I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding. It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

Hi! We just released three new pages. First up, we break down the devastating defunding of medical research in the US, including grant terminations and delays representing nearly $5B in funding losses, cuts to future funding, and attacks on training programs: unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

👋 Hi, we’re Unbreaking, a volunteer-run collective working to document our current moment of institutional collapse and its human costs—as well as the pushback and resilience work already underway. We believe this is critical work for building and retaining political agency.

I can’t recommend this enough. UNBREAKING, a new project from @lizneeley.bsky.social & co, documents & explains our many concurrent institutional collapses. It’s beautifully executed work, full of intellectual & moral clarity. 3 pages are live, more will come. It’s SO GOOD, & I learned so much.

Genuinely delighted that @unbreaking.org is now doing our work in public. I cannot tell you what it means to be a part of it, or how much its already helped me. If my Meeting the Moment newsletter has helped you, Unbreaking is going to bowl you over. So much more ambitious and helpful. Join us!

AN IMMENSE WORLD: YOUNG READERS EDITION is out today! 🥳 I’m really grateful to AnnMarie Anderson for adapting it, Rebecca Mills for illustrating, Tom Russell for shepherding, and Rose Eveleth for reading the audiobook. (And it’s dedicated to Typo.) bookshop.org/p/books/an-i...

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Encouraging news I would've missed if it weren't for Liz's weekly update: "The Rutgers University Senate passed a resolution proposing a Mutual Defense Compact in which members of the Big Ten conference will pool funding and legal, policy, and communications capacity and expertise." More of this!

I flew home from #SciTalk25 last night, so this week’s Meeting the Moment debrief was written at altitude, while I watched lightning pulse in thunderclouds. What’s happening in science & higher ed: buttondown.com/liminalcreat... Thread to come after some much needed coffee and hiking.

The latest issue of @lizneeley.bsky.social’s essential weekly newsletter on the continuing attacks on science & higher-ed, and living through these times: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

I’ve had a several dozen requests to write or be interviewed about the 5th anniversary of Covid and said no to all of them… except this one with @alexis-madrigal.bsky.social. Here’s our chat on the things we’ve memory-holed, and where we go from here. www.kqed.org/forum/201010...

Modern science is international. Travel is essential for training & collaboration, but the US is not reliably safe for many of us. We all have ways to confront the threat, even if leadership is failing us. More on that + Dept of Ed in this week's debrief buttondown.com/liminalcreat... (1/5)

The World Health Organization calculates that measles vaccinations saved 60 million lives, 2000-2023. On Thursday, CDC scientists were forbidden to co-author papers with WHO colleagues. Other attacks on science + what to do about them in this week's debrief buttondown.com/liminalcreat... (1 of 11)

Vermilion flycatcher🪶 📷 Alameda Creek This bird, which is rare for the Bay Area, was spotted in last year's Christmas Bird Count. No one has seen it for 7 weeks, and a lot of folks have looked. And then it just showed up in the same spot 2 days ago.

One last thing I’ll say about this is that judging by people’s messages, the audio version has some stuff not in the edited online transcript, including a discussion of the false tension around empathy in journalism, and a bit about paying attention to sparrows.

This is excellent

Every Friday, I write a debrief about what’s happening in science & higher ed. It goes out late, and is written for all the friends & colleagues I wish I could sit down and talk it through with over drinks. buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

On the cutting room floor is the bit where the host introduced their interview series, The Interview, and I asked how long it took to come up with the name. Anyway, here’s me talking about birds and science and burnout and moving through the world. The photo’s nice! www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...

We do this all to stay focused, not flooded. I share the sense we’ve made in a late Friday night debrief. There is a lot to feel sad & sick about. I can’t tell you things will be okay, but I can tell you A LOT about efforts to make it better. This was week 4. buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

If you care about science & higher ed in America right now, your world has changed. We have been forced into a battle we didn’t choose. Whatever our titles, our jobs now also includes emergency response, psychological first aid, organizing & many other things we weren’t trained in

Well. I have been informed that it is the weekend, again. When you are ready to sit down together & figure out what just happened and what to do, we’ve got you: buttondown.com/liminalcreat... It’s also okay if you’re coming in hot! “What the actual fuck??” is a sensible start place at the moment.

Here’s @lizneeley.bsky.social’s latest newsletter, documenting the ongoing attacks on science and higher ed, and figuring out what to focus on: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

1/8. This week I had a few different conversations with scholars who, in the face of the attacks on science and institutions of learning in the U.S., are wondering what to do. One suggestion I have is: keep doing your work. It matters in and of itself. Why do I say that? A few reasons.

