• But first, bye bye absurd abortion laws!

• The Inauguration killed the Internets! No mere series of tubes can withstand the pressure of this seminal moment in history.

• “BarackBerry,” “ObamaBerry”—call it what you will, we still can’t get over the fact that he’s the first president ever to use e-mail while in office.

• An economist explains why all those hospital procedures cost what they do.

• The trees are dying! The trees are dying!

• OMG! We’re in the White House! Blogging, presidential style.

• No, Virginia, there’s no such thing as truly clean coal.

So what are some top science priorities that President Obama can stick on his “ASAP” list? Here’s a few ideas, along with the likelihood that they’ll be addressed in the super/semi/not-so-near future:

Abortion: The most likely candidate on the list. CNN reports that the new president may repeal a 2001 Bush policy that prevents federal money from going to international family planning groups that perform abortions as early as today or tomorrow.

Stem Cells: Lifting the ban on federally-funded stem cell research is another move that’s likely to happen quickly.

Energy/Environment: So, uh, how ’bout those emissions cuts? Chances are, they won’t come until later in the year, with alt-energy legislation taking priority. And in the meantime, halting that environmental fire sale sure would be nice.

Health care: We need action. Fast. As in, yesterday. Yes, the task is huge and the hurdles enormous. But the costs of doing nothing to reform the American health care system will be crippling in every sense of the word. So where does the Big H.C. stand on the agenda? According to the Wall Street Journal, the new administration will “move fast on [Obama's] proposal to overhaul” health care, with a “major event at the White House” likely happening sometime in March.

As we mentioned yesterday, the Obama administration is getting a running start, already gearing up to reverse Bush on topics from oil drilling to abortion. And stem cell research, which has been straining under the bonds of various federal funding bans since 1994.

Earlier this year, Obama stated in his Science Debate 2008 response that he “strongly support[s] expanding research on stem cells,” and that:

“As president, I will lift the current administration’s ban on federal funding of research on embryonic stem cell lines created after Aug. 9, 2001 through executive order, and I will ensure that all research on stem cells is conducted ethically and with rigorous oversight.”

Skip forward to today, where democracy has spoken! Hooray for research! Scientists like George Daley, the former president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, along with many of his colleagues, are understandably thrilled.

Granted, not everyone in the field is busting out the Kristal.

In fact, some are even speculating that lifting the federal ban could hurt research efforts, since less money will now be funneled from the private sector. Take Dr. Paul Sanberg, director of the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair at the University of South Florida in Tampa, who told ABC News:

“Unless there is a boost in funding for this research at the NIH, it is highly likely that funding for currently allowed research will actually decrease as the pool of funds gets diluted by new applications…. Overall funding for stem cell research in our country could decrease if the states feel less inclined to fund their own stem cell initiatives in a downward economy, thinking that the federal government is now funding all stem cell research.”

Given how much cash the feds are likely to have lying around for the next few years, Sanberg’s prediction might not be so crazy.

Related:
RB: DISCOVER’s Science Policy Project: C. Everett Koop
RB: GOP Moves to Stamp Out Embryonic Research; McCain (Hopefully) Disagrees

None too soon, the experts have begun weighing in on what President-Elect Obama should do regarding climate and energy policy. Even better, Obama’s transition team has put together a list of around 200 Bush policies to be kicked to the curb ASAP. They include gems like reversing the limit on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, and ditching a rule that stops U.S. aid-receiving family planning groups from informing women about the availability of abortion.

The biggest slashes, so far anyway, have been saved for Bush’s environmental policies. As the Washington Post reports, Obama has announced his intention to “quickly reverse the Bush administration’s decision last December to deny California the authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from automobiles.” There’s also the undoing of the executive order that opens public lands to oil drilling, as well as social/economic moves like closing Guantanamo and tossing a life preserver to GM (though whether that’s a good idea remains to be seen).

Related:
RB: Obama & McCain Answer DISCOVER’s Questions on the Environment
RB: What Must the Next President Do to Save Science? DISCOVER’s Science Policy Project 2008

The new president-elect promises to usher in a “new era of scientific innovation” (of course, exactly how much funding that will entail/receive remains to be seen).

Alternative-energy industries, shrug off your wounds—there may yet be hope on the horizon.

Stem cell researchers, re-start your engines.

Another huge winner last night: The Internet.

Also consider it a huge win for academia: The president-elect, his vice president, and both their spouses have all worked in higher education.

The Senate and the House didn’t do so badly either.

And we hate to do this, but here’s the bad news.

What are the three most important things the next U.S. president needs to do for science? To cut through the jargon and find an answer, we bring you the DISCOVER Science Policy Project, in which we give a group of the country’s most celebrated scientists and thinkers the chance to state their views. All past responses can be found here.

