“Dr. Antaki, a biomedical engineer, had been building an artificial heart for babies and young children, a pump the size of a AA battery, and he was getting close. But with his research grants stopped, Dr. Antaki slowly drained his lab’s rainy day funds, and he was forced to lay off all his staff.”

Bluesky was only out for you we were all on here having fun without you

I've noticed how much I’ve aged in the past 5 years and I am really hoping that adding chia seeds to my yogurt can turn this whole thing around.

tfw the book club scam e-mailers aren't even really trying anymore 😔

Got a notification from a medieval copyright lawyer

What's so special about 21 centimeters? Thanks @nhpr.org for letting me ramble about #RadioAstronomy, one of my FAVORITE things, and serving it up in neat little chunks! 🔭 #SciComm www.nhpr.org/show/cosmica...

COSTCO: here, try this ME: oh yummy COSTCO: so you like it? ME: yes, it's delicious COSTCO: well, we don’t sell it anymore and you'll never see it again.

*Gift Article* Oregon Prepares for a Challenging Summer of Water Shortages and High Fire Risk www.nytimes.com/2026/05/12/u...

I like to think of astronomy as the study of everything in the universe. True enough… but what are we missing? www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-... [I wrote this!] 🔭🧪

wow — the preprint host, arxiv, is banning authors for a year if they submit papers with hallucinated citations 🤖

In a historic moment, I was interviewed by fellow Black woman particle physicist Dr. Katrina Miller. Few people can understand my journey the way she does. We talked about my new book, why poetry matters, and yes, how the *fact* of non-trinary neutrinos challenges anti-trans rhetoric. #GiftLink

month 5 of writing 3 brand new lectures every week ! 9 more lectures to go everyone say you’ve got this Sanjana

Breaking: Congress is pushing back on the Trump administration's termination of National Science Board members, with the House calling for their reinstatement and the Senate asking pointed questions about OMB's political interference. My reporting for @science.org:

who will increase shareholder value if employees are off bonding with their children

"For too long, the university has ignored the wisdom of the donor class and hired based on academic excellence. Regrettably, this has led to the underrepresentation of discredited viewpoints in elite higher education." www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/wer...

OK Global Southern Bluesky, let's go: share your most beloved non-Anglophone pop culture franchises. We want to know about the Nepali romance novels, the Khmer superhero comics, the Guatemalan detective movies, the Malawian ghost hunter cartoons. Or whatever's out there. Please boost!

California Bill Would Create A $23 Billion Fund For University Research

This week, on the @statnews.com First Opinion Podcast, I talked to the one and only Dr. Glaucomflecken about his advocacy around PeaceHealth in Eugene, Oregon, which sought to replace community-based ER physicians. www.statnews.com/2026/05/06/d...

Hey that’s my paper! Cool!

Recent work explores whether a commonly assumed source of data–model disagreement in simulations of stellar interiors is really to blame. aasnova.org/2026/05/06/s... 🔭🧪 @colorado.edu

Molybdenum doesn't pop to mind when we think of elements biological system needs, nor does tungsten. But for some of the earliest forms of life on Earth, they might have been vital. 🧪⚒️ Link: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-72133-0​

Reading a fellowship announcement that’s just like Harvard Harvard Princeton Princeton Stanford Stanford. Like congrats for sure to the awardees but maybe they should just tell people at other schools to not bother trying lol

NIH grant cuts disproportionately hit minority and female scientists www.nature.com/articles/d41...

“That is not how this gold-standard regulatory agency is supposed to work.” My story on Trump's recent support for psychedelic medicines and whether it will be a boon or a bane for a field that has long yearned for legitimacy 🧪💊

It’s Heater’s birthday!!!! She has received her favorite thing in the world: 3 McDonald’s french fries — 1.5 to eat, 1.5 to bat around the house for the next several days.

What the hell www.newyorker.com/culture/prog...

"Everything" is one of the comics that will be included in the "Parenting " SMBC comic collection that is currently available on Kickstarter! KICKSTARTER ◆ www.kickstarter.com/projects/wei...

Obviously, the goal here is to end Head Start and eventually, all child care. The GOP is utterly radicalized against women working outside of the home, and everything about this issue must be seen through that lens. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/28/u...

