Neat science sponsored by the Government

[Tero]

Examples

1940s H C Brown invents boron chemistry while working on weapons for the Gubment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_C._Brown

By 1979 Akira Suzuki invents a coupling based on boron compounds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzuki_reaction

From 1963 until 1965, Suzuki worked as a postdoc with Herbert Charles Brown at Purdue University and after returning to the University of Hokkaidō he became a full professor there.

2013
There are a dozen drugs that cannot be made without Suzuki coupling

The National Science Foundation funded the work, also pouring a hundred million or more to MIT, a private university, every year.

[Tero]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction

Invented by Mullis in industry, it was impossible to come by without government sponsored earlier work:
The process was first described by Kjell Kleppe and 1968 Nobel laureate H. Gobind Khorana, and allows the amplification of specific DNA sequences.[2][3][4]
The prior work will be cited in
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/239/4839/487
if you have access to the full paper

[Svartalf]

I never had any idea that there were drugs that dependent on boron chemistry, given boron's general uselessness in human biology.

[Tero]

I never had any idea that there were drugs that dependent on boron chemistry, given boron's general uselessness in human biology.

You have to look at the link. It allows you to connect X-B(OH)2 plus Br-Y to X-Y. It is a convenient way to connect carbon skeletons. The boron does not stay in the product.

[Tero]

Sometimes Science needs industry to give it some opportunities to study. Your tax dollars at work here.


Not all oil floats, or evaporates. Some of it does sink down. But the distribution was thoroughly researched. They then followed the oil to inland water ways and mapped insects and other critters and their fate.

The spill (Deepwater Horizon) led to a decline on shore of native ant species an increase in invasive ones. Linda Hooper-Bui of LSA has the data.