New ep! 🚨
We chat with Dr. Richard Prather (pratherlab.bsky.social) about his path into cognitive science, numerical development, & computational modeling—plus a deep dive into why the field needs a more 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 approach & what that actually means for researchers today.
itsinnate.fireside.fm/35
🧵 1/ It’s hard to find hope amidst so much collapse.
But in the wreckage of today’s crises, people are also powering solutions — and The 51st, backed by the community of D.C., is one of them.
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I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself!
bluesky-map.theo.io
I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail
🧵New preprint: Adults often agree with their ingroup even when evidence says otherwise. Why?
To find out, we studied kids, who show the same tendency but *before* political identities take hold. With developmental data, we can see the basic psychological ingredients.
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
1/11
Two days left to donate to Children Helping Science with 1-to-1 matches from an anonymous donor up to $100K!
giving.mit.edu/search/node/...
For fun: 1 repost = 1 citation to a paper with data from Children Helping Science/Lookit!
🚨New OPEN-ACCESS publication alert! 🚨 "The Role of Stereotypes in Gender Development and Disparities" in Annual Review of Developmental Psychology with @poojaroy0514.bsky.social @lucaspbutler.bsky.social @patelkhushboo.bsky.social and Sydney Baker.
www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... (1/5)
This is a fundraising post!
An anonymous donor is matching contributions to Children Helping Science up to 100K through the end of the year - if it's in your giving budget, please consider supporting open science infrastructure!
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This has gotten surprisingly little attention — it's not even on the front page of @science.org right now — but it's really hard to describe what the SAFE Research Act would do to US science and scientists without sounding insane
www.science.org/content/arti...
“The prohibited activities would include joint research, co-authorship on papers, and advising a foreign graduate student or postdoctoral fellow. The language is retroactive, meaning any interactions during the previous 5 years could make a scientist ineligible for future federal funding.”
Experimental participants to us
Shout out to everyone completely demoralized about the state of the world who still manages to get out of bed each morning.
And shout out to you, too if you’re still in bed. This shit is hard. Talk to your friends and neighbors. They’re going though it too, which is both terrifying and comforting.
PART 1: THE RESEARCH STATEMENT
This is about 'WHAT is it that you want to do, why this PLACE/PI specifically, why are YOU the relevant person to be doing THIS'.
Standard structure:
There is no one right way to do this, but here is a good breakdown:
Is there a link to this update? I was about to send something to our grad students about applying, and I guess now I have to say "better do it this year!"
Aw man I wish academics had headlines like this.
“Stephen Aguilar (existential dread) is not expected to write today, per @mpolikoff.bsky.social”
I keep having this conversation with colleagues. We need to make it obvious to students that revision means success, not failure, as a writer. 1/
If I’m doing the numbers right the programs they are consolidating here (including DRK12 and ECR) had over $100M in combined funding allocated. This anticipates $30M. This isn’t death by a thousand cuts. This is one enormous cut.
🚨 Major shake-up in NSF funding for K-12 STEM ed:
Caps proposals at $750K max for 3 years. Prior cap used to be $5M up to 5 years for some programs.
Archives several existing programs (DRK-12, AISL, CSforAll, TD, parts of ECR:Core). Combines into broad program with much lower expected # of awards.
![Study 2 Intervention Materials
Base Intervention Text
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provide funding for scientific research that
leads to major breakthroughs for cancer, diabetes, dementia, heart disease, infectious
diseases, stroke, mental illness, and more.
NIH funding is also an excellent financial investment. For every dollar NIH invests in
research, an average of $2.56 of economic activity is returned–a gain of over 250%.
The White House recently ordered major changes to NIH funding, which would take
back funds already promised to the states. States have sued to challenge the order,
arguing that the changes are unlawful.
[page break]
There are two major sources of cuts to NIH funding, which will result in current and
future losses.
First, many NIH grants for health research have already been cancelled, interrupting
ongoing studies and clinical trials. These cancelled grants are projected to result in
economic losses of $4.9 Billion and over 21,000 jobs.
Second, another change would greatly reduce NIH funding that covers “indirect
costs” of research. These funds help pay for essential facilities, equipment, skilled staff,
and safety checks needed across many research projects. Medical research would not be
possible without funding to cover indirect costs. In the future, this proposed change to
funding for indirect costs of research would reduce the U.S. economy by about $16
Billion and over 68,000 jobs every year.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:c5xrowexysrnn6rn6piltqjz/bafkreid62fezp32bbl53u4iwhrwttks7rwcdbbfqatklh35wmyxzq6o73i)
Study 2 Intervention Materials Base Intervention Text The National Institutes of Health (NIH) provide funding for scientific research that leads to major breakthroughs for cancer, diabetes, dementia, heart disease, infectious diseases, stroke, mental illness, and more. NIH funding is also an excellent financial investment. For every dollar NIH invests in research, an average of $2.56 of economic activity is returned–a gain of over 250%. The White House recently ordered major changes to NIH funding, which would take back funds already promised to the states. States have sued to challenge the order, arguing that the changes are unlawful. [page break] There are two major sources of cuts to NIH funding, which will result in current and future losses. First, many NIH grants for health research have already been cancelled, interrupting ongoing studies and clinical trials. These cancelled grants are projected to result in economic losses of $4.9 Billion and over 21,000 jobs. Second, another change would greatly reduce NIH funding that covers “indirect costs” of research. These funds help pay for essential facilities, equipment, skilled staff, and safety checks needed across many research projects. Medical research would not be possible without funding to cover indirect costs. In the future, this proposed change to funding for indirect costs of research would reduce the U.S. economy by about $16 Billion and over 68,000 jobs every year.
🧪 New study: Learning about economic impact of NIH funding motivates action to oppose funding cuts.
Evidence from two preregistered, randomized experiments with >5,000 U.S. adults.
Similar change for liberals and conservatives. Preprint from @asinclair.bsky.social et al:
osf.io/preprints/ps...
So excited to see this work with @jennaalton.bsky.social and @andreicimpian.bsky.social in press!
In a second, we form expectations about the likely traits and behaviors of people we meet. How does this ability develop? How do others’ perceived gender factor into it?
I’m thrilled to share a new paper now in press at Cognition with @andreicimpian.bsky.social and @lucaspbutler.bsky.social.
1/6
Geetha Ramani in my department at Maryland has taught something like this!
On why Harvard shouldn't "negotiate" with Trump (by @ryanenos.bsky.social & Levitsky) -
www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
NIH BREAKING NEWS NIH BREAKING NEWS
Hearing from multiple sources that an email went out late yesterday afternoon
Effective immediately: Please do not terminate any additional grant projects. Please pull back all grant projects that are in the cue to be terminated.
What is common knowledge in your field, but shocks outsiders?
Learning styles are not a thing.
Yeah definitely not blaming the POs! What a mess 😔
Awful. Which program was this? And if you're open to sharing, did you get any communication about whether this was (supposedly) a budget decision vs. an "administration priority" decision? I mean, it all seems politically-driven at this point but curious what justifications are being given.
👀
All universities need to fight together or someday this could happen to them.
