The technology community in the US ain't what it used to be, argues Judy Estrin, a technology entrepreneur and former Chief Technology Officer of Cisco. She is the author of Closing the Innovation Gap, and she's arguing that "we have a national innovation deficit." Estrin suggests that the key indicators of our innovation problem are excessive short-term thinking and not enough risk-taking. I'm no technology expert, but there is concern about a similar phenomenon in the sciences. As every scientist who has spent months trying to get something to work in the lab knows, establishing something significantly new takes time, and the path to success (if it comes at all) is extremely unpredictable. When it comes time to write for grant funding, to put together a thesis project, or start looking for a job, the temptation nearly irresistable to go for the safe research project, the one that will reliably yield solid but only mildy interesting results. When money is tight - when federal grant money is extremely limited, when taking a risk on a potentially groundbreaking project could mean your financial ruin, with no possibility of recovery, then innovation slows down. Why is risk-taking in science important? At home, it's a bad thing if you take a risk on a great poker hand and gamble away your kids' college savings. In science, risk-taking keeps everyone from thinking the same way, and from doing the same, run-of-the-mill science. An essential element of science is its unpredictability; you can't always say which ideas are going to be right, and which will be wrong. The more potentially paradigm-shifting an idea is, the harder it is to tell in advance whether it's right. But we want researchers pursuing potentially paradigm-shifting ideas, even at the risk of failure. To do that requires relieving the pressure for short-term results, and that takes dedicated money. Fortunately, even in these times of declining funding, the National Institutes of Health recognizes the need to support risky science with a possibility of high payoff. They've established a Eureka Award to provide money for long-shot ideas. Has it worked? It just started this year, so the jury's still out. Maybe there is a growing innovation gap in the US technology sector. In basic science however, federal agencies trying to keep an eye on the future by funding risky science.