annaphillips.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

The Voyager project arguably remains the pinnacle of human achievement: a perfect joining of the sciences and the humanities possible only when governments fully fund agencies like NASA, NEH, and NSF. Commercial industry could never do this; it cannot imagine wonder removed from raw profit.

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

I am thinking a lot today about how heavy things feel in my world of faculty doing scientific research. There's the immediate chaos and panic about our ability to pay people and continue our research. But there's also a deeper grief at watching everything get bulldozed for no reason

submitted 10 days ago • 25 comments

"Imagine the auto industry without 3D printing. NSF funded that. Artificial intelligence? NSF. MRI machines that help doctors diagnose you? NSF. Doppler radar technology that makes aviation safer by conquering wind shear? NSF. Duolingo‘s underlying programming? NSF. The internet itself? NSF."

submitted 11 days ago • 3 comments

I've thought many times in the last 7 years that it's likely that the most impactful thing I will have done in my academic career was the work to organize the Tufts PhD student union. But we, as organizers talked about extra protections for international PhD students, I never imagined this.

submitted 14 days ago • 2 comments

I just got word that this federal transportation grant was terminated today, despite us removing the word "climate" from the title. The moral of the story? Obeying orders doesn't keep you safe with this administration.

submitted 22 days ago • 26 comments

Just got mine. Totally expected, but it still sucks. Probably the most for all the work that so many of us put in on behalf of US taxpayers that is now wasted and will never come to fruition.

submitted 25 days ago • 200 comments

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

submitted 30 days ago • 615 comments

Deleting references to being Inupiaq and my work on studying the exclusion of groups from science from my NIH bio sketch and I want to scream.

submitted 32 days ago • 45 comments

"One cannot work like this - all energy goes in thinking how to survive and not think in physics ... no one can be productive in climate like this – It is the end of the US scientific and technical dominance in the world – we will not recover from this in a decade." ww2.aip.org/statistics/i...

submitted 31 days ago • 2 comments

submitted 43 days ago • 418 comments

In a move that should be precedent-setting for other scholarly organizations, the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport (NASSS) announces that this year’s conference will be held concurrently at sites in the US and Canada and online due to the dangerous US political climate.

submitted 51 days ago • 6 comments

I say this often but Germany was the preeminent research power until 1933 and in 100 since years has never caught up to where it was before the purge of Jews

submitted 66 days ago • 12 comments

The level at which people fundamentally misunderstand LLMs continues to boggle the mind

submitted 68 days ago • 5 comments

There is a paper out there that I spent nearly a week on my review. It was trying to say something important. But it wasn't saying that clearly. I worked really hard to figure out how to help them say it. The final paper is really good. I'm proud of being acknowledged at the end, in anonymity.

submitted 80 days ago • 1 comment

You guys. As a member of the Oregon Trail generation, I just.

submitted 82 days ago • 349 comments

After seeing more than a few dismal responses from universities in the current dismantling of science in the U.S., I want to applaud this email from the chair of my alma mater, the University of Washington Astronomy Dept. 🔭 (Email is too long for alt text, so I will copy-paste in replies)

submitted 89 days ago • 7 comments

This is not a good combination of trending topics 😬

submitted 99 days ago • 71 comments

Make no mistake. This is an all-out attack on health in America. Not only is the EIS vital to controlling infectious disease; it was where a remarkably high fraction of our public health leaders received formative training and experience. www.statnews.com/2025/02/14/t...

submitted 99 days ago • 43 comments

submitted 103 days ago • 0 comments

Courts ordered the Trump admin to stop its spending freeze Yet ProPublica found place after place where $ is still frozen -hot meals for elderly and disabled -groceries for those in need -maternal & child health services -a clinic that serves the poor www.propublica.org/article/trum...

submitted 103 days ago • 166 comments

It’s super surreal as an actual biologist to see the dipshit brigade mandate their fevered hallucinations as reality. It’s an abuse of both human rights and of science.

submitted 105 days ago • 18 comments

Alongside the political point, this is such an interesting graph. I looked at it baffled by the spikes for a minute before I realized those are the census. Also interesting: The expansion of the federal workforce under Reagan and decline under Clinton.

submitted 105 days ago • 1 comment

what we’re seeing is that the courts are willing to rule against the government on certain things but there’s no one to actually enforce it.

submitted 105 days ago • 76 comments

"Anyone who has studied science under the Nazis...cannot fail to be dismayed and alarmed at the parallels in the response so far of scientific institutions and academies to the purges and abuses of power following Trump’s executive orders" 🧪 #scicomm www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/scie...

submitted 106 days ago • 18 comments

This is a de facto massive budget cut to research universities. We are talking Great Recession size impacts.

submitted 106 days ago • 94 comments

As someone whose first undergraduate research experience was funded by HHMI, I find this decision by HHMI so disappointing. They didn't have to do this. They didn't have to obey in advance. They chose this.

submitted 107 days ago • 0 comments

Here’s a story with some numbers. The proposed cuts are unfathomable: a 60% reduction to NSF would be the end of American science as we know it.

submitted 107 days ago • 118 comments