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fork(2) [soylentnews.org] writes:

      Money, politics, and science... This time there's a happy ending.

      In 2015, Nature outlined a long-running Italian saga [nature.com] about murky "medicine" (in this case stem-cell therapy) which involved politicians and the judiciary, questionable science, good science, and a long, hard fight for evidence to prevail. One of the heros in the story is Elena Cattaneo, a neuroscientist at University of Milan. (Cattaneo and her colleague, Gilberto Corbellini, published an article in Nature [nature.com] in 2014 sharing their experiences in this battle against pseudoscience. Also, see the article in Wikipedia [wikipedia.org].)

      In 2013, Elena Cattaneo was appointed Senator for life by the Italian President, Giorgio Napolitano. The Wikipedia article [wikipedia.org] about her gives a nice/quick synopsis of the situation.

      Last Wednesday (June 22), Nature [nature.com] reported that:

It isn't a scam, as neuroscientist Elena Cattaneo had first assumed. A total stranger really has left the prominent Italian, who is also a senator and a relentless campaigner against the misuse of science, his entire fortune to distribute for research. The sum is likely to be upwards of 1.5 million Euro (US$1.7 million).

      The short, handwritten will of Franco Fiorini, an accountant from the small town of Molinella near Bologna, was officially made public on 21 June.

      "I'll never know for sure why he decided to do this," says Cattaneo, who adds that she has wept with regret that she cannot thank Fiorini. "But it gives a hopeful message that there are some people like Franco who are able to work out on their own the importance of science and research for Italy's future."

      She intends to make the money available for fellowships for young scientists in Italy, where funds for research are notoriously scarce.

      [...]

      Many anonymous donors give significant amounts of money to medical-research foundations, notes Tullio Pozzan, director of the CNR Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Padua. "But giving money to an individual -- someone you only know through the press -- is unusual," he says. "It shows the importance of publicizing research in the press."

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