Even with federal grants largely restored, scientists say the Trump administration is still preventing those funds from reaching them. The consequences, they say, are already becoming clear.

We are human shields for news!

"I do object, however, to the way this is telling us the collaboration with foreign colleagues that has to be approved in advance, even when there is no NIH funding being spent outside of the US. So it would be nice if the NIH would issue some clear guidance on how this is supposed to be handled."

Bhattacharya’s legacy The US had a “world-class Ebola lab in Frederick, Maryland, with the NIH,” designed to develop vaccines & treatments. The lab would normally be swinging into action. “But that lab was shuttered last year, with staff laid off abruptly”😢 www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

This is fucking insanity www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

NSF is closing down most of the Ocean Observatory oceanobservatories.org/2026/05/anno...

In this story, they highlight two researchers who scored in the 3rd percentile well over a year ago and were not funded. Is this the environment that’s supposed to “encourage innovation”? How many past papers and discoveries would we have missed under these conditions?

More on the destruction of US science. www.chronicle.com/article/they...

🧪@aaas.org supporting NSF! "Mr. O’Neill has no science degrees or personal background in research ... has a degree in the humanities from Yale University and worked extensively with the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel before joining the Trump administration." www.nytimes.com/2026/05/21/s...

The early trajectory of the Ebola outbreak in DRC is alarming. Spread of the disease likely went undetected for months. Fast detection and response are crucial to stop outbreaks.

There is a new cyber security training I must complete. It presents me the opportunity to strengthen my ability to recognize and report phishing emails. I most now log in to the new learning management system. This is not the previous learning platform. bsky.app/profile/noam...

1. Incredible breaking news and a landmark ruling out of Colorado. The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that hospitals MUST not capitulate to Trump, and must continue offering trans youth care under state law. They found vague federal threats "speculative." Subscribe to support our journalism.

We made a change to our NSF funding curve calculations, as we were double-counting some recent continuing funding obligations when combining NSF and USAspending data sets. Thanks @dangaristo.bsky.social for flagging this! grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0...

HHS is firing people it tried to get rid of and couldn't last year. federalnewsnetwork.com/workforce/20...

The team at @centeronbudget.bsky.social on what Congress needs to do to make the 2027 appropriations bill stick and not let the administration run rampant abusing the budget and government agencies www.cbpp.org/blog/congres...

The Trump Administration’s unprecedented interference with federal funding and program administration has grown in recent months, making it critical for Congress to include more robust government-wide guardrails in FY27 appropriations bills. www.cbpp.org/blog/congres...

#StatsPubs No matter how many times you read it, this paper on hierarchical GAMs keeps giving. Clear model explanations together with R code (mgcv). So useful! doi.org/10.7717/peer... Thanks for writing @ericjpedersen.bsky.social, D. Miller, @gsimpson.bsky.social @noamross.net

NEW: A serious staffing shortage — of the Trump admin's own making — is delaying the agency's ability to send billions to universities around the country, leaving labs reeling in the meantime. “I thought we were at rock bottom”, a senior NIH official said. “We are below rock bottom now.”

This is one of the wildest stories I’ve read on the stupidity of AI-driven federal anti-DEI efforts. Kathleen Moore reports. www.timesunion.com/education/ar...

Think people not completely tuned out understand that these actions are the weaponization and abuse of governmental power to further conspiratorial narratives. No matter how often their lab leak GOF BS is disproven, they stir up BS & will claim vindication and the circle jerk goes another round.

“HHS is punishing a world-class scientist who was working to protect people against pandemics, and if he had been listened to more thoroughly, we might have been better prepared for SARS-CoV-2” This might be the most insane thing yet. www.science.org/content/arti...

🧪This is a big deal. It's not about "more money for my lab". It's about who gets to obey the rule of law and ensure that science is stewarded in the public interest. Not just for hedge fund managers and billionaires (cough, the Administration's candidate for NSF director).

Important dissent & like many NSF stories, the impact is evident in the image. 2415 Eisenhower Ave is no longer NSF HQ. It was taken over for the 'Golden Age of HUD'. Building (gone) Board (gone) Science (pending) Time to restore NSF & its independence. www.scientificamerican.com/article/nati...

Announcement for @nationalacademies.org "State of the Science" address on 6/2 declares: "Since McNutt delivered her 2025 address, federal funding for science has held steady, but significant cuts are still being considered." Really? On what planet is funding steady & cuts being *considered*? a 🧵

i gasped. i did. hallefuckinglujah. these mofos, may they see justice for how they have gutted our society. may they live to regret their choices.

