Looking forward to the Alexandria Declaration, from staffers at the National Science Foundation (#NSF). Watch for it next Monday.
https://www.importantcontext.news/p/national-science-foundation-workers

"Over 2,000 senior staff set to leave #NASA under agency push."
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/09/nasa-staff-departures-00444674

"At least 2,145 senior-ranking NASA employees are set to leave under a push to shed staff…The 2,145 employees are those in GS-13 to GS-15 positions — senior-level government ranks that are typically reserved for those with specialized skills or management responsibilities."

As Commerce Secretary, #HowardLutnick controls the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (#NOAA) and the National Weather Service (#NWS). As he dismantles them, note that he and his sons run a firm that invests in for-profit, private-sector firms that hope to replace NOAA and NWS.
https://newrepublic.com/post/197750/donald-trump-commerce-secretary-howard-lutnick-budget-cuts-weather-service

New horrors. The Biodiversity Heritage Library needs help. The Smithsonian Institution will end its support as of 1 Jan 2026.

This is the world's largest open-source archive for biodiversity literature and archives -- the place where you can find all the old, but still very useful, botanical literature, among other things.

Please share widely with your networks. #biodiversity #Archives #defendresearch #botany

https://about.biodiversitylibrary.org/call-for-support/

Almost a joke but not a joke

"Trump Admin Urges Reconsideration of #Harvard’s #Accreditation Status."
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/7/9/harvard-trump-accreditation-status-reconsider/

#Academia #Censorship #DefendResearch #Trump #TrumpVResearch #Universities #USPol #USPolitics
@academicchatter

The #NIH just announced that it will "cap how much #publishers can charge NIH-supported scientists to make their research findings publicly accessible."
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-crack-down-excessive-publisher-fees-publicly-funded-research

We don't yet know the cap or how NIH will calculate or enforce it.

"Trust and Integrity: A Research Imperative." A joint statement from the Association of Research Libraries (#ARL), International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (#STM), Association of College and Research Libraries (#ACRL), Society for Scholarly Publishing (#SSP), and Association of University Presses (#AUPresses).
https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/07/09/trust-and-integrity-a-research-imperative/

(Yes, it's rare to see #libraries and #publishers issue joint statements.)

"This year has brought unprecedented challenges to the U.S. research enterprise – sweeping federal funding cuts, capricious reductions in the federal workforce, and destabilizing attacks on universities, laboratories, and federal research agencies…In response to these challenges, we believe in and support: Public investment in basic science and the humanities…The need for broad access to validated, trusted information…Protecting and advancing freedom of speech…and ensuring research and scholarship remain free from political interference."

Not all paused research grants are paused on the govt side. Williams College (@williamscollege) just paused its own acceptance of federal research grants.
https://www.berkshireeagle.com/news/northern_berkshires/williams-college-nih-nsf-grant-pause/article_c1fed19e-baf9-491c-9829-2e7176929329.html

The reason is that #Trump science agencies are putting vague and ominous conditions on institutions that accept grants. One faculty member called them "booby traps". The college explained that it needs time to understand and navigate these conditions. Even affected faculty, initially alarmed, seemed to accept the need to do this.

#defendResearch

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ln72v57ivz2g46uqf4xxqiuh/post/3ltarzan7jo23

"Mauna Loa Observatory captured the reality of climate change. The US plans to shut it down."
https://theconversation.com/mauna-loa-observatory-captured-the-reality-of-climate-change-the-us-plans-to-shut-it-down-260403

"Data collected by Mauna Loa from 1958 onward let us clearly see the evidence of climate change for the first time. The station samples the air and measures global CO₂ levels. Charles Keeling and his successors used this data to produce the famous Keeling curve – a graph showing carbon dioxide levels increasing year after year…President Donald Trump has decided to defund the observatory."

"Terminated #NIH grants are being reinstated almost entirely in blue states."
https://www.statnews.com/2025/07/03/nih-cuts-grant-restoration-complicated-by-limits-to-court-order-trump-dei-restrictions/
(#paywalled)

PS: It's not that #Trump officials feel more lenient toward blue-state scientists. It's that blue-state Attorneys General fight back in court. Sometimes resistance works.

