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

A deeper look at NSF's recent layoffs and what that could mean for US science: cen.acs.org/careers/Impa... According to sources, this is one of several workforce reductions NSF plans to do.

submitted 1 day ago • 2 comments

Curious if any chemistry REUs have been cancelled? Just trying to get a sense of what's going on. #ChemSky

submitted 4 hours ago • 1 comment

Prediction (a very easy one): #chemjobs hiring for fall 2025 will be worse than fall 2024

submitted 5 hours ago • 3 comments

Random foreign actor: send us all your deets by tonite. Military leaders: Who the fuck is this guy? Don't do it. Obey the chain of command. Random foreign actor: Have you ever witnessed such INCOMPETENCE and CONTEMPT for how YOUR TAXES are being spent?

submitted 18 hours ago • 95 comments

After playing a fictional member of the Resistance a long time ago, I never could have imagined it ever happening in real life, but here we are.

submitted 23 hours ago • 1890 comments

Postdocs and PhD students hit hard by Trump’s crackdown on science www.nature.com/articles/d41...

submitted 9 hours ago • 9 comments

This is insane. If you wonder why some of us think the rule of law is about to fall, it's this. The U.S. Attorney for DC is not "President Trump's lawyer" and its job is not to "protect his leadership" nor prosecute people who "refuse to put America first".

submitted 21 hours ago • 577 comments

[opening up a can of pedantry worms here] very frustrating to hear Adderall described colloquially as "medical-grade meth" when I'm like, No, that's the whole point, it's meth is short for "methamphetamine" and Adderall is ~amphetamine, i.e. it's meth without the methyl!

submitted 21 hours ago • 17 comments

When OMB head Russ Vought talks about deliberate efforts to put federal employees "in trauma" and make them quit their jobs, he's talking about people like Michelle, recently fired by Musk/Trump. www.sfgate.com/california/a...

submitted 1 day ago • 76 comments

Account on X is now finally also deactivated. Besides trying to save our democracy, and avoiding wars, we need to build open communication platforms that cannot be easily used and bought.

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Any talk you hear from the current administration about making the US more competitive in science and technology is utter bullshit. What they are doing is sabotaging our country for years if not decades to come.

submitted 2 days ago • 38 comments

Reuters: “National Science Foundation administrators reclassified hundreds of employees from permanent to probationary status in violation of labor contracts, according to a U.S. lawmaker and an employee at the NSF, a U.S. federal agency that funds science research.” www.reuters.com/world/us/us-...

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

POV: You're 16, believe being in advanced placement math class means you're a once in a generation genius, and have just discovered Reddit.

submitted 2 days ago • 331 comments

So. It has officially happened. I have been officially let go from my position at CDC. I wasn’t a probationary employee. I had stellar performance reviews every year. I’ll be ok. But please understand that many worked HARD to get into these positions and were doing great public health work.

submitted 4 days ago • 1876 comments

Guessing they are not cleaning/priming the trim piece properly so the structural adhesive bond is compromised…

submitted 3 days ago • 3 comments

Today, there are ~60 chemistry academics in the whole of Wales (Swansea and Cardiff). Proposals are to cut up to 10 chemistry academics at Cardiff University. Calculate the proposed decrease in chemistry academics across all of Wales as a percentage of current chemistry academics. #ChemSky

submitted 4 days ago • 3 comments

“They’re setting us up for economic decline.” @karenhao.bsky.social talks to federal scientists about the White House's funding cuts, which could do long-lasting damage to Americans' quality of life www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/21/1...

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

As others have noted, the life of Carl Bosch is worth a look in these times. Fritz Haber demonstrated that nitrogen could be reduced to ammonia, but Bosch’s work turned that into a technology that changed the world with sudden new supplies of fertilizer (and of explosives). (1/8)

submitted 4 days ago • 9 comments

This will directly affect the future, & the present, of Pennsylvania & the country. Jonas Salk invented the Polio vaccine at Pitt. Pitt helped unlock DNA & pioneered organ transplants. Musk is offering a future where Americans are poorer, sicker, & less free. One word: NO www.wesa.fm/health-scien...

submitted 3 days ago • 7 comments

New York Times article now up on Federal Register stuff. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/s... 1/n

submitted 3 days ago • 17 comments

The University of Pittsburgh confirmed Friday that there would be no new Ph.D. offers of admission while Pitt works to understand how reduced federal aid could impact the institution.

submitted 3 days ago • 59 comments

Students have to lead because the self-proclaimed leadership of U.S. science--NAS, AAAS, HHMI, universities--are cowering under their desks.

