n class="small_caps">With every crisis, whether a pandemic or manmade or natural disaster, politicians and pundits invariably get around to calling for a Manhattan Project. This powerful imagery of putting “big science” to work to tackle big challenges comes, of course, from the success of that World War II effort and after that its Cold War derivative, the moonshot Apollo program. The legacy of those organized research enterprises is the very idea that government can marshal scientific and financial resources to solve major societal problems. Read Full Article »