

PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel invests in radical science innovation - MikeCapone
http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2011-11-21-paypal-co-founder-peter-thiel-invests-in-radical-science-innovation

======
melling
This page is broken in Chrome?

<http://www.breakoutlabs.org/>

------
bh42222
Interesting concept.

It is true that most government research funding is conservative. And private
big co. R&D funding is rarely focused on basic research.

This aim to specifically fund high risk science is a very interesting idea.
What worries me is how they will tell real high risk science from charlatanry?

------
tryitnow
I really wish more of the wealthy had the foresight and ingenuity to focus
their philanthropy on high risk high reward areas like Thiel does.

------
zotz
The single most anti-science stance in government and industry is the
prohibition on hemp. The chemurgists of the 1920s and 30s had figured out that
anything made from a hydrocarbon can also be made from a carbohydrate. This
knowledge, combined with George Schlichten's decorticator (the cotton gin of
hemp), was about to revolutionize both agriculture and manufacturing (as
detailed in this 1938 article in Popular Mechanics:
[http://books.google.com/books?id=e9sDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA238#v...](http://books.google.com/books?id=e9sDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA238#v=onepage&q&f=false))
when industry, using its power via its control of the American Congress,
outlawed an entire plant.

The anti-science attitude starts in the worlds of entrenched business and
government interests that have little to no wish to see humanity progress
beyond those interests.

~~~
mahyarm
What makes hemp unique vs other plants in this regard?

~~~
zotz
Hemp produces more biomass per acre than any other plant. 1 acre of hemp can
also produce as much if not more cellulose than 5-10 acres of trees over a
20-year period.

