here isn’t going to get us to there.

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As the publisher of the Science family of journals, as we talk about these

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ideas for the future, what do you see as your role of disseminating those ideas,

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versus talking about, kind of, incremental changes to our current knowledge?

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So, in terms of bringing radical new ideas, if that’s

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the right word, to the table, versus incremental changes.

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What a privilege it is, first of all, just let me say this out loud,

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it’s a privilege for me to get to be the executive publisher of Science.

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The journal was started by Thomas Edison in 1880.

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He gave the first $10,000 for it, and then when he got bored

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of it, Alexander Graham Bell gave the second $10,000 for it.

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And so, it has this rich history going back to 1880, and it is the

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manifestation of that idea of multidisciplinary science, right?

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It has every kind of science in it, and the front matter is really about,

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how do you synthesize that for a physicist to be able to learn about biology?

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And when you can do that, and when you can say, okay, there’s going to

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be incremental work that happens—and that might be published in Science.

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It might not be, might be published somewhere else—but when there are these

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moments of inspiration that come because of basic discovery, CRISPR, you

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know the idea that you can edit genes, and you can do it in a way that

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takes advantage of the human genome project that, you know, that we spent

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billions of dollars on, that only comes about when you’ve got people talking

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to one another across disciplines, and that happens at a place like Science.

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It’s not the only place, but I would say that we are wedded to the

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idea that communication, that dissemination, is critically important.

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We’re not wedded to the idea that it’s always going to be a paper magazine.

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I appreciate that.

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What I’ve learned is that anybody who has a small pox

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inoculation, so who has the scar on their arm from that, so

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that means they’re over 50, they like reading a paper magazine.

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That’s where they see the synthesis.

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What we’ve also learned is those of us who don’t have that

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smallpox vaccination, because we eradicated smallpox, those

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folks, they like to see that synthesis in a different way.

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They’re going to want to see it online.

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They’re going to want to see it through newsletters.

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They’re going to want to see it through social media.

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And so, we are wedded to the idea that synthesis has to

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happen, and that multidisciplinary science is the way forward,

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and it’s the only way we’re going to solve big problems.

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And we’re also, we are energized by the idea that it’s going

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to change radically over the next ten years and twenty years.

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Because it’s one of those things that happens like a phase transition.

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Those of us who read the magazine, we read it, we read it, we

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read it, and then all of a sudden, [snaps finger] it changes.

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I just snapped my finger, for those of you on the podcast.

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You know, it changes like that: it happens, slow, slow, slow, then fast.

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And we want to be at the vanguard of that because we recognize that if we can

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be involved in dissemination, then we can be a catalyst for what comes next.

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Is there a thought as you make that transition,

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that any process will have to change?

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I know peer reviewed; is that part of your process?

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Will that support, or perhaps not support talking

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about innovation, new things in the journals?

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It requires rethinking what stages are dissemination important?

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So, for example, pre-prints are before peer

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review, and they’re incredibly valuable.

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We are incredibly supportive of peer review, even though

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it happens before a paper ever gets to us at Science.

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And the reason we are is because we know that as people put their

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ideas up in a pre-print server, they can have a conversation online

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that is radically faster than what was imagined in the 1600s, right?

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In the 1600s, you’d write things down in a book, that book

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would get disseminated over the course of 20 years, and

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over the course of 20 years, you’d start to get feedback.

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We can take that down to 20 minutes because

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what can happen is you’re sharing that online.

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Now, that has to still be part of the story.

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There’s another part of the story, which

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is, how do you get to a version of record?

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How do you get to a place where, all right, this is the

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finished product for that, so that we can then use that for

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citations and for the formal part of getting science done?

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But we have to be able to think in terms of two things at once, which is

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that there is a need for that process, but there’s also a need for this

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fast, dynamic, in-the-moment communication of science because that’s how

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we’re going to get to vaccines faster, when needed; that’s how we’re going

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to get to treatments faster, when needed; that’s also how we’re going to

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solve big problems like, if you’ve got to temporarily build a bridge over

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a river because a boat ran into your bridge, how are you going to do that?

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And how are you going to crowdsource ideas to make that happen in the

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fastest way, and in the most efficient way, and in the most affordable way?

