Serious shit.
First, a shout to all the British Citizens and Residents hanging around - could you please take the time to read the following petition (and hopefully sign it).
-Petition-
Channel4 discusses the petition and the overall issue here.
Although it only represents a small amount of funds, it's going to be a devastating blow to lose them. Entire research groups are facing closure, and those that survive will be looking at AT LEAST 25% job losses. We're also losing not only a large proportion of our current facilities, but also the ability to manage/run/acquire new facilities for research.
If you don't think particle physics and astronomy are worth funding, consider the fact that you're reading this on the Internet. We invented it, and after the pornography and piracy industries, physics research has probably been responsible for more of its continued development than any other field. Considering that we intend to generate as much data-traffic as the entire thing when SKA gets up and running, you can be sure we're serious about seeing that trend continue.
I am, of course, hideously biased, so let me take you to a nice article by The Economist, which sums things up rather well from an outside perspective.
And here's evidence of the government's clear disdain for science funding, from earlier in the year.
Let's have some more articles. Here's one from The Guardian... And New Scientist...
I could go on, but you'd probably get bored.
Oh, what the heck. Here's a great summary from someone here in Sheffield.
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
chesneycat) wrote,
