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

“Maybe if I send an occasional provaccine tweet I’ll be able to live with myself”

submitted 14 hours ago • 7 comments

Removing in-state tuition for undocumented children in Florida is not only a shameless act of disloyalty to Floridians but it is also a senseless one. www.sun-sentinel.com/2025/02/19/e...

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Just submitted a letter to the editor of the Winston Salem Journal about the importance of science funding for North Carolinians, and I'm happy to assist other scientists who want to write but don't know how to get started. The text of my letter is available here: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

submitted 2 days ago • 0 comments

U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick was peppered with boos and catcalls throughout a town hall meeting in Roswell late Thursday, as hundreds of critics jeered the Republican for backing President Donald Trump’s agenda during his first month in office. #gapol ajc.com/politics/mcc...

submitted 3 days ago • 126 comments

His emphasis on the freedom to "joke" is telling. Because hearing sexism couched in humor leads boys men to adopt more sexist views and makes both men and women less likely to speak up and challenge others' sexist acts.

submitted 3 days ago • 14 comments

Pritzker: If we don’t want to repeat history, then for god’s sake, in this moment, we better be strong enough to learn from it.

submitted 4 days ago • 568 comments

Psst…You want to know about the NASA website that spells out your name in Landsat imagery. 🧪 landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov/apps/YourNam...

submitted 177 days ago • 97 comments

An important detail that I think gets lost in the madness: Federal workers are categorized as "probationary" when they get promoted. So experts who've worked in government for 10, 20, 30 years are getting indiscriminately cut in the DOGE purge because they got promoted, not because they're new.

submitted 3 days ago • 9 comments

Every ten minutes here is like: - Trump doubles student debt - Musk now has keys to your house and is in your bathroom doing plumbing drugs - Three planes just crashed - Trump signs EO making women illegal - Face-melted Nazi from Indiana Jones now in charge of CIA - Meteor not arriving fast enough

submitted 4 days ago • 108 comments

The US Fish and Wildlife Service, the nation’s only government agency dedicated to conserving plants and animals, has frozen its vast portfolio of international conservation grants, jeopardizing imperiled sea turtles in Central America to elephants in Africa. from @vox.com via @climatedesk.org

submitted 4 days ago • 33 comments

Please stop saying it saved money until you understand the value of what was cut. They are downsizing, and if the stuff getting cut had real value, its not a saving.

submitted 4 days ago • 294 comments

Meet the disabled vets, cancer researchers, and nuclear techs fired by the worlds richest man

submitted 4 days ago • 3 comments

"Last year the Supreme Court gutted the rulings that reined in Nixon, and now Trump and Elon Musk are running the government as if they are the only law in the land. They insist they are 'saving' the country by burning down its institutions, and they bogusly claim a mandate of the people to do it."

submitted 4 days ago • 117 comments

I think most people are intuitively aware of this but something like the official White House account posting an “ASMR” video of shackled immigrants is not just cruel for its own sake, it’s intentional envelope-pushing to ramp up to desensitization over inhumane detention, camps, and deaths

submitted 4 days ago • 388 comments

Join us! Science Homecoming helps scientists reconnect with communities by writing about the importance of science funding in their hometown newspapers. We’ve mapped every small newspaper in the U.S. and provide resources to get you started. Help science get back home 🧪🔬🧬 🏠 sciencehomecoming.com

submitted 5 days ago • 40 comments

This is a terrifying example of the special hubris of Silicon Valley. I am certain managing rocket launches is very complex. But it’s a different kind of complex. FAA manages 45,000 flights of airplanes per DAY. www.faa.gov/air_traffic/... Space X manages ~130 rocket launches per YEAR.

submitted 5 days ago • 3 comments

Doge is auditing NASA today. This is absurd. The owner of Space X should not be auditing NASA. It’s a massive conflict of interest.

submitted 10 days ago • 1001 comments

OK, this is amazing- "Gustavo Cañas-Valle, an ornithologist and birding guide, stumbled across a cave full of hummingbirds nesting and roosting together in Ecuador’s High Andes." Written by @rachelnuwer.bsky.social #birds #nature 🌿🪶🦉🧪

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

The Times spoke to people being trapped inside a Panama hotel after deportation from the US and the individual stories of horror are almost too much to bear www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/w...

submitted 5 days ago • 237 comments

Just made my largest ever donation to a cause to support these grants - feels good to contribute to fun and impactful science communication efforts given efforts by the current administration to destroy everything good. Who else is in?!

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Exclusive: The US Fish and Wildlife Service, the nation’s only government agency dedicated to conserving plants and animals, has frozen its vast portfolio of international conservation grants, Vox has learned. voxdotcom.visitlink.me/u38RAz

submitted 9 days ago • 73 comments

The danger of seeking social media fame by exploiting wildlife, illustrated. I get the temptation to take the photo (and there are many wildlife influencers who set horrible examples!) but at the end of the day it's just for a meaningless app. Better to experience seeing the 🦈from a safe distance.

