[chuckles] Had nothing to do with space travel.

Yeah, I mean, even if the problem sort of seems like it might be connected to things, the answer doesn't.

So I mean, one, one of my favorite examples, which I sort of got a chance to witness up close and personal.

So I was a postdoc at Johns Hopkins and got to know Ham Smith, who was an MD but a microbiologist who was fascinated with the question of why some bacteria are resistant to viral infections, bacterial viral infections, and others are not.

So he just tried to say, "Well, you know, can I figure out what's special about these bacteria that are resistant compared to other ones?" And he got to work and started doing genetics and biochemistry and discovered that the bacteria that were resistant had these things called restriction enzymes that would cut up DNA.

So it wouldn't cut up their own DNA because they had special other tools that would sort of mark their own DNA to protect it.

But if a virus came in and injected foreign DNA into the cell, these restriction enzymes were little scissors that would go around and clip it up into pieces and keep the virus from infecting the cell.

But in that report, one thing that really seemed to make the headlines was this concern of the role of political appointees, which I couldn't help but think of "The Hunt for Red October" [chuckles] with the role that Tim Curry plays as the Communist Party officer who is on board, and Sean Connery is trying to work out, "I'm the technocrat who knows how to sail the submarine, but now I have this political officer [chuckles] who's sort of double-guessing my every move." And maybe I'm being too flagrant in my analogy, but when I heard the term political appointee-

It had nothing to do with space travel.

Yeah, I mean, even if the problem sort of seems like it might be connected to things, the answer doesn't.

So, I mean, one of my favorite examples, which I sort of got a chance to witness up close and personal.

So I was a postdoc at Johns Hopkins and got to know Ham Smith, who was an MD, but a microbiologist who was fascinated with the question of why some bacteria are resistant to viral infections, bacterial viral infections, and others are not.

So he just tried to say, well, can I figure out what's special about these bacteria that are resistant compared to other ones? And he got to work and started doing genetics and biochemistry and discovered that the bacteria that were resistant had these things called restriction enzymes that would cut up DNA.

So it wouldn't cut up their own DNA because they had special other tools that would sort of mark their own DNA to protect it.

But if a virus came in and injected foreign DNA into the cell, these restriction enzymes were little scissors that would go around and clip it up into pieces and keep the virus from infecting the cell.

A

these posts and others were lifelines.

So the other thing, which, you know, one question which I have been haunted by and I think finally have come to terms with the answer, which I think is actually pretty clear, which is, so what does this administration have against science and why are they opposed to cancer research? That seems like a just completely nutty position to try to take.

And the answer, I think, is they're indifferent.

cancer research is fine.

It's not anything that they're desperately in need of for whatever reason, but you know, that, that, uh, The consequence of the way science is funded in the U.S.

So the NIH appropriation, the NIH budget annually is about $45 billion.

So it's huge compared to any other science invested in the world.

I think, you know, if you look at Hungary