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alexwitze.bsky.social
Science journalist and correspondent for Nature (she/her). Reach me at alexwitze.01 (Signal) or witzescience (@gmail.com) or awitze (@protonmail.com).
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Timeline cleanse

New products from everybody's favorite volcano writer, @erikklemetti.bsky.social. Get your new 🌋 newsletter & podcast right here! ⬇️ #theonlyprescriptionismorevolcano

"You’re punching a generation-size hole, maybe a multigenerational hole, in the scientific and technical workforce. You don’t just Cryovac these people and pull them out when the money comes back. People are going to move on.” www.scientificamerican.com/article/prop...

Current US space program policy status....

In his press conference today, President Trump said that Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, will pick the next head of NASA, our ostensibly civil space agency.

"If the NSF budget were to be enacted as is, it “would spell the end of any pretence that the US leads the world in science and technology, handing that position to China”, says Neal Lane, who directed the agency under Democratic former president Bill Clinton." By @dangaristo.bsky.social 🧪

“This litigation is the only thing giving me a sense of hope. I feel so powerless,” a scientist tells @virginiagewin.bsky.social: www.nature.com/articles/d41... 🧪

Is NASA really going to send humans to Mars? Its budget plans released last week suggest it may be serious. So I wrote about why that’s hard. 🧪

We have NASA's proposed budget for FY26, and it is brutal to science. Earth science would be cut by more than half. Astrophysics (like JWST, Hubble) by nearly two-thirds. Full details at www.nasa.gov/fy-2026-budg...

The marathon livestream of weather & climate scientists talking about their research, and its importance, continues. Drop in anytime through the weekend for learning opportunities. I just heard a discussion about what everyone's favorite cloud is! #wx wcstreamathon.netlify.app

Weather and climate scientists determined to resist funding and program cuts in the geekiest way possible - with a 100-hour livestream of science presentations www.cnn.com/scientists-r...

this one's for the weather nerds out there i know you're out there #wx #severewx #wxsky ❄️🧊🧪

Ready for the latest K2-18b drama? Madhusudhan is claiming *even stronger* evidence of DMS after analysing both near-infrared and mid-infrared JWST data. But another study finds no evidence at all. Read on for a quick update on everyone's f̶a̶v̶o̶u̶r̶i̶t̶e most newsworthy exoplanet. 🧵 #exoplanets 🔭

Sworn testimony of NIH officials and internal emails reveal just how much DOGE is calling the shots in killing peer-reviewed biomedical research grants. More bombshell reporting from @maxkozlov.bsky.social in @nature.com:

JWST breaks its own record with new most distant galaxy MoM-z14 There's a new cosmic record-holder in town, coming to us from when the Universe was only 282 million years old: 2.0% of its current age. Here's what we found, and why it matters so much. bigthink.com/starts-with-... #space #astronomy

"US scientists who are abruptly unemployed are turning desperation & defiance into coping strategies & advice. But 1 thing is clear: whether they move abroad, pivot to other research areas or leave science, their deep expertise is likely to be lost." By @virginiagewin.bsky.social in @nature.com 🧪

There's a fascinating feature out in @nature.com today from @davidmjourno.bsky.social, on whether and why scientific breakthroughs are getting harder to achieve. It's a narrative being discussed by some of the most powerful science officials in the world, such as OSTP director Michael Kratsios. 🧪

“Our results confirm that there is no statistical significance for DMS or DMDS in K2-18 b's atmosphere. … we estimate that ~25 more MIRI transits would be needed for a 3-sigma rejection of a flat line relative to DMS/DMDS features ….” arxiv.org/abs/2505.13407

Are you a student who's interested in science writing as a career? Sign up ASAP for the opportunity to be paired with a virtual mentor (like me!) this summer through @sciencewriters.org.

My latest: It's long been held that weather becomes inherently unpredictable after 2 weeks, defeated by chaos and the rapid growth of small errors -- the butterfly effect. But new work using AI weather models suggests that may not be the case -- and forecasts could theoretically go a month or more.

New Harvard grant terminations in the geosciences (plus others - geosciences are just my jam) are up at grant-watch.us/nsf-data.html. They include work on tracking mercury pollution in the Arctic; the longterm atmospheric impacts of 2022's Tongan eruption; and how earthquakes rupture the ground. ☠️

New: We have the list of ~190 Harvard NSF grant terminations from internal agency sources. About $148 million intended funds killed. Over 1/3 are from the MPS directorate—roughly 75 math and physics grants.

“This no longer feels like the right place to raise a family and pursue a research career“ We spoke to five US-based researchers who are seeking, or moving to, jobs abroad because of the drastic changes imposed on US science by the Trump administration https://go.nature.com/4mwfevl

Significant insight into the ongoing dismantling of the NSF from a top Biden science advisor ⬇️⬇️

Planetary scientists have been really, really mad about DEI-related conference abstracts being taken down from LPI meeting sites. I wrote about it: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This is the NSF's plan for the fact that it didn't have money to support anywhere near the amount of graduate research fellows this year as they usually do: They are asking business and philanthropy to fund NSF fellows, because the NSF can't afford it.

At LSSW, Nicky Fox said they evaluated the proposals from industry for getting VIPER on the Moon & are continuing to explore alternative approaches. On the VIPER blog, it clarifies they ARE NOT going with any of the industry proposals and canceled the solicitation. www.nasa.gov/blogs/missio...

"This is not just a little haircut for a large federal agency—it’s grabbing the scissors and stabbing the agency through the heart." - Eric Morgan & Ralph Keeling (yes, that Keeling)

Most Americans frequently use federal science information. But few are concerned that cuts to federal science spending could affect their access to such information, a new poll finds.