Same. And Weird Al Yankovic.

It’s all chemistry.

You need to compare based on the size of the graduate student population, subtracting out professional graduate degrees and most humanities degrees.

I wonder to what extent the “bumper crop” of GRFP awards is due to the fact that the NSF needs to get a bunch of money out the door in a hurry to spend its appropriation by Sept. 30. @viewfromarchstreet.com

To me, the question is how long do they expect people to pay higher energy costs when no one has given a clear justification for this war? People understood why we entered WWII

Fortunately there are many people working on this. How after this disaster we can create a science system better than before, rather than reverting to what we had 10 years ago.

"Planet Earth: You. Are. A. Crew."

Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch reflects on what it means to be a "crew."

Wow.

The New York Times Got Played By A Telehealth Scam And Called It The Future Of AI Since the New York Times published its semi-viral big profile of Medvi last week — the “AI-powered” telehealth startup that it breathlessly described as a “$1.8 billion company&#8…

www.techdirt.com/2026/04/07/t...

A major issue is that the Congress imposed requirements on USPS to fully fund its pension which are far beyond what is required of any company. So the deficit is an issue because a lot of the revenue has to be diverted to its pension.

THANK YOU. If we wanted the postal service to be “profitable” an easy strategy is to stop all service to rural communities (or charge a huge premium to deliver to them). That would be contrary to why the postal system was created!

It seems like they’re suggesting that awards should be made using geographic quotas and not merit, in the name of diversity and equity.

That said, the NIH funding process is byzantine and complex so promoting broad access to training and mentoring for applicants would be a helpful step

So he no longer wants to be a king—he wants to be Emperor

And thanks for noting the origin of that line about how some people use data like a drunk person uses a lamppost. I heard that when I worked in market research years ago and never managed to trace the source!

Who could have predicted this? Certainly not the entire cybersecurity research community that’s been talking about this for 20 years…

I have a feeling you’re right—the vote by the Cabinet officers would break the dam—but the way things have been, I’m not SURE that you’re right….

Otherwise, you’re claiming that if NIH generated $36 billion in benefits after spending $36 billion, the ROI would be 36/36=100% which is absolutely not the case—the ROI in that situation would be zero.

OK, while the investment in NIH is absolutely a huge benefit, everyone keeps using this study incorrectly. If NIH generates $94B in economic activity on $36B in spending, then the ROI is 160% and not 250% [(94-36)/36]. Everyone is saying it’s 94/36=260% which is just bad math.

constitutioncenter.org/the-constitu...

The problem is that if the President counters that he IS fit to perform his duties, it gets thrown to the Congress where you need 2/3 of the House AND 2/3 of the Senate to agree to remove him. So it’s actually a higher hurdle than impeachment and not necessarily faster.

(Some earmarks show up in construction also—new research facilities in universities located in key Members’ districts.)

NIST usually doesn’t issue grants (not from STRS) so I bet most of that amount is Congressionally directed spending.

I think a lot of the cuts come from eliminating earmarks imposed by the Congress last year. For some reason, NIST is where Congress put that. See the $400M jump in grants, subsidies, and contributions in FY2026 that disappears for FY27

Trump Fury Rattles Aides as Midterm Woes Take Worse Turn: “He’s Angry” As the president’s frustration reportedly mounts, a writer who covers crises unleashed by Trump’s war explains how and why he’s suddenly running headlong into the limits of his magical thinking.

newrepublic.com/article/2086...

APS, AAS, etc. are affiliates of AAAS, and this effort involves all disciplines. If you reach out to Section B (Physics) or Section D (Astronomy), they may have more info about discipline-specific activities.

I don’t know all the details about what’s going on in places like APS and AAS but they are collaborating with AAAS. Have you reached out to society leadership?

That’s not entirely true. It’s being addressed, at least in the broader scientific societies, with active participation by scicomm professionals. But the political lobbying is the most public and tangible focus.

I see your point, but it’s also important to recognize that Artemis is enabled at least in part by NASA’s science budget. So if an article claims that NASA is cutting science but not touching Artemis it fails to acknowledge that science is relevant to human space exploration

Also very odd for him to use an apostrophe like that. There are multiple aides who are crazy enough to write that (Steven Cheung being one of them)

Knew a guy in college (in the 1980s) with a kick-ass Blaupunkt car radio—but he had a removable cover that was the front of an 8-track tape player.