. >> ifill: francis collins, head of the national institutes of health, walks us through president obama's call for a ten-year initiative to map the human brain. >> woodruff: plus, jeffrey brown reports on an archaeological find in the orkney islands off scotland that may provide new insight into religious practices in the neolithic age. >> ifill: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: it was the starkest statement yet on the possible effect of automatic federal budget cuts, due to begin in nine days, on march first. defense secretary leon panetta notified his entire civilian work force that employees could be sent home without pay. the warning was aimed at defense department workers at the pentagon and around the world. secretary panetta sent them a written message, as he left for a nato

. >> ifill: francis collins, head of the national institutes of health, walks us through president obama'sall for a ten-year initiative to map the human brain.

. >> suarez: doctor francis collins was the head of the human genome project back then. today he's the director of the national institutes of health, which would coordinate much of the brain project. and he joins me now. good to have you back. >> nice to be with you, ray. >> suarez: there's research going on in universities around the country, institution around the world in to how the brain works. why do we need government capital flowing into this area? >> because there's a new technology opportunity here that wasn't really present four or five years ago, and the opportunity now exists in the similar way to the genome project about 30 years ago to build an intrp based upon new technology involving nanotechnology, opto genetics, some things that are pretty recent. and to be able to understand want brain there the way we really can't right now. right now we can measure the activityave single brain cell, a neuron, see when it fires. or we can look at the whole brain in pictures like you just saw in this segment--mr i scans, pet scans-- but there is a big intermediate zone

listen to what francis collins, director of the nih, had to say. >> that translates into hundreds of grants that would have been funded in this fiscal year that simply will not get paid. the way in which the sequester hits nih is that each one of our 27 institutes and centers has to take an equivalent cut of 5.1%. so that means this will hit cancer, it will hit heart disease. it will hit diabetes. it will hit hiv/aids. it will hit alzheimer's. it will hit all of those areas. >> that is just about all of medicine. and joining me to talk more about this are two cnn experts, and all things beltway and economics. jake tapper and ali velshi. thanks for joining us. you know, you hear francis colin talk. obviously, it's very concerning. ali, let me start with you. what happened to cause this? >> yeah, for once i'm going to use a colloquialism that actually fits. this is a poison pill. the sequester, forced budget cuts were something the government imposed upon itself to say if you don't take action to deal with the deficits and the debt, the consequence is going to be something so bitter th

francis collins warned that the sequester would slash $1.6 billion from n.i.h.'s budget, directly damaging ongoing research into cancer and alzheimer's and other diseases. funding for special education would also suffer deep cuts, eliminating federal support for more than 7,200 teachers, aides and other staff who support our students with disabilities. funding for food safety would be severely impacted, resulting in thousands of fewer inspections. a slowdown in meat process, costing jobs and endangering the safety of the public. the food safety and inspection service may have to furlough all employees for approximately two weeks, which could close down or severely restrict meatpacking plants around the country. the list of destructive budget cuts goes on and on. and what many people may not understand is that these are just the latest cuts to spending and investment. over the past two years the president and congress have already agreed to $1.4 trillion in cuts, spending cuts, all from the discretionary side of the budget. these have been very dramatic. spending

francis collins, who heads that agency. we were making these announcements on how america had led the way in lowering cancer rates among its own people. isn't that a great victory? and at the same time i was telling them we could be heading into sequester or going over a fiscal cliff. madam president, these 130,000 people every day are working to help america, whether they man weather satellites, whether they're doing the next generation of drug approval, whether they're running the social security administration, whether they're over at the national institutes of standards making sure that american products have american standards, not the chinese standard. again, so we can manufacture here and sell over there. so i think sequester's a terrible thing. as the chair of the full appropriations, i am working with our leadership to try to deal with it this year. but i also say to the other side of the aisle, let's come together, let's work with our president, let's have that grand bargain through looking at -- looking at tax re

francis collins, head of n.i.h., warned that the sequester will slash another $1.6 billion from n.i.h.'s budget at a very time when we were on the cusp of really having some good breakthroughs in medical research. and a lot of medical researchers that have been lined up doing great programs out there, and all of a sudden they're going to have the rug pulled out from underneath them. but that's what's going to happen. might i mention kids with disabilities and what's going to happen with the funding for idea, the individuals with disabilities education act? i'm told about 7,200 teachers' aides and other staff that help our communities and our schools hope with kids with disabilities who come into schools because under idea, we are providing that kind of support, but that's going to be cut. it's going to be cut. so i -- i just -- this idea that somehow we could just keep cutting and cutting and cutting and we're going to get to some magic land where -- where we can continue to function as a society just isn't so. we need revenues. we need revenues. and that's what's in the bill that the