> what actually gets approved is longer lasting pecker perkers and yet another blood pressure medication That's a problem with the industry and the government,

> what actually gets approved is longer lasting pecker perkers and yet another blood pressure medication That's a problem with the industry and the government, not so much with the research. But I'd love to see improvements there. Also, there are some fun tricks with augmented reality and chemistry. teaching: http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/scripps/ http://www.hitl.washington.edu/projects/scripps/ drug prototyping: http://boingboing.net/2011/09/26/chemistry-of-the-future-3d-models-and-augmented-reality.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+boingboing%2FiBag+%28Boing+Boing%29&utm_content=Google+Reader http://boingboing.net/2011/09/26/chemistry-of-the-future-3d-... > there has been some progress in the lab that seems to have led to not much practical. MEMS has only been a thing for about a decade. Fancy sensors for your cell phone are more profitable, so they get industrial support and make it out of the lab faster. It's not easy to get adequate funding for academic research, and it's a million times easier (more, really) to MVP a SaaS startup than it is to get innovative tech out of the lab. Industry is often 10-20 years behind academic research, sometimes more. Just look at the state of nuclear power plants.