This is the kind of simple and direct message we need right now: long-term damage aside, this attack is going to very quickly make it even harder for people to have the jobs and medical care they need.

"Anyone who has studied science under the Nazis...cannot fail to be dismayed and alarmed at the parallels in the response so far of scientific institutions and academies to the purges and abuses of power following Trump’s executive orders" 🧪 #scicomm www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/scie...

@lizneeley.bsky.social is publishing a weekly newsletter to track the ongoing attacks in science and higher ed. If you want to keep abreast without drowning in the news, I recommend it: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

And finally, this isn’t about exhaustive knowledge about what is happening - it’s about figuring out what to DO. We made an acronym to help us cope each time we feel our adrenaline spike. That & more in this week’s issue: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Please read, share, subscribe. And if you have bandwidth, please join us - from just sharing links to curating the data to building better the workflows on the tech side - you can meaningfully help us all navigate a poisonous information landscape. DM me or bit.ly/Liminal-slack

Each week, we are collecting, reading, vetting & tagging all the links, news & rumors you’re seeing whiz past you online. We are also talking to dozens of researchers & PIs about their firsthand experiences. Every Friday, I debrief you over a drink at buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

The news cycle right now - even just for science & higher ed - is overwhelming. We have to do it, but fortunately, we don’t have to do it alone. My team is focused on tracking what’s happening to research funding, jobs & salaries, shared datasets, university responses & safety of our communities

Learning to run long distances helps me think about how to survive our current situation. This thread, slightly expanded, in a post on how I'm buckling in for a long stretch of hard work at buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

From @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social "The power these organizations can wield—not just to make demands but to withhold labor, rent, debt payments or otherwise take action if demands are not met—is necessary for having a valid complaint about the world and being able to change it." Organize for power.

I was trying to photograph this beautiful glaucous-winged gull when I got unexpectedly photobombed by a harbor seal that had caught a very large fish--presumably a salmon. 🪶 📷Ballena Bay

NEW: Trans people centered themselves in a trans case before a very not trans court. Not only was Chase Strangio arguing Wednesday, but a trans plaintiff was in the courtroom, as were many other trans lawyers, journalists, and observers. "Trans people were not hidden Wednesday, and that matters."

In a nearly 300-page report, Amnesty International concluded that Israel's actions constitute genocide. “Our damning findings must serve as a wake-up call to the international community: this is genocide. It must stop now.”

in hindsight the NYT anti-trans crusade is one of the most despicable things that any big time journalism outfit in this country has ever done. a perfect and clearly intentional layup for the fascists on the Supreme Court

Mountain bluebird 🪶 📷Cedar Mountain WInery (which is now closed, but remains very birdy)

Given the current political reality and the expansion of attacks on science, it is time for scientists to be more effective, forceful, and vociferous as their own political advocates. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

American pipit, strutting so purposefully that the background turned into anime speed lines. 🪶 📸 Hayward Regional

This is an essential and immensely clarifying piece. You should read anything and everything Dara writes, but this in particular.

Preorder. This. Book! 👇

@usha.bsky.social, CONGRATS! So thrilled to see this. Everyone else follow her, she’s amazing.

Whew! Popping back here briefly to discuss a very eventful few days. On Sat, a SNOW BUNTING appears at Hayward Regional. 😱 The bird is stunning & super-rare in the East Bay. Many birders go to see it. It's living its best life on a white/brown plastic culvert that it maybe thinks is snow? 1/

Brown pelicans. 🪶 📷Point Lobos

The Sick Times--a digital long-COVID newspaper--is 1 yr old today. I couldn't be prouder of what Betsy, Miles, and their team have accomplished. thesicktimes.org/2024/11/14/p... If you have the means, pls join me in supporting their end-of-year fundraiser. the-sick-times.fundjournalism.org/donate/

My immediate plan is to be offline as much as possible and double-down on my community, especially my local one. Grieve, regroup, plan, endure. As @lizneeley.bsky.social first said to me in 2016, “There is no wall to put our back against—except each other.”

If you're on this site it's because you already know all this stuff...but a few weeks ago I decided to do an exercise which was to publicly make the case...not to shame people but just to lay it all out there as best I could. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

This burrowing owl I found a few hours ago has the energy that will carry you through this week. 🪶🦉 📸 Coyote Hills

Rufous-crowned sparrow 🪶 📷Mines Rd