A dark winter for UK physics

If you ignore for a second the constant forward-looking attention Internet news demands and stretch your mind back to the Mad Cow Disease scare of 2004, you might remember thinking "how strange that proteins can act as pathogens in the mammalian body!"

Mad Cow scares us because it's an enigma--a protein disease that acts like it has DNA. But now it's looking more familiar, as researchers prove it mutates very much like a DNA or RNA virus or bacteria.

God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players (i.e. everybody), to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time.
- Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchet: Good Omens, Ace Books, New York, 1996, p.4

Despite widespread financial gloom, 2009 has been an excellent vintage for physics and astronomy. The Hubble Space Telescope's final servicing mission was declared a resounding success, LHC finally powered up after last year's false start, several new astronomy satellites were launched and astronomers have tantalisingly reported a possible first-ever detection of dark matter particles. But in the UK, the year was closed on a blue note following an ominous pre-budget report in early December and the subsequent announcement of drastic cuts to the particle physics and astronomy programmes by the country's Science and Technology Facilities Council, STFC.

Alistair Darling's pre-budget report released on 9 December projecting £600 million of savings from higher education by 2012 showed a glimpse of things to come. In the following week, in which Herschel astronomers showcased their first results in Madrid and the CDMS scientists reported their dark matter research results, British scientists received a cold shower when STFC announced wide-reaching cuts to its entire programme, to fill a hole of around £40 million.