NIH wins stimulus jackpot

The US Senate and House of Representatives have hammered out the differences between their versions of the economic recovery bill, to the tune of $10 billion for the National Institute of Health, according to early reports. This sum, which was approved in the Senate version of the bill earlier this week, includes $8.5 for research and $1.5 for rebuilding agency facilities, according to linkurl:ScienceInsider,;http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/02/science-headed.html which stresses that its source is a "preliminary" factsheet obtained from the office of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). The NIH seems set to receive the biggest windfall, but other agencies will get their booty too, ScienceInsider reports: $3 billion for the National Science Foundation (the amount originally approved in the House but stripped down in the Senate version of the bill), along with $1.6 billion for the Department of Energy's Office of Science, $400 million for a special energy office, and...