Breaking NEWS!! Federal judge rules DOGE illegally terminated NEH grants last year in a summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs AHA, ACLA, and MLA, and orders the restoration of 1400 terminated grants

NPR story about multi-year funding, few NOFOs, and delays with me, Elizabeth Ginexi, and @docsirianni.bsky.social www.npr.org/2026/05/05/n...

Thanks to @rebeccafieldingmiller.com, @abigailmhatcher.bsky.social, @sarahpeitzmeier.bsky.social, and the rest of this team for surveying the researchers in Grant Witness's data and laying out how grant terminations systematically affected minority and underrepresented scientists. 🧪 🧵

Tell Congress: Protect NSF’s Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate, which is quietly being eliminated while attention is focused elsewhere. Now is the time to act—contact your representatives today. #WhySocialScience #SaveSBE cossa.org/action-cente...

Triple the rate. 3 times more likely to have grants suspended. “Compared to the all NIH-funded investigators in 2024, investigators who received targeted terminations were more likely to self-identify as… Black/African American (n = 86, 11.9% vs 4.0%)”

Thanks to @rebeccafieldingmiller.com, @abigailmhatcher.bsky.social, @sarahpeitzmeier.bsky.social, and the rest of this team for surveying the researchers in Grant Witness's data and laying out how grant terminations systematically affected minority and underrepresented scientists. 🧪 🧵

Survey of nearly 1,000 researchers whose grants were cut shows BIPOC, LGBTQ+ & women investigators faced higher odds of targeted equity-related terminations, raising concerns about long-term impacts on the U.S. scientific workforce @ucsandiego.bsky.social @rebeccafieldingmiller.com buff.ly/oYbM1sp

Important new study out today highlighting unequal impact of NIH grant terminations. “If the NIH is to serve the health of all Americans, it requires urgent course correction to ensure all scientific careers are sustained without targeted discrimination.” www.thelancet.com/journals/TLR...

Gelman says: “Bhattacharya emphasized the larger goal of improving public health.” And it’s true, this is what Bhattacharya said. But attending to Bhattacharya’s actions, it is not what he does. Under Bhattacharya, NIH has implemented policy after policy harmful to science and public health.

Literally every podcast I’ve ever recorded has more parents of trans kids’ voices in it than @nytimes.com ‘s Pulitzer-nominated podcast about gender care for trans kids. (Because mine have one (me) and theirs had none (none).)

rOpenSci Coworking and Office Hours coming up in an hour! Today's Theme: Code Review with rOpenSci with cohost @lizhare Tuesday May 5th 09:00 Australia Western (01:00 UTC) https://ropensci.org/events/coworking-2026-05 #rstats @[email protected]

We fought. We won. Others can too. www.mediamatters.org/angelo-carus...

Essential reading here from Hiltzik. This prosecution and dehumanizing arrest are pure political theater. It’s disgraceful and we should be talking more about it.

On April 18, Trump signed an executive order on psychedelic drug research. Eleven days later, NIH published a funding opportunity on the same topic. It was the first of its kind to clear the approval pipeline since September 2025. Elizabeth Ginexi’s latest essay on what the data actually show:

R-universe now generates social media preview cards for each package, like this one: ropensci.r-universe.dev/targets. You can also get the card manually from the /{package}/card.png API (or svg).

specific request, for journalism: looking to talk to New Yorkers who got a local problem solved (OR NOT) through their House rep's office ... who's gone to their federal district office to try and get help? were you successful? would love to talk about it for a story. thank you!

"Too many scientists are willing to collaborate with Trumpism in the mistaken assumption that obedience will save their own necks." www.thenation.com/article/soci...

The first step in applying for federal funding under Republican Party rule is to make sure your grant is politically in line with ruling party ideology.

It's a good day when the Senate rejects at least one junk science charlatan. Good riddance to Casey Means, RFK Jr. is doing enough damage on his own. I'll keep pushing for his removal to protect science and common sense in our government.

I also want to address the use of the word "clean," which implies that grants that use "misaligned" words like "minority," "gender," "latinx," "equity," "lived experience," or "social determinants of health" are dirty. This kind of language matters. Grants that address these issues are not dirty.

The grant is "clean" means it no longer contains "terms potentially associated with misalignment with agency priorities" picked up by the "computational text analysis tool." Grants cannot be funded without checking this box. Yet NIH leaders like Bhattacharya & Letai insist NIH has no banned words.

Sharing this screen grab from a friend at NIH (with permission). This is a checklist program officers have to complete before a grant can be awarded. The first question: "Is this grant All Clean/Clear in the NIH Text analysis Tool?" 🧵1/3

Yeah, it's a lot of words that say almost nothing.