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

Elon musk is the richest man in the world, he could be funding hospitals, medical research and universities. He could be solving the climate crisis. He could be feeding, hungry children. Instead, he’s trying to make sure that your grandmother doesn’t get an extra dollar of Social Security.

submitted 6 days ago • 543 comments

“The thing that I can’t get over is that the actual richest man in the world directed my fucking firing. I make $50k a year and work to keep drinking water safe. The richest man in the world decided that was an expense too great for the American taxpayer.”

submitted 8 days ago • 382 comments

One thing Democratic leadership could do right now is to name an alternate HHS secretary--someone to provide ongoing public updates and health information. And do it for other departments too. Start showing voters what a Democratic government would look like--press conferences, speeches, all of it.

submitted 10 days ago • 558 comments

A reminder of all the harm Kennedy could, and likely will, do in the HHS secretary role. Of all the confirmations, this one is going to have the most noticeable impacts on people's daily lives. www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

submitted 10 days ago • 91 comments

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that a lot of additional people will die because of this.

submitted 10 days ago • 29 comments

Genuine question, given gestures at the horrible news - do I need a measles booster if I was fully vaccinated as a child? Late 80s baby, if it matters.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

There is literally HIV being transmitted from mom to baby because of the illegal shutdown of US AID and now Trump’s State Department wants to spend 400 million dollars on Tesla cyber trucks. This is not about efficiency. It’s a smash and grab.

submitted 11 days ago • 247 comments

Smart, and just in time for whatever we are about to face with bird flu. Hopefully that is nothing, but I'm concerned enough that I just put in a $$ order of high-quality masks.

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

I have work to do but I'm distracted by watching US scientific progress & leadership being irreversibly undermined because a few unelected malcontents are penalizing researchers for following legal requirements set out by congressional orders to augment basic research with benefits to society.

submitted 11 days ago • 95 comments

The House Republican budget resolution, the starting point for their giant Trump agenda bill, is out. Here's the best way of explaining it: they want to take food and medicine away from poor people and give that money to billionaires instead. prospect.org/politics/202...

submitted 11 days ago • 9 comments

In the three weeks Elon Musk has been in charge of unilaterally slashing government spending, the U.S. government has paid one of his companies, SpaceX, more than $43 million.

submitted 11 days ago • 63 comments

98% of NIH grants that should have gone out this month, didn't. Despite court orders 'unfreezing' the funds, they are frozen. Biomedical research will grind to a halt. Clinical trials will end. All for no reason: the total impact on the US budget is miniscule

submitted 11 days ago • 52 comments

Massive Sci 2.0! Protip: Pitch a story about butts. Or a screed. A screed about butts? That's a winner for @dsamorod.bsky.social

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment

U.S. Senators: If Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. takes over the Department of Health and Human Services, people will die who could have lived. If you vote today to confirm him, their deaths will be on your hands. slate.com/technology/2...

submitted 11 days ago • 17 comments

An unelected South African has taken control of the US Treasury and is deciding to stop payments on American obligations, in violation of numerous court orders, and admits in the Oval Office that he has done so upon incorrect information, while the President sits impotently behind the Resolute Desk.

submitted 12 days ago • 110 comments

It is incredibly, incredibly concerning to see the sudden escalation in attacks directed at judges deciding federal cases about the scope of the administration's power, and the framing of federal judges as "unelected adversaries". These are urgent alarm bells for preserving the rule of law.

submitted 12 days ago • 2 comments

Imagine you're just some 30-something guy who converts to one of the world's major religions and in less than a decade its spiritual leader is rebuking you in front of the entire world That's how big a loser JD Vance is apnews.com/article/pope...

submitted 12 days ago • 95 comments

Happy International Day of Women in Science. The National Science Foundation’s list of flagged words includes both “Women” and “Female.”

submitted 12 days ago • 28 comments

in what meaningful way can we say that the constitution is in effect when an unelected and unaccountable billionaire is wielding state power to unilaterally cancel congressional appropriations?

submitted 13 days ago • 492 comments

I was just told that I have to remove “climate” from the title of an ongoing grant if I want to keep it. And publications from that grant cannot include “climate” and other forbidden words. I can’t believe I’m writing this from the United States of America. #AcademicSky

submitted 13 days ago • 402 comments

You are not powerless, and he is not unstoppable. Look at, and learn from, the funding freeze and how quickly he was forced to surrender.

submitted 13 days ago • 3911 comments

not paying indirect costs for research is like only paying the players in the Super Bowl. can't have a Super Bowl without coaches, referees, security, janitors, announcers, stadium staff, and a stadium - and you can't have research without supporting people and facilities

submitted 14 days ago • 19 comments

“The price tag is also equivalent to a year’s rent for a one-bedroom apartment for 1,177 people, which would constitute roughly 80% of New Orleans’ unhoused population.”

submitted 14 days ago • 4 comments