Day 75 of Winter Brain happening today! (seems like these daily email updates never end)
This line graph illustrates the percentage change in agency staff levels from the previous year for nine major U.S. federal scientific and health organizations between the fiscal years 2016 and 2025. The agencies tracked include the CDC, Department of Energy, EPA, FDA, NASA, NIH, NIST, NOAA, and NSF. For the majority of the timeline between 2016 and 2023, the agencies show relatively stable fluctuations, generally staying within a range of +5% to -5% change per year. However, there is a dramatic and uniform plummet starting in the 2024β25 period. Every agency depicted shows a sharp downward trajectory, with staffing losses ranging from approximately -15% to over -25%. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) shows the most significant decline, dropping to roughly -26%, while the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) shows the least severe but still substantial drop at approximately -15%.
This is the most astonishing graph of what the Trump regime has done to US science. They have destroyed the federal science workforce across the board. The negative impacts on Americans will be felt for generations, and the US might never be the same again.
www.nature.com/immersive/d4...
Even when they show signs of weakness or forced regret, we must not give an inch. Authoritarian governments still respond to public opinion, which is why sustained pressure matters. We have to keep making clear that these thuggish actions are unconscionable and will not be tolerated. Donβt let up.
*in the WORLD
If you've experienced something similar or heard about something similar, contact me on Signal at marisakabas.04
Newβ An American citizen boarding flight from Boston to Lisbon just now told me after showing boarding pass, every passenger stopped on jetway by two ICE agents demanding to take their photo. When passenger asked why, ICE threatened to detain them. If they said no photo, couldn't board/TBD detained.
A reminder as Congress finalizes NIH appropriations: the bill must limit multiyear funding (MYF), Vought's way of cutting the NIH budget without cutting the budget. MYF will devastate the research workforce.
@safa-science.bsky.social wrote this in July. Still relevant: substack.com/@scienceandf...
so much to cover right now, but a thread i just want to throw out there from my reporting is that the car rental market in minneapolis is reportedly totally screwed up right now because ICE has cleared the inventory. rental companies should have to answer for supplying vehicles used in terror.
How long before U.S. heath protocols and vaccine schedules start affecting travel? Only a matter of time before traveling with proof of measles vaccine will be required to enter countries that still understand science #scicomm π§ͺ #vaccines
The district court injunction that prevented NIH from capping indirects at 15% was upheld today on appeal!
www.reuters.com/world/trump-...
New preprint alert: we use sign errors as a test of how well TWAS works.
Very worryingly we find that TWAS gets the sign wrong around 1/3 of the time (compared to 50% for pure guessing). You can read more about our analysis here, and what we think is going on π
If your position is that regime change should be forced on countries where the president does not respect democratic norms and regularly kidnaps opponents using an officially sanctioned paramiliatary, have I got news for you about your position on the United States
Wanna see real-life miracles? Fund scientific research.
A team of US scientists just cured Alzheimerβs in mice β and there is now hope that the disease can be reversed in humans.
futurism.com/health-medic...
"New" paper from my lab identifying the baseline and methamphetamine-induced striatal RNA-binding targets of hnRNP H1. Glad to finally have this published! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Faculty position at the department of medicine, University of Chicago. Please share.
#ProudBlue
βΌοΈ βΌοΈ βΌοΈ
Still kicking! π
This is shocking stuff. John Quackenbush has been brilliant since forever. www.statnews.com/2025/12/05/r...
woohoo!
The legal, media, and academic institutions capitulating to an authoritarian ordering payments for favorable treatment are damning themselves to irrelevance. They are destroying their institutions. They will be β and should be β shunned for failing in their most basic purposes for existing.
err.dang.year since 2015!
cornish meat pie
why hasnt fox news hired her after all these years?
Symposium deadline for IBANGS 2026 in Pittsburgh (June 8-11) is November 7! @ibangs.bsky.social www.ibangs.org/symposia-sub...
π¨ Please RT!
Weβre recruiting a motivated postdoc to dissect the neurocircuits of affective pain.
Expertise in behavioral models of pain/SUDs, stereotaxy, microscopy, opto/chemogenetics, or fiber photometry encouraged.
Apply π recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF10647
#Neuroscience #Postdoc
Excited to share recent collaborative work led by Hayley Thorpe published in Molecular Psychiatry: Genome-wide association studies of lifetime and frequency of cannabis use in 131,895 individuals www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Are you an early career scholar interested in learning more about peer review?
Join us for our virtual @reviewerzero.bsky.social workshop! We will help you understand how peer review works and give advice on responding to reviewer comments.
9-10:30am PT / 12-1:30pm ET on October 30th. RegisterππΌ