The Starving Student Cookbook

If you've ever been an undergrad accidentally turning your food budget into your booze budget, or tried to scrape by on a grad student stipend, you've probably had a share of unglamorous meals while making ends meet - possibly surviving on Mr. Noodle for weeks at a time (or, if you believe my dad's undergrad stories, spam). For the past while, Scicurious at Neurotic Physiology has been soliciting recipes from grad students, with an emphasis on affordability for those on a shoestring budget, and put them together in The Grad Student Eating in Style Carnival.

There are plenty of great recipes there, whether a grad student or not, so take a look and you might find some new supper (or breakfast, or lunch) ideas.

And yes, there is a Ramen category.

CMAJ voices concern over budget

Much like what was echoed here, the CMAJ isn't too impressed with cuts to science in favor of shovel-ready cheap fixes to the economy. They warn of massive brain drain and irreparable setbacks to Canadian science:

"In economics, as in clinical practice, treating acute deteriorations does not obviate the need for a long-term care plan. The crisis in Canada’s resource sectors in particular, while urgent, is a reminder that government investment must aim to substitute science and technology industries for the volatile “found” wealth of oil, mining and forestry.
These cuts to science and technology arrive despite the federal government agreeing that deficit spending is fair game when stimulating the economy. In saying yes to deficits and
stimulus, yet being lukewarm to science, the unmistakable message from Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is that science is unimportant in Canada’s economy.
Meanwhile, the stimulus package in the United States could hardly be more different. Both the House and Senate agree on adding US$3.9 billion of new money to the National
Institutes of Health budget — a 13% increase."

The answer, according to the editorial, is stronger lobbying in Ottawa. They argue that most of the population understands that resources such as oil will not suffice to keep the country prosperous, and that this message must be relayed to the Harper governement:

" Clearly, health researchers and other stakeholders must ensure that politicians hear about the importance of research from their constituents. It is a small wonder that funding is decreasing or that opposition parties in Parliament have not demanded more spending for knowledge-based sectors. Next, health researchers and professionals as well as institutions and lobbyists must ensure that the public and politicians recognize that Canadian scientists and doctors are capable of home runs."

You can read the rest of the article here.

Genome Canada cut from the budget?

So at a time where our southern neighbors are investing heavily in science and putting science back into decision-making we have an unpopular prime-minister (at least out east), who is crippling science and rendering us completely uncompetitive. The latest casualty is Genome Canada, our only large-project funding agency, completely left out of the budget. I hear a lot of grumbling, and it's only a matter of time before we experience major brain-drain. Such a reversal in a short amount of time. From the Globe and Mail:

The only agency that regularly finances large-scale science in Canada was shut out of Tuesday's federal budget, putting at risk thousands of jobs and some of the most promising medical research, and forcing the country to pull out of key international projects.

For the first time in nine years, Genome Canada, a non-profit non-governmental funding organization, was not mentioned in the federal budget and saw its annual cash injection from Ottawa - $140-million last year - disappear.

"We got nothing, nothing, and we don't know why," said a stunned Martin Godbout, Genome Canada president and CEO. "We're devastated."

The news spread like a virus through the research community yesterday as the country's top scientists wondered whether the oversight was a mistake. Genome Canada supports 33 major research projects in areas such as genomics, agriculture and cancer stem cells with operating grants of $10-million a year. The projects employ more than 2,000 people. By comparison, medical research grants from the federally funded Canadian Institutes of Health Research run in the $100,000-a-year range.