🚀 American science to soon face its largest brain drain in history

｢ Young people are getting hit especially hard, as graduate/PhD program admissions are at an all-time low for the 21st century, as NSF and NASA grants and fellowships (as well as entire grant/fellowship programs) have been cut off and/or cancelled, and as postdoctoral and research scientist opportunities and positions have been rescinded amid funding uncertainties ｣

https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/american-science-brain-drain/

#uspol #science #research

I'm very honoured to be among this year's NWO (Dutch Research Council) Veni research grant recipients, for my proposal "Finding Variables that Matter"!

I cannot quite believe it, but I'm excited to get started on the actual research.

Many congratulations to all of my colleagues who received their Veni grants. Over the last few months, I was lucky enough to get to know them and their research, and I can't wait to see what they do with the funds.

I'm grateful to Delft University of Technology and all my colleagues and trainers for their support and trust. The Veni application process was part of my life for almost a year. Could not have done it without their encouragement and wisdom. Many thanks also to NWO and all reviewers and committee members!

https://www.tudelft.nl/en/2025/tu-delft/record-number-veni-grants-for-leading-tu-delft-researchers

#AcademicMastodon#AcademicLife#NWO#Veni#ResearchFunding#AI#AcademicChatter#TUDelft#Research#Grateful#GoodNews

Recently, I've really enjoyed stepping into academic researcher's worlds to bring their thinking and findings to life, like this collaboration with Leigh Wolf and Geraldine O'Neill at University College Dublin, around their work on Educator use of GenAI.

#Research#Thinkery

https://visualthinkery.com/project/making-your-research-come-alive/

→ Log in with institutional credentials
→ Spend virtual credits on services
→ Store/share data securely
→ Launch VMs/notebooks
→ Collaborate across borders

See how: https://youtu.be/hREOxFXpWJo 
Explore the EOSC EU Node: https://open-science-cloud.ec.europa.eu/ 

#OpenScience#ResearchCommunity#Collaboration

Data manipulation within the US Federal Government [1]

👉Government datasets modified without notice.

▪️We gathered metadata from the US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, and Veterans Affairs database harvest sources [... ] that were modified between Jan 20 and March 25, 2025.

▪️We found that 114 (49%) of the 232 included datasets were substantially altered.

⭐SOME CHANGES⭐

- “Social determinants of health” to “non
medical factors”
- “Gender” to “sex”
- “female details” column deleted

▪️The agencies involved have not issued any statements confirming or explaining these changes [...]

▪️Despite Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr's (Department of Health and Humana Services) calls for “radical transparency”, unlogged data manipulation moves away from meaningful transparency.

▪️Only 15 (13%) of the 114 altered datasets logged or otherwise indicated that the change had occurred.

[1] 🌐https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01249-8/fulltext

@publichealth @psychology @sociology @datascience #publichealth #datascience #science #research #health #government #criticalthinking #hhs #cdc #va @bicmay

There's a new Alternative Social Media researcher interview! This time it's with @kfrostarnold, who is philosopher studying social epistemology.

https://www.socialmediaalternatives.org/2025/07/14/frost-arnold.html

#alternativeSocialMedia #academicchatter #research

'A new University of Michigan study finds that women are about 28% less likely than men to promote their scientific papers on X (formerly Twitter)...'

https://news.umich.edu/fewer-women-amply-their-scientific-voices-online/

Scientists reportedly hiding AI text prompts in academic papers to receive positive peer reviews

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/14/scientists-reportedly-hiding-ai-text-prompts-in-academic-papers-to-receive-positive-peer-reviews

#AI #LLM#Research

✂️✂️✂️
｢ For basic science research, the association reported that the overall budget would fall to $30 billion from $45 billion, a drop of roughly 34 percent. For science funding overall — which includes money for basic, applied and developmental work, as well as for facilities for research and development — the analysis found that the federal budget would fall to $154 billion from $198 billion, a drop of 22 percent ｣

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/science/trump-science-budget-cuts.html

#science #research #budgetcuts #austerity

⚡The most otherworldly, mysterious forms of lightning on Earth • National Geographic

｢ They occur high above the clouds, almost silently, and are invisible to most people—but they reflect powerful processes unfolding deep within thunderstorms,” says Hailiang Huang, a Ph.D. student at the University of Science and Technology of China who studies TLEs ｣

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/lightning-sprites-transient-luminous-events-thunderstorms

#tles #science #research

🫡 U.S. abandons hunt for signal of cosmic inflation

｢ The U.S. government has canceled a proposed $900 million project to study in unprecedented detail the afterglow of the Big Bang, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Known as CMB-S4, the project envisioned new arrays of ultrasensitive microwave telescopes at the South Pole and in Chile’s Atacama Desert ｣

https://www.science.org/content/article/u-s-abandons-hunt-signal-cosmic-inflation

#science #research #astronomy #cosmos