Crowdfunding

Money Tight, Scientists Turn To Crowdfunding

In the past decade, it's gotten much harder for scientists to get the federal grants that fund most American research. This year's sequester has made it even more difficult, and the government shutdown is likely to slow things down even further. So scientists are looking for new ways to pay for their work, including "crowdfunding." But going online and asking the public for money has real drawbacks. Even so, as WBHM's Southern Education Desk reporter Dan Carsen tells us, some think it could "open up" science in a good way.