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 ́baud 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:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/22/science/big-data-troves-stay-forbidden-to-social-scientists.html?_r=1

2) Big Data deserves a bigger audience, by Bernardo Huberman, Nature 482, 308 (2012)

http://www.nature.com/articles/482308d.epdf?referrer_access_token=MWQOY8MwgSqgOpY5pRqpJ9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NyuDEFFt6I1phTHHMoKoNgNw9RDUxu1dPUakCJCEsT-5Z4QNktm1yLu-6l-NPHiE9zb964LMBIvE6JBUNfkCOg-3AxGxjXFzgw2N834cIMzSo_pVSkGTwdpQFgD5fQicGGhASJ464wezt0GxxB_Ibzu5V53V_rocX0ZsnohJTMrVec-ZtdaqGIT2jxa6nvxvpD_HYMDCXg3LCYI4m9vOu8&tracking_referrer=www.nytimes.com