mattwilkins.galacticpolymath.com - Profile | ThreadSky

This is really interesting (and important!) on comparing NSF funding in the first month of a new administration. Here's four insights from this graph: 1. The slowness in making new NSF awards for 2025 is highly unusual, even compared to when Trump took office in 2017. And that's...

submitted 12 hours ago • 1 comment

For decades, the US government has painstakingly kept American science #1 globally—and every facet of American life has improved because of it. The internet? Flu shot? Ozempic? All grew out of federally-funded research. Now all that's being dismantled. 1/ www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/21/1...

submitted 19 hours ago • 71 comments

"Even NIH officers don’t know what will happen next." In our latest @science.org Working Life essay, an assistant professor expresses frustration with stalls at NIH and asks: "Will my grants ever be reviewed?" @vjrp.bsky.social www.science.org/content/arti...

submitted 12 hours ago • 2 comments

Evolutionary adaptations have inspired bullet trains, sustainable raincoats & possibly future solutions you come up with! This supports a @galacticpolymath.com unit for student-inquiry based projects for high school to uni #EduSky Feat. & developed w/ Dr. Emilie Snell-Rood 🧪 youtu.be/J8FffhjZd2Q

submitted 14 hours ago • 1 comment

Uh, I guess we might be rescued by the American Enterprise Institute? www.aei.org/economics/wh...

submitted 17 hours ago • 9 comments

Is there an organized effort to support fired federal workers with mutual aid we can contribute to? I’m thinking about things like the strike funds for those working in Hollywood. Maybe unions are organizing something?

submitted 19 hours ago • 6 comments

"The agency didn’t have to fire its experts but decided to in the interest of fairness." “We asked who was mission critical and more than half of people were identified,” Cheatham said. “That was too many.” “The Director couldn’t even show up to the 10 AM firing call held for all of us"

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

spent a lot of today working on a storyboard for an upcoming @galacticpolymath.com data literacy video. Was looking around for funny graph videos. Am I the last person to hear about this Nickelback meme? It absolutely killed me 🤣 youtube.com/shorts/bgROq...

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

Scientists who work on government-funded DEI, equity, or health disparity work, I want to talk to you. How do you plan to continue your efforts in the face of this executive order calling for an end to DEI programs and initiatives? DM me or email gewin at me dot com.

submitted 31 days ago • 4 comments

I really want to get this Darwin quote framed for my office

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

I escaped poverty because I am a scientist. And I am a scientist because of the National Science Foundation. A 🧵:

submitted 3 days ago • 68 comments

This is why I cringe when I hear students say their teacher doesn't let them use Wikipedia

submitted 1 day ago • 0 comments

For @nytimes.com I wrote about what trash is doing to our planet. For much more analysis, and some potential answers to the crisis, please consider ordering my book, Waste Wars. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/o...

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

‘Eloquent’ mice point to protein that may have shaped human speech | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti... 🧪

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

"This feels like the early days of the pandemic, except there's less I can do about it", a colleague told me yesterday. Yep. One thing you can do is outreach. My sense is that the majority of the country doesn't yet understand the scale or the stakes of what is happening. We have to tell them:

submitted 3 days ago • 13 comments

The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.

submitted 6 days ago • 410 comments

Measles has a 12% mortality rate in unvaccinated young children. Children cannot be vaccinated until they are at least 12 months old. And if infants need to be kept home and out of daycare to avoid potentially fatal measles outbreaks... Guess who that removes from the workforce. (Women.)

submitted 6 days ago • 29 comments

“Sources told CNN the officials did not seem to know this agency oversees America’s nuclear weapons.” 🫣 www.cnn.com/2025/02/14/c...

submitted 7 days ago • 215 comments

Varmus: "the executive branch is waging war on America’s scientific enterprise...nominating leaders hostile to science and unqualified for their roles...This is not a fight that our country can afford to lose." www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/o...

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

As a former GRFP recipient, this is a vital fellowship for fundamental science research! It's disturbing to see NSF programs & websites get edited, rearranged & deleted w absolutely no transparency. 🧪

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Tired of talking about finch beaks in your intro to evolution lesson? Wish you had a gamified lesson connecting climate change to evolution through current research by real living scientists? Some metal music wouldn't be bad, right? Look no further!🧪🪶

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

I maxed out my credit card, emptied my savings account, and took out a loan to move from Alabama to Bethesda, MD. I don’t even qualify for unemployment since I’ve only worked at NIH for a month. I will be financially and medically devastated. Seeking suggestions for anywhere that’s hiring!!

submitted 7 days ago • 712 comments

Wow, NSF award public search is completely down. I...have no words to express my full discontent, fear, and anger with these efforts to sabotage science in the US. I hope there will be repercussions, but I fear we are all going to feel them 🧪 www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/

submitted 8 days ago • 4 comments

Charles Darwin the barnacle taxonomist, a story in two parts

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

So proud of this awesome High School science unit!

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

If we ignore everything else and classify world geography using only butterflies, there would be 19 continents. New study:

submitted 15 days ago • 3 comments

Tired of talking about finch beaks in your intro to evolution lesson? Wish you had a gamified lesson connecting climate change to evolution through current research by real living scientists? Some metal music wouldn't be bad, right? Look no further!🧪🪶

submitted 9 days ago • 1 comment

Ted Cruz "investigated" NSF and released a database of over 3,400 grants that promoted "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) or advanced neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda." 110 of the grants listed are funded through IOS or DEB programs. www.commerce.senate.gov/2025/2/cruz-...

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

I dream of making a video/lesson one day laying out a bunch of fundamental research findings & having students guess which ones'll be useful. Green fluorescent protein found in jellyfish would be one. This would be another 👇 What's your fav basic science discovery that had unexpected applications? 🧪

submitted 12 days ago • 7 comments

any economists here that can help me understand why the world's richest man might want to kill the consumer financial protection bureau

submitted 13 days ago • 76 comments

most of the news I've consumed this week has been devastating...but I was very excited that the director/writer team of the incredible Expanse series is coming back with Captive's War! variety.com/2024/tv/news...

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments