AGU Denounces Trump Administration’s Repeal of the EPA Endangerment Finding 🧪🌎🌡️📈 fromtheprow.agu.org/agu-denounce...

I keep trying to find research on this topic and coming up empty. There has to be something on governments creating quasi-independent arms of the university to control the curriculum.

You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.

As I say here, there is no scientific justification to revoke the engagement finding. In fact, over the last 15+ yrs, the evidence of how climate change affects our health has only grown. Higher risk of allergies, dementia, fertility, heart disease, and death: that’s what’s on the line. @nature.org

Let's make it clearer. This week's in-depth briefing from our volunteer collective at @unbreaking.org is on extraordinary acts of courage and decency by ordinary people fighting back against inhumane attacks on their neighbors. unbreaking.org/blog/this-we...

I wrote about this last Friday - reporting from Science is getting more of the details

We now have a CDC grant tracker and are collecting information on CDC terminations. If your CDC grant was terminated, we need your help to gather data and documents! Please report! grant-witness.us/submit-cdc.h...

I'm able to keep doing my work by focusing on inspiring leaders wherever I find them. Today I'm thinking about Sue Pierre & her astonishing work with the Critical Ecology Lab. Latest: www.criticalecologylab.org/lab-news/cri... Her episode with @ologies.bsky.social www.alieward.com/ologies/crit...

NEW: The F.D.A. refused to accept an application from Moderna for its mRNA flu vaccine. Its reason: The agency did not think Moderna compared the new vaccine to one of the best flu shots available. The company spent $750M+ on a 41,000 person study. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/10/h...

Amidst everything else, it can be hard to make space to imagine something better. But dreaming together is necessary for planning together. Really appreciate this space created by the team at Cornell's Center for Racial Justice & Equitable Futures equitablefutures.cornell.edu/introducing-...

The Trump administration is planning to terminate $600M of CDC grants to CA, CO, MN, and IL. We're publishing the full list. They are using vulnerable communities as a weapon to dismantle public health, targeting partisan enemies, and manipulating media. 🧵 1/5 grant-witness.us/posts/2026-0...

If you’ve been vaguely worried but unsure how to talk about the kidnappings happening all around us, this might help.

Happy to see this new paper from Daniel Silva Luna out! It focuses on how professional science communicators make sense of and navigate emotion in their work #SciComm www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

“As university leadership signals a willingness to purge and sanction political dissidents, the question remains what powerful organizations like the AAU will do. As the historian Howard Zinn opined, you can’t be neutral on a moving train.”

If you know the moral thing for an organization to do, feels important to state it, even if you recognize that the org likely won't do it. We should recognize the way that powerful orgs historically capitulated to censorship and suppression. Shame only works when we remember the transgressions.

New from me: The federal judiciary has withdrawn a chapter from the newest edition of its reference manual on scientific evidence that addressed climate change after Republican state attorneys general argued it was biased against fossil fuel companies. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

A ‘shadow CDC’ is scrambling to fill gaps in public health data Dozens of routinely updated CDC databases have gone quiet. Here’s what states and medical societies are doing to preserve U.S. public health www.scientificamerican.com/article/stat...

My latest: Applauding community defense is not enough. We are organizing resistance to a concentration camp regime. The front lines are everywhere. (Plus resources and my must-reads list!)

Each Friday night, I write about what happened in US science & higher ed. 🧪 Year 2, Week 6: Feb 6 - civil servants face Schedule F - NSF disappoints on pre & postdoc research fellowships - Oklahoma ends tenure - Dept of Ed Civil Rights Office fails & much more - buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Switching fully over to @bookshop.org was both very easy and very pleasing. Cannot recommend highly enough.

GM: Charisma check. Mamdani: [rolls natural 20] GM: that’s a d6 how did you Mamdani: [direct to camera] Did you know you can check out board games at your local public library? 😊

For example: if 84% of people already agree that scientific research aimed at advancing knowledge is usually a worthwhile investment over time... Why are you so sure that the real problem is that people "just don't know enough about why research matters" www.pewresearch.org/science/2026...

Trying to explain what I'm writing about tonight: Husband: "Ah, bureaucromancy" Me: "OMG, can I use that? Source?" Him: "Pretty sure it's the Onion" Which is how I discovered the @theonion.com's "Department Of Corruption, Bribery, & Incompetence" 20yrs ago this week theonion.com/president-cr...

Trump's Education Department dismissed 9 out of 10 student discrimination complaints last year. Why? 19thnews.org/2026/02/stud...

Savvy leaders “playing a long game” (i.e. using public silence to increase their private leverage) know that loud & angry voices are precious. Savvy leaders using public outage as their main tactic know that private/hidden pressure are precious. Neither try silence the other.

I needed this today. "To succeed often requires–and always demands–of you to embrace the utterly insane notion that you cannot fail... You will need to prepare and make ready everyone around you. To fail as a leader is when you do not prepare people for when that inevitable failure happens."

I am a AAAS Elected Fellow and believe strongly in the mission. But there is a difference between playing the long game and having played the game for a long time.

My latest: A look inside the secretive immigration prisons at Guantanamo—and the ethical questions that doctors and nurses face to treat those inside.

If we are going to talk about trust in science/scientific institutions (and we should), I am BEGGING researchers to engage their critical thinking & dig into the data instead of making assumptions based on headlines & parroting talking points. www.kff.org/health-infor...

Will Jones, president UMN Twin Cities AAUP, said many people had hoped the event would provide a space to express the outrage they felt about Pretti’s death. “The university chose to ignore those pleas and to impose restrictions on the way community members could express their grief."

Tenure Eliminated at Oklahoma Colleges Regional and community colleges professors will no longer receive tenure; research university faculty are spared, with some exceptions. https://bit.ly/4tlEtUq #EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd

In brief, this maneuver: - effectively converts employee status to "at-will" (meaning they can be fired for any--or no--reason), - redirects whistleblower complaints to internal agency counsel, & takes away these civil servants' rights to appeal adverse personnel actions.

Reposting again because according to Reddit threads, another round of RWR emails went out today.

It illustrates the complex balancing act for colleges and universities in responding to ICE actions.

INBOX: Washington Post Ukraine Correspondent Lizzie Johnson announces that she has been laid off in the middle of a below-freezing war zone without power, heat, or running water.

Some great news. My hybrid memoir IN OPEN COUNTRY will now be published by Little, Brown. It’s about freedom of movement and stillness in the US, and the ways capitalism & settler colonialism have shaped (and continue to shape) the answer to who has either across time. I also do a lot of walking.

hallo, I am hiring again! - SF Digital Services is looking for a new Engineering Director careers.sf.gov/role/?id=374... This reports directly to me, & I’m looking for a practical & flexible technical expert with excellent communication & coaching skills, who is excited to do both. More below...

These are the curves for new and competitive renewal grants. The number of new awards is increasing slightly, but only slightly. 17 out of 25 institutes and centers with funding authority have now made awards. 3/4

Oh friends, it’s like this right now. This week alone, I have had SIX of the most brilliant people I know separately botch meetings/emails/other work stuff. For almost all of them, it’s the first major mistake I’ve ever seen them make? I hope we can give ourselves grace in things large & small.

I hate that we need it, but I’m really proud of our @unbreaking.org team quietly working away on food safety. (Be warned: it’s unsettling 🤢) unbreaking.org/issues/food-...

NSF GRFP applicants (and mentors): Was your application Returned Without Review and deemed ineligible despite fitting in the allowed topics? 1) Write NSF 2) Write your Congressperson 3) CC us at [email protected] so we can compile + follow up Details and template at grant-witness.us/grfp-letter

If you write primarily about nature and environmental issues, it can be hard to see the value of your work during times like these. I wrote about this a bit in my introduction to @biographic.bsky.social's weekly newsletter.

@sydmt.blacksky.app became a journalist to be part of the solution. Journalism had other plans. She's given us an essay on what it means to choose empathy and ethics as both are under attack, and to tell the truth outside the media institutions that are failing us. unbreaking.org/blog/Unbreak...

Cool workshop in DC in June for higher ed policy academics with less than 10 years of research experience. Deadline to apply is March 1. www.peer-center.org/research/sum...

I'm on Capitol Hill watching NIH director Jayanta Bhattacharya testify to the Senate HELP committee. Thankfully I haven't been escorted out of this event (yet). Here's what I'm following. You can also watch live here: www.help.senate.gov/hearings/mod...

This is another one of the reasons I’m so deeply troubled by the fabulous new plan to just pivot to private philanthropy. Billionaires will not save science

Reposting w/alt text. Iranians are experiencing collective trauma. Thousands have been killed/injured, the economy is crippled & the threat of a wider conflict is real. It’s especially difficult for those living in Iran, as many have lost (or fear losing) loved ones. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

“You need only know this: Whatever is happening with your data, it is important enough to the most egregiously lawless administration in American history that it be collected and consolidated.” Always read @tressiemcphd.bsky.social (gift link)

Yes, the Harvard news swung from “they’re dropping the request for $200M to get a deal done” to “now they’re demanding $1B in ‘damages’” within six hours. Universities CANNOT cave to this www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

Trump Demands Harvard Pay $1 Billion Just hours before the latest demand, the New York Times reported he had backed off calling for a cash settlement. https://bit.ly/4qS0bO1 #EDUSky #AcademicSky #HigherEd