Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work • Hacker News Board

Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#41

Post by eperlste » Wed, Oct 31, 2012, 7:32 AM UTC

Thanks to everyone for all the thoughtful discussions!

And thanks to Bilal for starting this thread.

If anyone would like to discuss our project in greater detail, please email me: eperlste@princeton.edu.

P.S. traffic from here to RocketHub resulted in 999 project video plays, which is 40-times the previous day's total, and 3-times greater than the previous daily high.

-Ethan

Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#42

Post by the_erd » Wed, Oct 31, 2012, 4:16 PM UTC

omnisci wrote: post #37

the_erd wrote: post #23

Maybe it's just me, but looking at molecular accumulation in this way doesn't seem that promising. However, there are other problems here... In order to get this kind of research funded in a traditional way, the author would need a much more detailed explanation of the work: specifically, a compelling and well-referenced account of why drug accumulation in mouse brain sections will be helpful in understanding the mec…

After reading a bit more about this, it seems that they are an established lab with protocols in line for the questions you asked about. The PI's last publication ( http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna... ) states that they are affiliated with Princeton, so dealing with hazardous materials etc are dealt with Princeton's Environmental health and safety dept. The same applies to animals, radioac…

I'm not sure that leaving details out of the proposal is really that smart. It seems like we're doing the public a disservice by excluding them from the kind of information traditional funding sources use to make allocation decisions, because it reduces the basis for making funding decisions on all proposed research to oversimplified descriptions, while providing no insight into traditional research funding.

In other words, people can get duped into funding research that is not as well founded as this one (supposedly), and we pass over a key opportunity to teach the public how organizations like the NIH make funding decisions. Maybe if people had an idea about how rigorously funding proposals are analyzed they would be less likely to cut science funding because of inane arguments like Sarah Palin made about public funding to study fruit flies.

Re: Crowdfunded research into how amphetamines work

#43

Post by omnisci » Thu, Nov 01, 2012, 2:33 AM UTC

the_erd wrote: post #42

omnisci wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading a bit more about this, it seems that they are an established lab with protocols in line for the questions you asked about. The PI's last publication ( http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna... ) states that they are affiliated with Princeton, so dealing with hazardous materials etc are dealt with Princeton's Environmental health and safety dept. The same applies to animals, radioac…

I'm not sure that leaving details out of the proposal is really that smart. It seems like we're doing the public a disservice by excluding them from the kind of information traditional funding sources use to make allocation decisions, because it reduces the basis for making funding decisions on all proposed research to oversimplified descriptions, while providing no insight into traditional research funding. In other…

NIH has recently changed how they deal with grants. They are asking for less methodology information and more of the conceptual info. I support that, especially since most of the methods will be modified throughout the experiment and commonly read over anyway. This is one step above that. The concept and end result is the important portion for people to get interested in the project. Those who are in the field know what autoradiography is and how it is done and the investor who is interested in the outcome isn't going to understand/care. If you have limited space to pitch an idea, are you going to spend more time explaining the idea and why it’s awesome, or the intricate details as to how you are going to do it? You talk about the idea and why it’s awesome, if someone is interested in knowing how, they ask. In regards to Sarah Palin’s inane arguments, I agree/disagree. There is some amazing science going on, and some realllllly shitty science going on, both of which are federally funded. This is a huge topic (also one of the main focuses of my YC application) and I don’t know if the details of this proposal, or proposals like this are the venue to really get at those issues. However, I do understand your point and I think it is valid, just in a different venue.