We have a new timeline up today on our Medical Research Funding page, documenting the onslaught of political, legal, and bureaucratic attacks on medical research since January: unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

Oh this 🧵 is SO interesting!

A reminder that if you are called to be part of a jury in a political prosecution you have a right to refuse to convict on the grounds the prosecution is unjust. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

This week's @unbreaking.org update on immigration is *also* an update on data security because the administration is using immigration enforcement as a way to trial and operationalize a full-on surveillance state.

Interesting 🧵 on this 25-yr old (!) paper on “social translucence” dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

You did it @louierivers3.bsky.social !!!

Now comes the even harder work. But for tonight, let's celebrate.

HCI, Infosci, Comm folks, what are your favorite readings for gradstudents on how to choose a scholarly community, and how to choose where to publish? Assembling some notes on this and would love to know about your favorite reads on this.

Perhaps relevant today, a framework for understanding how many election rumors mislead.

New-to-me but very helpful visualizations how all the actions of the past ten months are affecting the CDC www.cdcdataproject.org

The response by @utaustinaaup.bsky.social to UT Austin's new "Academic Integrity" statement is good. "The statement contributes to a climate of fear that is not conducive to high quality education."

I was in a meeting when this news was shared so I quite literally watched my own jaw drop.

I was laid off from Teen Vogue today along with multiple other staffers, and today is my last day. certainly more to come from me when the dust has settled more, but to my knowledge, after today, there will be no politics staffers at Teen Vogue.

My university sent out an email at 8 AM this morning asking that we pause all spending of federal grant funds except for payroll due to the government shutdown (with some exceptions). Is this happening elsewhere?

For 41 weeks now, I’ve been sitting down every Friday night to chronicle the damage this administration is doing to science & higher ed. We must stay focused. We’re in this for the long haul. We are finding ways not just to block them, but build something better. buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

The newer mpox variant is spreading undetected in some communities, California announced a few weeks ago. This variant has spread equally among men and women in central and eastern Africa -- but it's too soon to tell if that will be the case in the US. My latest: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

For 41 weeks now, I’ve been sitting down every Friday night to chronicle the damage this administration is doing to science & higher ed. We must stay focused. We’re in this for the long haul. We are finding ways not just to block them, but build something better. buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Another article about Alaska Earthquake Center and tsunami funding cuts www.alaskasnewssource.com/2025/11/01/s...

Good privacy decisions begin with proper knowledge about your situation—and we’ve got you covered. www.eff.org/deeplinks/2...

We have a new timeline up today on our Food Safety page, documenting how individual events continue to chip away at the personnel, regulations, and oversight mechanisms that make up our food safety systems: unbreaking.org/issues/food-...

Private equity destroys 200-year-old book distribution company that libraries around the country rely on and now libraries are having trouble getting new books: www.404media.co/libraries-sc...

US judge extends block on Trump's mass layoffs during shutdown reut.rs/47yx0Hr

Once again the GOP is weaponizing the complexity and nuances of scientific and statistical processes to sow confusion for political gain. www.wired.com/story/republ...

I’ve been talking about inoculation/prebunking in our trainings. The idea is that we can defang misinformation by tipping people off to it in advance. It is conceptually appealing & relatively easy to operationalize. This is a *very* welcome analysis that I look forward to reading.

This is not only a climate emergency. It is a cultural one, shares Anchorage Daily News. buff.ly/zUpOkHe

Before today, the strongest storm to make landfall in Jamaica was category 4 Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 with sustained winds of ~130mph. Category 5 #HurricaneMelissa is sustaining winds at 175mph. The wind is far from the only danger, but that difference is staggering. (1/2)

While the feds continue to play stupid games, SNAP recipients are set to lose food aid for the next month. In the Bay Area, a growing number of restaurants are stepping up to help, and we're maintaining the list. Share with anyone who needs it. www.coyotemedia.org/these-bay-ar...

I loved this story on breeding and growing apples. Some really marvelous things simply cannot be scaled. Worse, we destroy lose what makes them wonderful when we try.