🎉 Today is my birthday! 🥳 If you'd like to help me celebrate, here's a list of charities working to make the world better that could use some more support. 🫶 www.astrokatie.com/birthday

Preschoolers and pregnant women have been leeching off the hardworking podcasters and supplement salespeople who power our nation for far too long

Mixed news from Congress on science budgets for NASA, NSF, NOAA and NIST. Like last year, Congress looks like it will rebuff Trump administration's major cuts. On the other hand, Congress still proposes some downsizing—and does not appear to be taking action about OMB. My reporting:

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

The ancestors of these 140 million-year-old radiolaria single-celled fossils lived in Earth's oceans while the Moon's crust was creaking and cracking with tectonic forces. These microscopic beings swam under moonlight and sunlight, sensing their own astronomy. (Image credit: Robin et al 2010) 🧪

NEW: The House advanced a plan to increase ICE and CBP's budget by up to $140,000,000,000 with no strings attached. Congress is one step closer to giving these lawless agencies more money to terrorize our communities — the time to be loud is now.

our cat was such a jerk at the cat hotel that the hotel owner had to gently tell us she sucked and that it wasn't her fault because she was scared and we were like "oh wow we thought you were going to 86 her from the cat hotel" [beat] cat hotel owner: "she's 86ed."

If there's a battle over device-based learning, it's between schools and families on one side and big tech on the other. Big tech spent decades selling schools and family on tech as a panacea. And schools/families now see--that promise was hollow. But it takes time and money to walk it all back.

A one-in-a-million supernova seen five times could reveal the Universe’s true speed https://www.europesays.com/uk/926055/ Scientists have known for nearly a century that the universe is expanding, but the exact rate of that…

More details on the firing of the National Science Board. The NSF now has no director, deputy director, or board. They have issued almost no new awards in 2026. The plan appears to be to completely destroyed the agency. The details are horrifying and have Russ Vought written all over them.

“The university ‘limited the work of Dr. Wu, partly closed her lab, broke up her research team, reassigned her grants to her white male faculty colleagues, and left her isolated.’ After the investigation, Northwestern allegedly ‘cut her salary for lack of funding’” www.nature.com/articles/d41...

📣 There are now signed copies of THE EDGE OF SPACE-TIME with free shipping (within the US) available at my local indie bookstore! So if you missed the tour or it didn't come near you, you can still get one. Also, some of them have special messages in them! 📚💙 waterstreetbooks.com/book/9780593...

This woman, who also represented three J6 defendants and well as Roy Moore in one of his defamation suits, is one of the people they hired to be an immigration judge; a person who will have to decide on gender-based violence cases.

#OTD 93 years ago 📡 An engineer named Karl Jansky gave a 12-min presentation at the US National Committee for the International Union for Radio Science to a small group of people. It marked a significant turning point in our understanding of the Universe. #RadioAstronomy 📸 NRAO/AUI/NSF

I'm in @theobserveruk.bsky.social today looking at why so many unis are in financial trouble and what the government needs to do to save HE. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Breaking: Trump has fired the membership of the National Science Board, which is oversees NSF. I have confirmed separately with multiple now-former members of NSB.

you can't talk about declines in trust in public health without talking about the massive dark money campaigns led by right wing billionaires which targeted pandemic policies that threatened their profits + the politicians who supported them

Happy 36th Anniversary, Hubble! 🎂 Since its launch on April 24, 1990, the Hubble telescope has been our premier window to the stars. From over 1.6M+ observations to rewriting science textbooks, its legacy is truly out of this world. Here’s to 36 years of wonder! ✨ #Hubble36 #NASA #Space 1/4

Applications are still open for this! Sign up if you’d like to come hang out at @perimeterinstitute.ca with an awesome group of physics/astronomy science communicators!

From Tori Bonidie and Skylar Grayson: The president’s budget requests for NASA and the NSF were released last week. We summarizes the major cuts and their impacts while providing resources to help fight back against this attack on science. ⚛️ 🔭 ☄️ 🧪 astrobites.org/2026/04/16/budget-request-fy2027/

I interviewed @chanda.blacksky.app about her new book, The Edge of Space-Time. We discussed cosmic wonder, the mythology of genius, Deep Space Nine, and thinking beyond false narratives and manufactured inevitabilities. If your brain is stuck in the churn of bad news, you'll want to check this out.