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So, you’re really talking about how we maintain this edge

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and innovation we’ve had for 250 years, for the next 250.

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Amen.

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I’m all about that.

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How are we going to do that?

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Because if people are copying what we’ve already done—and

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that’s great, we were leading for that very reason—now is

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the time to say, how are we going to stay at the vanguard?

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That’s right.

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Ask that question.

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My last question for you is related to that: we do so

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much work with K through 12 students at AMSE and K-25.

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What do you think are the best ways to inspire that next generation

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of scientists, engineers, and innovators as we move forward?

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I think that there are several things.

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One is, when you see great stuff, there’s nothing like seeing great engineering.

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When you see a beautiful bridge, when you see a rocket, when you see

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a robotic mission to a far off planet, there is nothing like that.

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And that’s what inspired me.

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That’s what inspired many others, I think.

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The other is when you see that person who’s doing that work in your community.

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When you recognize that we can see the mountains of Pluto.

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I love the fact that we know that there are methane-covered mountains on Pluto.

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That blows me away that we know that.

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And when you recognize that the person who made that possible is

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living in your community, or who grew up in your community, that

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makes a world of difference, to recognize there’s a connection

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between that thing that seems like magic, and it’s actually not magic.

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It’s math, and it’s physics, and it’s engineering.

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We want to be able to see that in our communities.

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And so, if we can do those two things, which is first of all, to inspire

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with great works, and then the second is to show that it’s human.

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It is human.

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And that there are some folks like Einstein who are extraordinary,

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but so much of this happens from humans that are flawed, we

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make mistakes, and yet we are inspired to do something great.

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We are inspired to do something that pushes humanity farther.

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And when you see that, how would you not want to be involved in science?

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Now, there’s a whole bunch of practical things involved,

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which is, we got to make it a better job, better profession.

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If you want to be an engineer, we shouldn’t make it to where you’ve got to be

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able to afford tuition at a high price to get to your first job in engineering.

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If you want to be in molecular biology or in the sciences, you

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shouldn’t have to realize that you have to wait ten years or twenty

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years before you get to your first investigator-initiated grant.

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We have to fix the things that are involved in the professions that make it

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harder and make it tougher for folks to be creative and innovative and lead.

457
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But the inspiration, my gosh, it’s all around us.

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Well, certainly an inspiring conversation today.

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Thank you so much for joining us in AMSEcast.

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I really enjoyed our conversation.

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It was terrific.

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Thank you so much.

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Thank you for joining us on this episode of AMSEcast.

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For more information on this topic or any others, you can always visit us at

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AMSE.org or find, like, and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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I invite you to visit the American Museum of Science

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and Energy and the K-25 History Center in person.

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You can also shop at our online store and become a member at AMSE.org.

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Thanks to our production team with Matt Mullins, plus our supportive colleagues

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at the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, Office of Environmental

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Management, and Office of Legacy Management, as well as Oak Ridge National

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Laboratory, the Y-12 National Security Complex, NNSA, and the AMSE Foundation.

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And of course, thanks to our wonderful guests

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today, and to all of you for listening.

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I hope you’ll join us for the next episode of AMSEcast.

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If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, I would like to ask that you consider

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00:25:27,509 --> 00:25:32,090
becoming a member of the 117 Society, the newest membership opportunity

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offered by the American Museum of Science and Energy Foundation.

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00:25:36,360 --> 00:25:39,550
By joining the 117 Society, you will help us continue

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00:25:39,550 --> 00:25:42,349
this podcast and our other innovative programming.

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00:25:42,740 --> 00:25:45,649
You will support the expansion of our vitally important educational

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outreach, including virtual classes, and you will help ensure that both

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the American Museum of Science and Energy and the K-25 History Center can

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continue to provide world-class exhibits to our community and to the world.

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00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:01,949
Benefits of membership includes special access to video

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00:26:01,950 --> 00:26:06,160
and audio content, and 117 Society merchandise, as well

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00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:09,100
as all the benefits of our Atom Splitter Membership Level.

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To learn more, go to AMSE.org.

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The 117 Society is vital to the future of AMSE and the K-25 History Center.

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I hope you will consider joining, and thank you very much.