Budget Cuts Force Biodiversity Program to Close - Nick DeSantis, Chronicle of Higher Ed

Budget cuts have forced a key biodiversity database to close, leaving scientists and researchers without a unified tool to access biological data from across state and federal agencies. The U.S. Geological Survey's National Biological Information Infrastructure program and its popular Web site shut down on Jan. 15 due to the elimination of the program's 2012 federal budget. The program's closure follows a series of drastic cuts that reduced its budget to zero in 2012 from $7 million in 2010.