Best of luck, I mean that sincerely. Yes, fight.
I’m not a scientist, I’m a computer dude. We may be next. I fear Trumps BS will have a domino effect.
And beyond that, being part of the Boston area pharmaceutical/biotech ecosystem, the number of companies formed out of that research, then employing people, is insane. Even more insane is the fact that those companies form by getting VC money to support the development of the technology- so it’s money from rich people getting pushed out into the economy, as opposed to sitting in some stock fund.
And people don’t realize that those biotechs aren’t just employing scientists. Lots of good working class jobs are created as well, from manufacturing to maintenance to construction.
I have a relative in the trades who does commercial HVAC and more than half of his work is in cleanroom construction.
I truly don’t understand why you would want to destroy this. To what end?
“Because scientists are uppity and think they’re smarter than me. I’ll show them.”
Petrova’s case is being closely watched by the scientific community, with some fearing it could impact recruiting and retaining foreign scientists at U.S. universities.
“I think that there is a wrong perception that foreign scientists are somehow privileged to be in the United States. I feel it’s the opposite,” Peshkin said. “Foreign scientists come here with gifts … they are highly skilled experts who are in demand. They enrich the American scientific community.”
Stranger
*French President Emmanuel Macron said France would separately spend €100 million out of its €54 billion France 2030 investment plan to attract foreign talent. The government plans to enlist the private sector and local authorities to contribute as well. *
“Unfortunately … the role of science in today’s world is questioned. The investment in fundamental, free, and open research is questioned,” von der Leyen said, without naming the United States specifically. “What a gigantic miscalculation.” In contrast, she said, Europe is “choosing to place research and innovation, science and technology at the heart of our economy.”
Stranger
Drag. Before reading Stranger’s posts I would have said, Even though Elon and his DOGE boys seem to be on hiatus, no worldly science (to include NASA) ought to be relying on Trump dollar funding. Yet that doesn’t seem feasible in the short term and will take quite a bit of needed research money to replace.
Once the USA could take pride in being the leader of the free world and everyday those things people rely on are callously vanishing.
Science: “NSF faces radical shake-up as officials abolish its 37 divisions”
As soon as this evening, NSF is also expected to send layoff notices to an unspecified number of its 1700-member staff. The remaining staff and programs will be assigned to one of the eight, smaller directorates. Staff will receive a memo on Friday “with details to be finalized by the end of the fiscal year,” sources tell Science . The agency is also expected to issue another round of notices tomorrow terminating grants that have already been awarded, sources say. In the past 3 weeks, the agency has pulled the plug on almost 1400 grants worth more than $1 billion.
Stranger
Science: “Dozens of active and planned NASA spacecraft killed in Trump budget request”:
The request would kill off missions that are active in space right now, including two Orbiting Carbon Observatories (OCOs): OCO-2, a standalone spacecraft launched in 2014, and OCO-3, which is mounted on the International Space Station. Both missions carry a spectrometer that spies on wavelengths of light absorbed by carbon dioxide molecules, providing an ability to map atmospheric carbon abundance around the planet. The missions enabled investigations into the variations of the natural carbon cycle and also proved capable of detecting human carbon emissions.
The budget proposal would also end the Earth-facing instruments on the Deep Space Climate Observatory, which monitors space weather and records snapshots of the planet’s surface. It would kill the space station’s Sage III instrument, which makes long-term measurements of ozone, water vapor, and other gases in the atmosphere. And it would terminate the Terra, Aqua, and Aura satellites, each of which has operated for more than 2 decades, providing unprecedented insight into climate change with steady, well-calibrated instruments. And although Terra and Aqua are both near the end of their lives, Aura, which measures the stratosphere in a way no other satellite can imitate, could operate until late this decade.
…
The plans would also kill off nearly every major science mission the agency has not yet begun to build. It would end development of the Atmosphere Observing System (AOS), a multibillion-dollar series of satellites meant to study the complex formation of clouds and storms and their alteration by pollution—one of the main sources of uncertainty for future climate change, seen most recently in the debate on how much ship pollution reductions influence recent record high temperatures.
