Members in the Media

"It is vital to the nation that we retain those women who seek graduate degrees. Otherwise, we will lose our lead in innovation and ultimately our standard of living, as well as national security.”
–Arthur Bienenstock, Stanford University, on Stanford’s new maternity leave policy for graduate students, San Jose Mercury News, January 27, 2006

''It was quite striking. It used to be that a position at MIT was the best in the world, and now people are turning us down."
–Marc Kastner, MIT, on losing researchers to other countries where research funding is easier to obtain, The Boston Globe, January 23, 2006

"At the time I didn't think it was a good name, but it caught on fairly quickly."
–Saul Perlmutter, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, on the name “dark energy,” Baltimore Sun, January 20, 2006

"In principle, the ball should go further in Denver" when it is thrown with the same amount of force.
–Adam Leibovich, University of Pittsburgh, on a Pittsburgh Steelers game in Denver, Pittsburgh Tribune Review, January 18, 2006

"There are a lot of interesting applications. Snails may be slow and may require a slime trail, but the good thing is they can crawl over anything–sand, mud, twigs. If they encounter a wall or ceiling, they keep moving."
–Anette Hosoi, MIT, on a robotic snail she developed, ABC news.com, January 26, 2006

"We would like to get them there yesterday. I have no doubt that it will make a difference. We feel modestly hopeful that it will relieve some of the hardship in the lives of these two million people."
–Ashok Gadgil, Lawrence Berkeley Lab, on bringing more efficient stoves to women in Darfur, where longs trips from refugee camps to gather firewood leave them vulnerable to attacks, Contra Costa Times, February 6, 2006

"It could snow day and night until the sun dies before two snow crystals would be exactly,
precisely alike."
–Kenneth Libbrecht, Caltech, Christian Science Monitor, January 24, 2006

"There's the famous expression that when you build a wall, always make sure you know what you're walling in and what you're walling out. [The US has] set up a set of mechanisms that have the power to do more harm than good."
–Steven Block, Stanford University, on regulations that discourage foreign scientists from coming to the US, New Scientist, January 31, 2006

"Obviously, something got screwed up in the mail."
–Frank Stadermann, Washing-ton University, on discovering that a box mailed by NASA did not contain the comet dust he was expecting, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, January 30, 2006

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get (cosmic) material like this."
–Hope Ishii, Lawrence Livermore National Lab, on NASA’s Stardust mission, San Francisco Chronicle, February 1, 2006

"Oh, and the game-ending field goal kicked from the 300-yard line now spends almost 20 seconds in the air. The suspense is killing me."
–Todd Holden, Brooklyn College, on an imaginary football game on the moon, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, February 5, 2006

"There's been a dismal history of inadequate investment in physics, computer science, and the non-biology side of R&D in this country for the last 20 years."
–John Hopfield, Princeton University, on the budget for science, Technology Review, February 8, 2006

"That's either due to one person who is extremely varied, or it's due to a number of different artists."
–Richard Taylor, University of Oregon, on his analysis that shows that six paintings attributed to Jackson Pollock may have been painted by someone else, The New York Times, February 9, 2006