"The White House took down the nation's top #climate report. You can still find it here."
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/01/nx-s1-5453501/national-climate-assessment-nca5-archive-report

"The website that hosts the most recent edition of the National Climate Assessment has gone dark. The sprawling report is the most influential source of information about how climate change affects the United States....On Monday (June 30), the government website that hosts all of that information stopped working. The Trump administration had already halted work on the next edition of the report, and fired all the staff who worked on it…An archived version of the most recent edition is available through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [#NOAA]. All five editions of the National Climate Assessment that have been published over the years will also be available on #NASA's website."

(Click through to the article for working links.)

"Scientists warn US will lose a generation of talent because of Trump cuts."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/03/national-science-foundation-trump-cuts

"A generation of scientific talent is at the brink of being lost to overseas competitors by the Trump administration’s dismantling of the National Science Foundation (#NSF), with unprecedented political interference at the agency…The gold standard peer-reviewed process used by the NSF to support cutting-edge, high-impact science is being undermined by the chaotic cuts to staff, programs and grants, and by meddling by the so-called department of government efficiency (#Doge)."

"Frances Arnold, who won the 2018 Nobel Prize in chemistry, says U.S. science is 'paying the price' for not explaining the benefits of research funding for 'far too long.' "
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/research/2025/07/03/nobelist-scientists-took-support-granted-trump

PS: The headline summary is a bit misleading and suggests that Arnold blames scientists for the Trump defunding spree. This passage from the body of her talk shows that her larger position is more balanced:

“Instead of viewing science as the foundation of prosperity, as an investment in the future, it is being portrayed as a burden on taxpayers.”

Scientists don't portray science that way. Anti-scientists do.

"Hurricane Science Was Great While It Lasted."
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2025/07/hurricane-science-noaa-cuts/683398/
(#paywalled)

"For years, the National Hurricane Center has been improving the accuracy of its forecasts, and one short year ago, the United States was better at predicting storms’ tracks than it had ever been. But the Trump administration has been cutting the forecasting staff and budgets. And now these satellite data will be missing too. The U.S. is rapidly losing state-of-the-art hurricane forecasting, just in time for hurricane season’s busiest months…What’s easy to see coming now are the possible consequences: at best, a needless evacuation. But just as easily: a rushed evacuation, a surprise landfall, a flattened house."

From William Haseltine (@wmhaseltine): "There is no way that you can substitute for the $50 billion a year that the government puts into the National Institutes of Health [#NIH]…I'm a grandchild of the famous scientists that were forced to leave Europe by Hitler and by the disruptions of World War II. Whether they were Italian or German or English, they formed the nucleus of our academic excellence, and they attracted students. And their students trained me and my generation, and we have trained many others. Once you cut off that flow, which seems to be happening right now, you are impairing the future not for one generation, but for many generations."
https://www.npr.org/2025/07/01/nx-s1-5420794/william-haseltine-discusses-cuts-to-federal-funding-for-scientific-research

More on Haseltine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_A._Haseltine

"Proposed cuts could have ‘catastrophic effect,’ 110 biomedical, health sciences industry leaders tell Congress."
https://www.statnews.com/2025/06/27/biotechnology-federal-funding-cuts-ceos-board-chairs-letter-to-congress/

A letter to Congress from 110 biopharmacy company leaders, speaking as individualsto. The original is paywalled. (Why?) Here's a free copy from archive.today.
https://archive.is/lR49q

"Given the currently proposed cuts to federal funding for scientific research, including extensive cuts to the National Institutes of Health [#NIH] and National Science Foundation [#NSF] in the fiscal year 2026 budget, we believe it is imperative — and urgent — to articulate that federal funding for scientific research is essential to the sustainability of the biomedical industry, maintaining the United States’ technological edge, and crucial for this country’s ability to protect and strengthen our economic and national security."