Jeremy is on fire in this letter

For #NSF and #NIH watchers, Grant Witness now has interactive data on numbers of grants and total funding obligations, broken down by institute and directorate, new awards and non-competitive renewals.

The stranglehold on new awards is still a disaster.

grant-witness.us/funding_curv...

Geosciences is at *74* total awards this fiscal year (which is now half over).

Compared to 279 by the same point last year and between 330 and 440 by the same point 2021-2024.

13 grants were made in the month of March.

The moral injury of watching incredible colleagues leave federal science because of what amounts to partisan sabotage is indescribable. Godspeed, Dr. Marvel. We’re lucky to share our one wild and precious planet with you.

A DOGE staffer assigned to the National Endowment for the Humanities to flag grants for "DEI" tries to explain what "DEI" is. This deposition is part of a lawsuit by the @acls1919.bsky.social, @historians.org and @modernlanguage.bsky.social.

Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.

What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.

Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

Grant Witness is hiring! We're seeking a full-time data scientist to join our team building data resources to support journalism, litigation, and activism protecting science, public health, and the rule of law. grant-witness.us/apply.html #rstats

Downscaling daily solar radiation in the Canary Islands with GAM Researcher in climate science at MBG-CSIC

🆕 BLOG POST
There’s so much more to spatial downscaling today than classic LM or kriging. In my new blog post, I show how flexible and powerful GAMs can be for this task. #rstats #dataviz

➡️ dominicroye.github.io/blog/canary-...

While we're discussing what we like and dislike in #Rstats, here's why I don't like tidymodels: mansthulin.se/posts/tidymo...

The null-coalescing operator %||%, although I sometimes end up making a null and length 0 coalescing operator %|0|% for projects.

Good advice from the 'bind_cols' documentation:

"Where possible prefer using a join to combine multiple data frames. bind_cols() binds the rows in order in which they appear so it is easy to create meaningless results without realising it."

#RStats #DefensiveProgramming

Just need a verbal version of rainbow parens and it's a perfectly fine way of communicating, right?

Join our online course on Multivariate Data Analysis with R led and vegan by @gsimpson.bsky.social , 4–7 May, and gain practical skills to analyse and interpret multivariate ecological and biological datasets.

www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work...

#Rstats #veganPackage

BREAKING

Former ICE agent:

On my first day training new cadets, I received secretive orders to teach them to violate the Constitution by entering homes without a judicial warrant.

Make America Hyphy Again

I will not support any funding deal that puts money in the hands of Stephen Miller, Kristi Noem, and this violent agency. Defund and abolish ICE now.

Last month, the administration reversed massive cuts to to SAMHSA and CDC after public and congressional outcry. We can do that again. Call your representatives! 5/5

grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0...

The Trump administration is planning to terminate $600M of CDC grants to CA, CO, MN, and IL. We're publishing the full list.

They are using vulnerable communities as a weapon to dismantle public health, targeting partisan enemies, and manipulating media. 🧵 1/5

grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0...

dplyr 1.2.0 was released last week and since I use {dplyr} a lot in my work, I wanted to take some time to try some of the new functions.

This post provides some supplemental examples of the new functions, beyond what is provided in the new Posit materials.
#rstats

cghlewis.com/blog/dplyr_u...

Tech Billionaires Want to Build a Network State in Greenland A movement based on “tech Zionism” seeks to create “The Next America”

This is from last year. But, it’s a concise explanation of why the stupid thing is happening.

We are collecting information on terminated SAMHSA grants at Grant Witness: grant-witness.us/submit-samhs...

If you worked on one of these programs, please let us know at the link! And please share with your colleagues. We need a comprehensive record of these terminations to fight back!

Great new paper!

Many stinging wasps, bees, and ants have controlled the sex of their developing eggs for millions of year using an ancient segment of their genome- always the same segment- but what's weird is, *the exact DNA sequence of that segment doesn't seem to matter*.

MAKE 2026 THE YEAR OF REPENTANCE 2 UR WEATHER LORDS

Fun fact... autistic people are often rule followers...

We are also more likely to have extremely strong convictions...

So, if the rules are aligned with our values, we are steadfast. But if the rules don't make sense to us or seem arbitrary, we can suddenly seem like rebellious rule breakers.

RFK Jr is directly responsible for the deaths of 83 children in American Samoa from measles because he told them to stop vaccinating. Now, he's trying to kill trans kids. He's a fucking psychopath.

🇺🇸 NIH Dr. Jay Bhattacharya Full Speech at AmFest 2025 by Turning Point USA in Phoenix, Arizona YouTube video by MAGNO NEWS

Podcast Jay…err…NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya made an appearance at TPUSA to continue railing against public health and COVID19 mitigation.

He and his buds have been destroying US science and public health for a year because their feelings were hurt.

youtu.be/e9gMZ1sme0k

That’s not a blobfish: Deep Sea Social Media is Flooded by AI Slop Well, it finally happened. Over the last two week, my usually well-curated feeds of videos from the deep sea have been overrun with AI slop masquerading as authentic images of strange and delightfu…

AI slop has made it to the deep sea.

That’s not a blobfish: Deep Sea Social Media is Flooded by AI Slop

www.southernfriedscience.com/thats-not-a-...

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Would love to get an #rstats person if possible ☺️

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