It would also terminate the Surface Biology and Geology (SBG) mission, which would loft an instrument into space capable of dividing reflected light into more than 400 wavelength channels across the visible and into the infrared. While these measurements can be used to study methane and carbon dioxide emissions, such imaging spectrometers—which serve, in effect, as molecular mapping tools—can also be used to prospect for critical minerals and track forest and farm health. The proposal to end SBG is particularly disappointing, Nolin says. “It’s deeply unfortunate they don’t understand the greater value of an instrument like that,” she says.
Stranger
Good news!
Nothing happening here in melb.vic.au. The state government is basically broke, as a result of overspending on capital investment projects, so they are raising fees and cutting expenditure.
Including expenditure on base funding of research institutions, similar to what I understand is happening in the USA. It’s not a cut back in research grants – grants are separately funded (and medical grants sometimes come from industry), but research grants generally assume that there is a funded research institution providing base services. Nothing has closed, but some of the research institutions are suggesting that they aren’t going to be able to continue at the same level.
At least your cutbacks are arising from budgetary belt-tightening and the grants aren’t being rescinded, unlike here in the States where the powers that be are taking indiscriminate axes and sledge hammers to the underpinnings of research, terrorizing foreign-born researchers with the specter of being kidnapped off the street and deported to who knows where without warning, and putting incompetent nincompoops in charge of gutting the government agencies that should be supporting research.
So is U.S. academic science as a whole—perhaps dramatically. Numbers released in May by the National Science Foundation (NSF) indicate that if Congress approves the cuts to the agency proposed by the White House, the number of early-career researchers it supports could fall by 78%—from 95,700 undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs during this fiscal year to 21,400 in 2026. Young researchers supported by other agencies would also be hit, and even senior faculty worry about their future. “It’s a nightmare,” Simon says. “I really fear for the future of science.” (NSF declined to comment for this story.)
Stranger
I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business,” said Mike Osterholm, a University of Minnesota expert on infectious diseases and pandemic preparations.
He noted mRNA technology offers potential advantages of rapid production, crucial in the event of a new pandemic that requires a new vaccine.
The shelving of the mRNA projects is short-sighted as concerns about a bird flu pandemic continue to loom, said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
“It’s certainly saved millions of lives,” Offit said of the existing mRNA vaccines.
Stranger
But who ya gonna believe, some fancypants egghead with those medical degrees and stuff, or RFK telling us germs aren’t real and vaccines cause autism?
Earlier this summer, three NASA astronauts addressed a crowd at the Ark Encounter, a theme park devoted to biblical literalism. This article analyzes the event and what it reveals about public distrust of science and scientific authority.
…
Some critics argue that the proposed cuts are not merely an effort to trim NASA’s budget, but part of a broader attempt to curtail the dissemination of scientific information that challenges certain partisan positions or worldviews. Take climate change: the scientific consensus clearly links human activity to rising global temperatures. Yet some political and religious groups frame these conclusions as the results of certain political stances. We’ve seen similar skepticism directed at medicine and pharmaceuticals, part of a broader erosion of public trust that mischaracterizes science as “just another opinion” rather than a process grounded in replicable data, peer review, and a rigorous commitment to objectivity.
Stranger
Given the rate of destruction, I feel it is prudent for me to announce that I for one welcome our new Chinese overlords.
Yeah, you’re not going to like life under them, either.
Stranger
On this we are agreed.
Well, maybe not so many opportunities in Canada:
Science: “ Canada plans a 15% budget cut. Scientists are alarmed”
Many in the scientific community fear basic research grants will be included in the cuts, says Thomas Bailey, executive director of the advocacy group Support Our Science. That could essentially reverse the funding boost promised in Canada’s 2024 budget, most of which was intended to provide long-overdue salary increases for graduate students and postdocs.
Stranger