On the Right Foot

The National Science Foundation may receive a 3.3 percent budget increase in 2013, reports ScienceInsider's Jeffery Mervis. Under a new bill taken up by a US Senate spending panel, the agency could receive a $240 million increase. This falls short of the $340 million bump President Barack Obama had requested for NSF, but given that the Senate panel has only $1 billion to spread around, the budget increase "still represents a remarkable show of support for the basic research agency," Mervis says. If approved, NSF's total budget would be $7.27 billion. The full Senate appropriations committee is expected to take up the proposal later this month, Mervis adds.