PETER SINGER
Bioethicist

Free up scientific research on stem cells by revoking Bush’s restriction of research to stem cell lines that were created before his speech in August 2001. It was never defensible to give more protection to embryos consisting of a few cells than we give to sentient beings like dogs and chimpanzees. In any case, thanks to advances in science, the potential for creating a new human life now exists in almost every cell in our body.

Step up research on issues related to climate change, including ways of reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, developing solar energy, and assisting poorer nations to mitigate the impact of climate change.

Follow the lead of the Gates Foundation and direct more of the nation’s medical research budget into areas where it will do the most to help those who need help most, wherever in the world they may live.

As any lawyer knows, the difference between “and” and “or” can mean winning a seven-figure award versus having your a case tossed out of court. Or, in this case, millions of dollars for stem cell research versus none at all.

It all started last week, when the Republican Platform Committee approved an amendment to the party platform regarding embryonic stem cell research. The change boiled down to that one crucial word—from “and” to “or”—in the platform’s call for the ban of (emphasis added): “the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes.”

Which means, essentially, is that if the party has its way, virtually all human embryo research, from freezing embryos at fertilization clinics to the privately-financed creation of new stem-cell lines, will be shut down.

Granted, McCain is not obligated to follow the party platform—and (thank God) he’s shown a willingness to flip his party the proverbial bird in the past. Both the GOP candidate and the GOP itself have publicly opposed the creation of embryos for research purposes, but they differ substantially on the rest: McCain supports work with embryonic stem cells, while the party bigwigs want to stick to sources like umbilical cord blood and iPS cells.

The good news is that, even if McCain is elected, a full ban on embryo research would never make it through what will almost assuredly be a Democrat-heavy House and Senate. But it’s also doubtful that a McCain presidency would do much to get those investment dollars flowing to research labs.

What does Obama think about stem cells? You can find out for yourself here.

• The Olympics are here! We may not miss a chance to knock China’s political regime, but we’re more than happy to make money on the games—and discuss the smog problem ad nauseum.

• Americans aren’t the only casualty of a shrinking federal budget: Facing lack of funds, the National Center for Atmospheric Research shut down a program focused on helping poor countries forecast and deal with droughts, floods, and other climate-related disasters.

• The latest in obesity research technology: virtual reality studies.

• Researchers have created ten different stem cell lines that can be used for research on diseases from Down’s syndrome to Parkinson’s. And any protesters can relax: They’re all adult stem cells.

• The ethanol/corn prices debate continues, with the EPA denying Texas governor Rick Perry’s request to temporarily suspend the law requiring that a minimum amount of ethanol be mixed into U.S. gasoline.

• And, in an astonishing case of Too Little Too Late, the Bush administration’s Climate Change Science Program has finally decided that human activity is indeed responsible for global warming. Just in case you were wondering.

Scientists have been getting results with microRNAs, which have been used to successfully differentiate stem cells, and have even managed to re-start dead animal hearts using cell transplantation. Meanwhile, for women, the stem cells in your menstrual blood may come in handy for your health down the road—though exactly how handy remains to be seen.

And while the longterm political and religious furor over stem cells continues to rage on, the ongoing development of embryonic stem cell-like cells raise scientists’ hopes for miracle cures that would make even the Pope happy.

Bioengineered Meat
Meat is in trouble. Between inhumane farming practices, an increase in livestock-borne diseases, and the problems inherent in generating enough beef, pork, and chicken to feed an ever-growing population, a carnivorous future isn’t looking rosy. So leave it to scientists to begin developing lab-grown meat, created from cells of living animals. The “lab meat movement” has made “glacial progress” in the past few years, to the point where PETA has offered a $1 million prize to the first scientist/s who can “produce commercially viable quantities” of it by 2012. After that, all that’s left is finding a way to rid consumers of the “ick factor.”

Cloning
On the human end, cloning and controversy have gone hand in hand. After a scandal involving a fake cloned human embryo in 2006, the real deal may have finally been achieved. But that hasn’t stopped the widespread calls for a ban.

But when it comes to animals, it’s been the more the merrier since Dolly hit the scene in 1997. The FDA has now decreed that cloned cows are safe to eat, and soon, for the bargain price of around $100,000, you can have your beloved spaniel or retriever cloned as well.

Engineering New Life
Can life be created and manipulated synthetically, and enabled to do things that Mother Nature never could have imagined? Scientists have certainly been game to find out. From fabricating a malaria drug by mashing genes from different species into a single microbe to manufacturing a bacterium’s complete genome and then transferring it to another species, bioengineers have been revolutionizing the field—and raising some concern as to whether their work could be harnessed for harm as well as good.

The Mind/Machine Connection
Controlling machines with your mind is no longer a sci-fi stunt—recent studies have transformed it into a reality. Researchers at Brown took the first giant leap toward a human-electronics connection, enabling a quadriplegic to control a prosthetic hand with only his mind. Their work has now been duplicated in an even more sophisticated test—this time with monkeys.