Interesting work appeared recently on the predominant support for objective-driven, applied science and how this can hurt science as a whole:
Fundamental ecology is fundamental, Franck Courchamp, Jennifer A. Dunne, Yvon Le Mahon, Robert M. May, Christophe The Ìbaud and Michael E. Hochberg, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 30, 9 (2015)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/269099514_Fundamental_ecology_is_fundamental
Interesting article by O.W. Greenberg about the importance of un-driven research or the “usefulness of useless knowledge,”:
The Origin of Quark Color by O.W. Greenberg , Physics Today 68(1), 33 (2015); doi: 10.1063/PT.3.2655
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/68/1?ver=pdfcov
Big Data and its availability for basic research:
1) Troves of Personal Data, Forbidden to Researchers, by John Markoff, published on May 21, 2012 in The New York Times:
2) Big Data deserves a bigger audience, by Bernardo Huberman, Nature 482, 308 (2012)