Chris Armstrong
A short thread on science research and "overhead".
The image below is of three NMR spectrometers (the shit I actually have a PhD, incidentally). They're routine and essential instruments for chemical and biochemical work. The structural information you get out of them is borderline unrivalled, and you'd struggle to do any molecular research without one.
1/n
Chris Armstrong
Needless to say, this stuff is so fuck-nut expensive you're not going get one of these on your own in a routine small grant of a few tens of thousand dollars. No single research project will buy these.
But if they all contribute together, an "overhead" -- a "tax" of sorts -- then teams of researchers and whole institutions can buy them and share them.
4/
Chris Armstrong
So... To the surprise of no-one, Elon Musk is a fucking idiot, and part of how the new regime is trying to dismantle science in the United States is by demonising this process, claiming that it's waste.
Yes, the money also gets spent on admin, and maybe the occasional DEI officer, and also electric bills, and heating, and Internet. And also building maintenance, taking the bins out, cleaning the toilets... and buying the bigger instruments and places to put them.
5/5
Chris Armstrong
If you're worried about US universities wasting funds on things that aren't the core mission, then the exploitative concussion machine that is college football is *right there*.
Chris Armstrong
A small, shitty one is going to set you back over a hundred grand. Probably the same again in operating costs: like a competent technician, and liquid helium and nitrogen to fill it and keep the magnet superconducting.
A big one, for any serious research is going to cost a million. Dollars, Euros, Pounds, doesn't matter, I'm just saying the ballpark.
For the biggest ones, for real hardcore work, times that by ten, and add the cost of a new building to store it because they're fucking huge.
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Chris Armstrong
I want to emphasise at this point this is *one* type of instrument. One of the most expensive, yes, but there are many others that you need to do research into anything chemical or biochemical.
This stuff is expensive. And it adds up fast. To run a proper research project, you need access to all of it. All of the spectrometers. Anything you can put on the roof and calibrate to gamma rays, you want it.
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