A break down of Emory research funding. Source: Emory University.

The Emory News Center reports that general dumbassery in Washington, D.C. cost the university $17.7 million in research funding this year.

It’s part of that whole sequestration thing we’ve all been hearing so much about. Most of Emory’s 2013 research money – about $333 million of it – comes from the federal government. The university received $287 million in federal research money from the National Institutes of Health.

Emory spends it on wasteful pork barrel research like making organ transplants safer, treating HIV and “life saving discoveries in traumatic brain injury.”

It’s about time someone stuck it to those unhealthy moochers.

Emory reports that if the general dumbassery continues, it will result in a loss of $24 million in 2014. The Atlantic reports that Congress has passed a budget deal that provides some relief from sequestration, but it has been a pretty rough few years for medical research funded by the NIH. The government shutdown this fall didn’t help.

“During the shutdown I got tears in my eyes walking through labs where all the lights were off and the benches were empty,” NIH Director Francis Collins told the Atlantic. “Just a week before all kinds of great science had been going on and then, because of political stalemate, none of that was allowed to happen.”

To read that full article – which you really should read – click here.

Other stories that caught my eye: 

-Decatur Metro reports that a water main break at 315 West Ponce  was caused by Dawn Redwood trees. “Over the years, there’s been much discussion regarding the future of the Dawn Redwood trees on the 315 West Ponce property and whether they would be spared when the site was developed to include a mixed use building fronting West Ponce,” DM reports.

– Wilmington, Delaware wants the Centers for Disease Control to study what’s behind a surge in gun violence there. There have been a record 150 shootings (so far) in 2013, and 18 people died, according to WDDE.org.

– CBS Atlanta reports that Associate DeKalb County Judge Arnold Ragas has resigned due to sexual harassment allegations.

– President Obama has nominated DeKalb County State Court Judge Eleanor Louise to the the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, according to the Gainesville Times.

– According to the Fort Myers, Fla., News-Press Decatur’s Greenforest Christian Academy basketball team has five players from Nigeria. “The Nigerians ended up in suburban Atlanta at the recommendation of former NBA forward Ejike Ugboaja, a Nigerian who was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2006,” the paper reports.

– Decaturish.com contributor Ralph Ellis filed this report for CNN.com about the Wreaths Across America. The program, “Places holiday wreaths on his gravestone and the resting places of other war dead at Arlington National Cemetery.” To read the full article, click here.