It’s time to put on makeup It’s time to walk the dog It’s time to get things started For the weekly Neeley slog

Each Friday, I write a briefing on what is happening to American science & higher ed. 🧪 This was Week 40: - UVA signed a dangerous deal - AWS outage pain - Incoming grad cohorts ⬇️ - Shutdown, alt-MMWR, & imminent loss of food aid for 42 million & much more buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Vought holds one of the most powerful jobs in D.C., and he’s used his position to wage a quiet war to change the shape of the entire U.S. government. Here's what you should know about Trump’s shadow president.

Jamaica, in particular, will likely suffer catastrophic impacts from now rapidly-intensifying (but slow-moving) Hurricane #Melissa. A *Category 5* landfall now appears to be the most likely outcome, & 30-40+ inches of *additional* rain in mountains will lead to extreme flooding.

Good thread. I have seen these deals framed as a way to shift the legal burdens from the Trump administration to the schools. That is, Project 2025/Vought/Trump don’t think they can punish schools for free speech and win in court, but think they’ve got a better shot if the schools sign. 1/

There was already a *lot* going on with Bluesky, and now it's under even more pressure. I wrote about how I think about moderation, affordances, expectations, human needs, and powerful trolls for @techpolicypress.bsky.social www.techpolicy.press/trump-admini...

Amidst a government shutdown in which the White House has proposed slashing federal support of science by billions of dollars, our #SCIMaP team continues to assess the impact of research cuts on communities nationwide. Learn more about our efforts: scienceimpacts.org With more to come... a 🧵

"the results show that most Americans are not buying the White House’s arguments for the compact’s measures, said [Baker]...The compact has been presented as a tool to promote [affordability and merit]...but it’s really about censoring institutions and faculty." www.chronicle.com/article/amer...

YESSSSSSSSSS! This is a great thread.

Each Friday, I write a briefing on what is happening to American science & higher ed. 🧪 This was Week 40: - UVA signed a dangerous deal - AWS outage pain - Incoming grad cohorts ⬇️ - Shutdown, alt-MMWR, & imminent loss of food aid for 42 million & much more buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

"...appear to be typical of an investment strategy whereby donors, aided by university administrators and regents, circumvent faculty governance in order to treat universities like incubators or, worse, as click-farms to inflate the user data seemingly keeping the AI investment machine humming."

Another insidious way freedom can die for large parts of society: “when the state is unable or unwilling to constrain predatory private powers — narco-traffickers, illegal gold miners, human smugglers, corruption rackets — and the officials and politicians who go into business with them.”

Going to go ahead and put this at the top of my reading list.

Congratulations to @neuromelody.bsky.social and all the honorees!

As Paul Weiss, Paramount, anyone who has capitulated to Trump has learned — it never ends. You are giving up your principles and (at least in the case of law firms and universities) reason for existence, and you are getting nothing in return other than letting Trump know you will give in.

US PhD admissions shrink as fears over Trump’s cuts take hold. [In some cases, to zero.] Story by @alexwitze.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/d41...

No matter how bad I thought things might get for public health under Trump 2.0, I would never have predicted that we’d need to set up an actual alt MMWR.

#Oregon: Just months after the historic removal of four major dams on the Klamath River, scientists and tribal leaders are stunned by what they’re seeing—salmon are returning in far greater numbers, and much faster, than anyone expected. www.activenorcal.com/salmon-are-s...

Gross. Just got spam email trying to sell me the attendees list & contact info for 2025 SFN (Society for Neuroscience) annual meeting.

For the past few months, the Wayback Machine has been showing many fewer snapshots of news publishers' homepages than it used to. Something happened on May 16, but what? @hanaatameez.bsky.social and @andrewdeck.bsky.social investigate www.niemanlab.org/2025/10/the-...

We warned against "political hijacking" of #openscience back in 2021 (academic.oup.com/joc/article/...). As @lewan.bsky.social's diagnosis in @science.org shows, ignoring the scholarship in this space for almost five years creates serious vulnerabilities for science and the societies it serves.

From the Chronicle daily briefing, Vanderbilt and Wash U. continue to show themselves as authoritarianism curious.