kalisti

Hi everyone, I'm new here, but have been browsing the forums and love the community that seems to exist here. With the current budget debate going on, I'm seeing a lot of fluff news pieces about 'ridiculous' things that have received government funding (Shrimp on Treadmills was the one that got me this morning). I know that a lot of these experiments that sound silly are for very good reasons, and often end up leading to huge advances in science and an increase in the average person's standard of living. The thing is, I don't have any great examples to offer people when I want to have this discussion with them (I have an easier time defending the space program, because I have a list of benefits that people use in their daily lives that came from space research). So I'm wondering if people can help me out by mapping out a few good chains between a ridiculous-sounding (to the average person) experiment funded by the government and some sort of everyday technology or advancement that the same average person would recognize as being hugely beneficial, and which couldn't have been achieved without the initial research/experiment. I hope that makes sense, and hope people can offer some insight! Thanks so much.