Katie Mack

I think some people hear “grants” and think that without them, scientists and government workers just have less stuff to play with at work. But grants fund salaries for students, academics, researchers, and people who work in all areas of public service.

“Pausing” grants means people don’t eat.

White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion

The Trump administration has put a hold on all federal financial grants and loans, affecting tens of billions of dollars in payments.

A reminder to the news media: “conflicting accounts” is what you say BEFORE the incontrovertible video evidence appears. After that, your job is to ask why one side is lying, not to repeat the lie and pretend no one knows the truth.

Chatbots — LLMs — do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When they’re “right” it’s because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. That’s all.

It would be fantastic if major federal institutions would acknowledge that the executive branch cannot legally unilaterally cancel or redistribute congressionally appropriated funding on ideological grounds and thus they have no legal obligation to comply with such directives

Trump funding freeze a blatant violation of Constitution, federal law: Legal experts

The Constitution, federal law and court decisions make it clear: President Donald Trump's order to pause federal funding is against the law, legal experts tell ABC News.

The first measles death in the US in a decade -- the tragic, preventable death of a child whose parents chose not to protect them with vaccination -- should spark an immediate nation-wide campaign to ensure all children are protected against preventable diseases. Anything less is unconscionable.

Devastating for scientists and their research, and everyone who benefits from that research.

I’m not sure if everyone outside academia is aware that a delay or “pause” in grant funding often means the researchers themselves are lost from the field, along with their expertise.

I still can't get past the idea that people in America are now supposed to accept that this is a valid form of law enforcement and just assume it's fine when random dudes in groups with face-coverings, no ID, no warrant, & no uniform grab people off the street and force them into unmarked vehicles

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? 😊

Every reputable expert I know considers mRNA vaccine technology to be one of the most revolutionary advances in medicine in our lifetimes. Its inventors won the Nobel Prize in 2023. Shutting it down now is pointless self-harm to humanity.

Eric Michael Garcia @ericmgarcia.bsky.social

Release from HHS: HHS will wind down its development of the mRNA vaccine development activities under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).

I spoke to a talented junior scientist who just got a good faculty job offer in the US and they told me “well I wouldn’t move to 1930s Germany either” so that’s how that’s going

Can’t believe the whole country has to suffer through the return of Dickensian childhood diseases because the worst, most ignorant attention-demanders decided other people’s expertise makes them feel bad

I don’t even know how this could be presented as being in service of anything other than hindering scientific progress.

CDC Staff Prohibited From Co-Authoring Papers With World Health Organization Personnel

It’s just the latest “Orwellian” crackdown on government scientists.

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

The New York Times @nytimes.com

Breaking News: The Trump administration repealed the bedrock scientific finding that greenhouse gases threaten human life and well being, meaning that the EPA can no longer regulate them. nyti.ms/4rSszQu

Probably more helpful to think of them not so much as “Canadian wildfires” but rather “climate change wildfires currently consuming Canada”

NASA isn't why the US doesn't have universal healthcare, or a social safety net. The US doesn't have those things because politicians with the power to provide them choose specifically not to (with varying levels of support from voters). Enthusiasm for human spaceflight doesn't drive that choice.

The fact that a second strike like that in an armed conflict is definitely a war crime should not completely negate the fact that *there is no war* and ALL the strikes are cold-blooded murder. The whole chain of command are murderers.

I could be wrong about this but I really think most Americans do not want to be forced to “do their own research” about food & drug & product safety and would rather that the government agencies that have been sorting that all out for them for decades not be obliterated in the name of “efficiency.”

Every once in a while I tell people from other countries about how the health insurance system works in the US and they are aghast. Yesterday a guy straight up didn’t believe me when I said people can die because of not being able to afford medicine. He was sure I meant in the distant past.

More context on this #Artemis II image:

* This is the night side, lit by moonlight. You can see city lights in Spain & Portugal, & a sliver of day at lower right

* The Sun is entirely behind Earth, which makes it a kind of solar eclipse, but w/ Earth doing the eclipsing instead of the Moon:
☀️🌍🚀🌕

The problem with most machine-based random number generators is that they’re not TRULY random, so if you need genuine randomness it is sometimes necessary to link your code to an external random process like a physical noise source or the current rate of US tariffs on a given country.

If you’re in the US and you’d like to know what projects and vital services federal grants currently fund in your state, you can search here: www.usaspending.gov

And you can find the contact information for your elected representatives here: www.usa.gov/elected-offi...

They need to hear from you.

PSA to my friends in California near the fires: breathing in wildfire smoke is really bad for you (even if it’s not super thick where you are) but if you have face masks (N95, KN95, etc) those can help a lot

After I moved to Canada a couple of years ago I realized that I was no longer constantly running a massive stress routine in the background of my mind worrying about health care and guns. It was weirdly noticeable only when it stopped.