During a trip to Washington, DC, this spring, Pushpalatha Bhat told Barack Obama’s Senate staff that they need to apply the Democratic presidential candidate’s “Yes we can” attitude to reverse the budget cuts that were levied late last year on physics. “That’s his motto,” says Bhat. “And I challenged them that we need ‘the audacity of hope’—the title of Obama’s book. We can’t afford to lose that. We need to fund science and education. They are the basic building blocks for advanced civilization. And we need to regain credibility and standing on the world stage.”

Fermilab, where Bhat has been an experimental physicist for 20 years, is cutting 200 positions, or more than 10% of its workforce. “Morale is low,” she says. “Very smart young people that I know have recently left the field because they are discouraged about what’s happening to the lab.” Fermilab’s budget for fiscal year 2008...

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