submitted 4 days ago • 2 comments

I have run out of patience with the apparent silence of most US science institutions (and not just US) in the face of Trump & Musk's rampage. There are of so many facets of that, but in this column for @chemistryworld.com I talk about the assaults on inclusion. www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/scie...

submitted 18 days ago • 20 comments

Sweet Baby Jesus, Why did you take our brains from us? Was it the Trump bibles? Was it worshiping a golden oaf? How can we make amends?

submitted 5 days ago • 172 comments

"The notion that the best papers are the most cited papers was always questionable The most citable, and therefore publishable, papers are mundane, ‘water is wet’ papers What was once the most cited paper of all is about cleaning test tubes" Great read: blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci...

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

submitted 5 days ago • 258 comments

According to one current NSF employee, yesterday's mass firings cost the agency "decades of experience." From @cenmag.bsky.social: Here's what we know about the recent layoffs at federal agencies and the ripple effects they're expected to have on US science. cen.acs.org/careers/empl...

submitted 5 days ago • 5 comments

I see amazing bravery, generosity, and leadership from folks illegally fired NIH and NSF jobs. Then we have toadies doing what Jeremy highlights. Yes. Sex is a biological variable. Gene expression, and endocrine environment, and reproductive physiology, and fuck why do I even have to type this?

submitted 5 days ago • 3 comments

The court ordered that NIH grant funding be unfrozen, so The Regime found a way around it. For NIH grants to be funded, a review panel must rank them. In order for a review panel to meet, they must post it on the Federal Register. Submissions to the Federal Register are now on hold “indefinitely”.

submitted 5 days ago • 34 comments

Springer Nature bans "green economy" because it's fake pseudoscience invented by papermills. Mump regime will approve. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

🧵 Ht @jbakcoleman.bsky.social

submitted 5 days ago • 4 comments

🧪⚛️ Thoughts on the NSF situation: nanoscale.blogspot.com/2025/02/the-...

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Upon learning that yesterday would be my last day as a program officer at the National Science Foundation, I shared this parting message with my colleagues. The next few months will be frenetic and stressful for them. Here are some things that you can do to help them with the mission ahead. (1)

submitted 6 days ago • 68 comments

this is the kind of tech blogging no one does anymore and there should be way more of @willsmith.fun next.content.town/p/unfucking-...

submitted 6 days ago • 118 comments

"In recent weeks, studies that would help us answer these and other health equity questions have come under attack from the federal government for their purported shameful agenda and wokeness. They have, in a word, been censored." www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/o...

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Remarkable thread offering guidance to current and prospective NSF grantees about how to navigate the times ahead — from an NSF program officer who was fired in yesterday's DOGE purge (!)

submitted 5 days ago • 4 comments

▶️A Must Read about the situation in environmental jobs & sciences in the US◀️ "Anger, despair, and defiance from a voice within the US federal research system" www.bmj.com/content/388/... 10.000s of colleagues lost/losing their jobs. Nonreversible damages to ecosystems, we all need to survive.😭

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Well, it seems as if someone has hacked into my dormant X account. And I can’t seem to close it. So if anything appears there, it’s not me

submitted 5 days ago • 84 comments

As @jeremymberg.bsky.social correctly assessed at the time, the NIH memo that slashed overhead rates came from Trump/Musk, not anyone within the organization.

submitted 5 days ago • 7 comments

Judge Reyes just became my favorite person.

submitted 6 days ago • 12 comments

Inside the lobby at NSF…

submitted 6 days ago • 5 comments

Such a gut punch. "One fired program officer in the geosciences resigned from a tenured faculty job after getting official notice that they'd been hired permanently by NSF...That officer left the job security of a tenured position "to give back to my country and the scientific community …"

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

'Inflammopharmacology' showing us why it's one of @springer1842.bsky.social's best journals this month: Salunke et al. 2025 (DOI: 10.1007/s10787-025-01648-7). Help me find the difference between figures 3 and 5 (Spoiler: they are identical). Cannot tell me ANY editor or reviewer looked at this EVER!

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

It was an honor to sign the guest book in the home of Anne Frank. I was here as a younger man and thought about her life as a dark chapter of history. Today, I can’t help but think of her story as one of caution. Our world is fragile, and it’s incumbent on us not to break it.

submitted 5 days ago • 1209 comments

It’s the tone that I only hit with anti-vaccine activists, HIV retroviral drug denialists, and quack cancer-cure vultures. And now with biopharma CEOs. What a world.

submitted 5 days ago • 6 comments