It really is incredible how technological innovations that seemingly democratize information and processes are ultimately having the reverse effect.

If you are organizing a #PlanetaryScience meeting, there is no reason to pay for a service to manage abstract submissions, registrations, and program management. We are offering the use of our Indico server to the planetary science community for free. solarsystem.events

This fits all my priors. Insecurity and denying the expertise of others are a hand-in-glove fit.

The full spiked 60 Minutes CECOT package, clean & subtitled. 1/5

They are really planning to go through with these cuts at Nebraska, despite recommendations not to. Unbelievable. If you want to hire highly qualified, very successful earth and atmospheric sciences faculty in teaching and research, quite a few are probably looking for jobs for next year.

Why do childcare costs seem to endlessly rise faster than anything else? Same answer. For good reasons, we mandate classroom sizes but this means no efficiency gains and always rising prices.

Is there ever going to be an interviewer who pushes back and tells him that immigrants seeking asylum is different than insane asylums?

**Why does it seem like healthcare costs and teacher pay seem to always increase at rates higher than anything else?** It's not a mystery. It's called the Baumol Effect (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_...) and the world would likely be a better place if everyone understood this concept from economics.

Perhaps, I'm too influenced by Karl Popper, but I think we must recognize that *all scientific claims are wrong*. Science is a process towards truth. The scientific literature is a public record of this process and so it is filled with claims that have and will someday be shown to be wrong. 2/2

**Why does it seem like healthcare costs and teacher pay seem to always increase at rates higher than anything else?** It's not a mystery. It's called the Baumol Effect (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol_...) and the world would likely be a better place if everyone understood this concept from economics.

ICE secretly kidnap autistic boy during bathroom break—never notify parents. Mother reported him missing a week ago—turns out ICE had him detained the whole time. He was helping sell fruit and asked to go to the restroom—by the time she was done helping a customer he was gone. Houston, Texas

Federal officer blasts chemical spray into vocal but nonviolent Portland protester, video shows The interaction illustrates how federal law enforcement officers do use aggressive tactics against protesters who yell and needle officers but don’t appear to present clear physical threats.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), top Democrat on Senate Commerce Cmte, is out with a Democratic staff report: "The Destruction of NASA's Mission: Whistleblowers Reveal OMB's Unconstitutional Plot to Gut the Agency." www.commerce.senate.gov/services/fil...

This is not how you reform. This is how you do damage. We've too quickly forgot how during the 2025 cycle, NSF dropped the ground out from many applicants by deeming entire paths and topics of study as ineligible after students had already spent time applying. 1/2 www.science.org/content/arti...

Whether they're blaming vaccines and Tylenol, or selling dubious "remedies," what they're really doing is promoting the perception that families (and especially mothers) can prevent and treat Autism. And thus also the perception that people with Autism and their families don't need social support.

Yes, this does sum up the entire current US populist moment, Trump et al.

BBC interview with one of the Korea workers who was shackled and imprisoned. This was nothing but an American own goal. Attempting to blow up the largest economic development project in Georgia history. Billions in investment, thousands of jobs for Americans. youtu.be/fcwJtWU4fn4?...

Ed Dept has pulled funding for programs in eight states aimed at supporting students who have hearing & vision loss. They got caught in Trump admin’s attacks on DEI, with Ed Dept spokesperson citing concerns about “divisive concepts” and “fairness” in acknowledging decision to withhold the funding.

We Are Watching a Scientific Superpower Destroy Itself

Old enough to remember when NYT couldn’t remember the word torture now they can’t remember the word murder.

This isn’t bad luck or coincidence or predestination. This is our choice. To live in a nation where our leaders teach hate, and military style guns are everywhere.

I still often take cold showers in the morning because of this article: www.nytimes.com/2016/03/15/b...

Alternatively might be sed, grep, regex, etc. expressions that

I spent the week tracing how HHS Secretary RFK Jr. canceled $500 million in mRNA research and reporting on a(nother) very chaotic week inside HHS. Let me introduce you to the fringe doctors, anti-vaccine activists, and MAHA operatives behind the mRNA “debacle.” www.msnbc.com/news/news-an...

