It’s been online a week—and many of you may have already seen it—but here’s a shout-out to check out Nature’s Election Special. The reporters here in the Washington, DC Nature offices dug deep to bring you the candidates’ views on science, ferreting out the advisors to each campaign and examining how our favorite agencies—such as the NIH—might fare under each candidate.

It’s clear there are some welcome similarities between the candidates—both, for instance, take climate change seriously. But there are also some prominent differences.

Although both candidates say they support increases in funding for research, Obama specifically pledges a doubling of support for basic research. And while Obama is unequivocal about his support for embryonic stem cell research, some researchers are legitimately concerned that McCain is backing off of his previous support ( I will blog about that later this week).

Obama seems to have a deeper network of science advisors. And, unlike McCain, Obama has chosen actual scientists for his science advisors. That might have something to do with the fact that Obama’s campaign bothered to answer a series of questions posed by Nature, although McCain did respond, along with Obama, to a series of science questions posed by ScienceDebate2008, the group that pushed for a science debate among the candidates last April.

To learn more, check out the special!