Everything about the Prairieland case should chill the blood of anyone who values their first amendment rights: “Sanchez Estrada was federally charged with ‘corruptly concealing a document or record’ for moving a box of zines the day after the protest.” (Source:)

Italy could be the next country to build a solar railway after Switzerland’s successful trial - Euronews

Happy 250th birthday, USA 🇺🇸! In Germany we’re very grateful for the big role of the US in liberating us (my then teenage parents!) from authoritarian rule. I’m deeply concerned that now the US is sliding toward authoritarian rule, including suppressing science. www.carbonbrief.org/prof-ben-san...

🚨 HEADS UP: If you haven't submitted a comment on the OMB proposal yet, there's still time - but it's running out! There are only 9 days left to push back against Russell Vought's attempt to give political appointees unprecedented control over federal research funding. Take Action: zurl.co/FNfgR

The word “science” is in the Constitution one time, related to copyrights and patents. What would a science amendment to the US Constitution look like? Who is working on this? @colesci.bsky.social @cdelawalla.bsky.social

I submitted my comments on the OMB rules changes today! Comment count is now 70,356. Keep them going!!

Just going to drop this here since we haven't talked about NSF strangling geoscience for about a month. It's still strangling geoscience (and everything else) with 9% the number of grants issued compared to the 2021-2024 average. grant-witness.us/funding_curv...

Still all quiet on the #NSF front. No new awards in the past week. REMINDER: We still are hearing of trickles of terminations, suspensions, and money being held back from grantees, which NSF isn't reporting. We need your help - please report! 🧪 grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0...

I’m not sure it matters anymore, but the “triumphal arch” project is currently open for public comment. If anyone is inclined to share their feelings: parkplanning.nps.gov/document.cfm...

Amazing discovery by the Chinese scientists. Whale graveyard millions of years old.

Genuine rewrite the textbooks discovery! 🧪🦑 The same team led last year's discovery of even deeper chemosynthetic animal communities. And they are in a crewed submersible, so they actually SAW THE WHALE GRAVEYARD!!! Can't wait for them to keep exploring!

Rotator jobs at nsf GEO www.nsf.gov/careers/open...

If ever there was a time for scientists to step into our power, it is now! 📍TODAY: Join us for the national launch of #ScienceRising and learn how to get involved. Register here: act.ucsusa.org/49oOEPN

My in-person take on today's State of the Science and how to avert a path towards American mediocrity in a diminished vision of what is possible shared by the President & panelists.

@elizabethginexi.bsky.social explains how the OMB proposed rule changes will affect States, cities, not just destroy science. "... in FY2024 the federal government sent $1.1 trillion in grants to state and local governments. ". ie. Medicaid, Transportation, Education. Also how to fight back.

Breaking: Judge Jackson blocks NSF from dismantling NCAR. www.courtlistener.com/docket/72496...

We need to get started on this project!

The National Science Foundation is terminating and suspending grants again, and at Grant Witness we need you to help to track them! 🧪 We can only identify research being suppressed by under-the-radar suspensions directly from researchers. Please report! grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0... #NSF

So I started watching Lord of the Rings again. Its been a long time. Then the Pope quotes Gandaulf in his AI encyclical. And I learn how the techbros (see Thiel, Palantir etc) are appropriating LOTR. What alternative world am I living in? Back to the Two Towers....

The space-age instrument creating this light show is DeepPIV, for Deep particle image velocimetry; it was developed by @kakanikatija.bsky.social & the Bioinspiration Lab team at @mbarinews.bsky.social. It was mounted on ROV SuBastian during #DesigningTheFuture3. youtube.com/shorts/UyFRz...

The push to cut funding from the National Academies of Science will involve illegally impounding funds on the claim that fringe Republican lawmakers understand what constitutes the “gold standard” for science better than the best scientists in America. www.aip.org/fyi/republic...

Cool zoom of life

A win! A federal judge in Maine has dismissed the Trump administration’s lawsuit against the state for refusing to hand over voter registration data.

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

If you are a member of the scientific community wondering how to meet this moment, check out this excellent discussion between @holdenthorp.bsky.social and @timothysnyder.bsky.social. youtu.be/IWNDMwimUP0?...

The NSB should keep its May 5 meeting date, meet outside of NSF, and organize into the “NSF watch group” to observe and report on what happens to NSF. Bearing witness. We need such a group for every science agency.

Sad day for national science in the US, as politicization becomes normalized.

Nice coverage of what’s happening at NSF from @thehill.com! Two points from me: 1. NSF staff are hanging in like a hair in a biscuit and the admin isn’t making it easy. It’s a psyop every day. 2. Jim O’Neill is not the one to run NSF. Full stop. thehill.com/homenews/adm...

"Planet Earth: You. Are. A. Crew." Artemis II mission specialist Christina Koch reflects on what it means to be a "crew."

Japan has more than fifty of these Underground Automated Bicycle Parking Systems installed. They are mostly in the cities of Osaka and Tokyo.

Provides some insights into what is happening (or rather what is not happening) with regard to federal science grant making.

NOAA announces planned rollback of North Atlantic right whale protections www.mainepublic.org/environment-...

This is François Furstenberg's laughing/crying essay on the absurdities of the present-day research university-- from atriums to AI... and sometimes AI with atriums. Scroll to the bottom for discussion of AI fostering administrators' fantasies while obliterating the core purposes of higher ed.

fine reading! not only because of the last paragraph. free to read for 1 week - don't miss it! #evolution #MicroSky

Please join this town hall at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Glasgow that @gmacgilchrist.bsky.social and I are convening, moderated by @helenczerski.bsky.social. We'll discuss what's happening to ocean sciences and what institutions and individuals can do. agu.confex.com/agu/osm26/me... #OSM26

RALLY TO TAKE BACK SCIENCE! 🧪✊🔬 March 7th, 2026 in Washington, DC. We're mobilizing the fight for science and democracy. In the face of assaults on our families, freedoms, and futures, we're taking back science! Learn more at www.standupforscience.net/ma... (linked in bio)

“It’s our blood and bones And these whistles and phones Against Miller and Noem’s dirty lies”

This is a little ancillary but I recently talked with Sam Scheiner (recently retired PO) and he gives good advice for junior scientists etc about maintaining science in the face of uncertainty www.evolutionsociety.org/the-evolutio...

Pope Leo is quietly mounting a long-term, moral confrontation with American authoritarianism — and history suggests he knows exactly what he’s doing. Here’s how he can defeat Trump’s dictatorship of relativism once and for all.

On this day 52 years ago-Dec. 28, 1973-Republican President Richard M. Nixon signed “An Act to Provide for the Conservation of Endangered & Threatened Species of Fish, Wildlife, and Plants, and for Other Purposes.” You may know it simply as “The Endangered Species Act.” Image: Eagle Nation Online.

On this day

The atomic ensemble time scale at the NIST Boulder campus has failed.

Our first direct hit. Oddly our oyster work is the most popular thing we do. Great return on investment for taxpayers funding bay restoration. cambridgespy.substack.com/p/horn-point...

To take action

Canada is recruiting! www.canada.ca/en/innovatio...

So love wobbegongs. Everything is good about the wobbegong. Its name. Its flattened Oscar the Grouch face. Its frondy bits. Its lazy life as a hungry rug. And it’s a shark. Outstanding animal 10/10

Influential paper on glyphosate retracted 25y later. Ghostwritten by Monsanto wapo.st/3MsQtCq