Yes! 10x the number of congress people and have proportional representation for all parties that cross 10% threshold.

Everybody studying #exoplanets needs to be aware of this incredibly important point! 🔭

This happened to @astroyami.bsky.social, @carolineszcz.bsky.social and myself but it was a Toyota Hi-lux. We were in northern Namibia and I was driving. www.tiktok.com/t/ZT6kV85NW/

For whatever its worth, I disagree with the decision by Science to retract a paper because it was wrong. Retraction is a tool to identify and remove works created by willful malfeasance. When scientific claims are wrong, the reason why is important, and Science's decision muddles them. 1/2

I think a key point is that any laws that weaken tenure will be weaponized not to target famous white men at Ivy League schools but rather more vulnerable folks. That's part of the reason one should take the tenure process seriously, and why one has to accept some failure modes with tenure.

I still can’t believe that all NIH grants to my colleagues at Harvard and Harvard Medical School have been nullified. And that, as a nation, we’re somehow okay with this illegal, arbitrary, and petty act. Just think of the consequences: scientists, students, and patients will all suffer.

Yes. The conservative politicians and business leaders that routinely denigrate higher ed and uplift blue collar tradework do so TO LOWER their labor costs and reduce competition for their children, who are still going to college (and learning art, music, literature, and languages in k-12 schools).

Trump and Elon made massive cuts to all US weather tracking and warning systems in the spring of 2025.

Destruction designed to end scientific discovery for public good in America.

NEW: NSF will be kicked out of their building. Announcement will be made tomorrow by HUD Sec. and Governor of VA. HUD will take over the NSF building over the next two years. NSF staffer: "There is no planning for NSF, no identified future location, appropriation for a new building or a move."

You can go Settings > Display, and toggle on 'asteroids'. Zoom in to see the red-green-blue streaks. That's the sky as it is, filled with the moving foreground of our Solar System! 🔭

Just some creepy armed Mad Max guys trying to gain entry to Dodgers Stadium. ICE says it wasn’t them. DHS says they were Border Patrol. But honestly who the hell knows? They’ve given permission for any psycho to put on a ski mask, point a gun, grab people & throw them into an unmarked vehicle.

This photo. This is fascism. This is authoritarianism. This is not normal. Don’t forget.

Unironically they should buy up the domains for about 60 defunct local newspapers in swing states. Hire two reporters to write almost exclusively about highschool sports and new restaurants opening with every 10th article about how the local GOP is screwing over people.

Drove side-by-side to Martin Lawrence on the Chicago Skyway for a few miles.

I want to take a moment to share an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence's grievances against King George III. Sound familiar?

Maybe the real waste, fraud, and abuse was the DOGE we made along the way.

This is a good idea. Highlight the fact that law enforcement agencies that should be targeting drug trafficking and child exploitation are being used to arrest immigrant moms and workers due to Stephen Miller's twisted ideological obsession, Dems!

It’s hard to imagine how much BS we are ultimately going to be drowning in. The money to be made is not developing an app to use AI (everyone’s doing that). The money to be made is developing an app that will guide you through the BS to the real.

Are we living A Tale of Two Cities?

Unless these decisions are reversed, this will be remembered as a disastrous week for @NASA. First, I am not optimistic that whomever this administration nominates next for NASA Administrator will be nearly as qualified or enthusiastic about the agency’s mission as Jared. 1/

Very little about these decisions by the Trump administration were driven by a considered effort to increase value by reducing costs. This office of NASA was closed because they studied global climate change and we’re located in a blue state. That’s all.

It's just one tax cut! What can it cost, a quarter of a million scientists?

In an education context, this is called meeting the student where there at. 🤦‍♂️

Might be a good time to re up this old PopSci piece I wrote about how dirt cheap NASA missions are. www.popsci.com/real-cost-na...