NIH Fiscal Policy — FY 2008: WTF!?

From http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-08-036.html

The following NIH fiscal policies are instituted in FY2008:
Non-Competing Research Awards: The FY 2008 appropriation as specified in P.L. 110-161 provides NIH a 1 percent inflation allowance to NIH investments in research supported by research grants. Implementation requires a reduction to previously established commitments, based on a 3 percent inflation allowance. Accordingly, each Institute and Center (IC) will use its own discretion to allocate the adjustment among its non-competing research grants (modular and non-modular) to ensure compliance with the 1 percent inflation allowance provided in its FY 2008 committed level. Future year commitments will be adjusted accordingly, as consistent with the FY 2007 fiscal policy. This policy does not apply to Career Awards, SBIR/STTRs, and Ruth L. Kirschstein-National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Fellowships & Institutional Training Grants.

This is the section on non-competing awards, which have been taking severe cuts since the doubling of the NIH budget ended in 2003. Don’t try to figure out what it means, yet. How did this work in past fiscal years?

Nature Survey on Cognitive Enhancers

We had a prior discussion on cognitive performance doping led by the BM on the old site. This was sparked by a Nature commentary which followed a prior editorial.
Nature now has a web poll going asking you to opine on cognitive enhancers. From Retrospectacle:

Brenden Maher at Nature emailed me this morning to clue me in on an anonymous survey that their editors are doing on the topic of cognitive enhancers (a spawn of the commentary piece on the same subject a few weeks back.)
If you’d like to take the survey, check it out here.

Nature Survey on Cognitive Enhancers

We had a prior discussion on cognitive performance doping led by the BM on the old site. This was sparked by a Nature commentary which followed a prior editorial.
Nature now has a web poll going asking you to opine on cognitive enhancers. From Retrospectacle:

Brenden Maher at Nature emailed me this morning to clue me in on an anonymous survey that their editors are doing on the topic of cognitive enhancers (a spawn of the commentary piece on the same subject a few weeks back.)
If you’d like to take the survey, check it out here.

Would you vaccinate against drug abuse?

Recruiting the body’s immune system in the fight against drug abuse is a hot topic. A recent piece highlights progress on cocaine vaccines:

The vaccine works by getting the body’s immune system to recognize the drug as foreign and attack it in the blood stream.
It does so by injecting an altered version of the drug into the body which has been attached to a protein that the body will recognize as a threat.

Doesn’t this sound great? Inoculation against drug abuse? Wouldn’t any parent of a pre-teen ask “Where do I sign my kid up?”