Science/mathematics Archives - Attention to the Unseen

Scientists have discovered only a tiny fraction of living insect species

From elsewhere — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 00:17:41 +0000

Science reports: From half-meter-long moths to fairy wasps smaller than sand grains, insects come in a stunning variety of shapes and sizes and constitute the most diverse animal group on Earth. But the insect species discovered so far may represent just a fraction of the total crawling, flying, and burrowing around the planet, according to a new study published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Using statistical methods borrowed from another field, a team of entomologists...

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Beyond denial: How oil industry executives shaped a landmark climate study

From elsewhere — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:41:42 +0000

By Katie Worth This story was originally published by ProPublica It is rare that a single scientific paper shapes how people think about a challenge as daunting as climate change. But one, known as “Wedges,” published 22 years ago by researchers at Princeton University, told an irresistible story. It made solving climate change seem possible, even simple. It claimed that the world didn’t have to wait for innovation because it had the tools to start work immediately. The trick was to...

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Why science needs the humanities more than ever

From elsewhere — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 00:41:04 +0000

Xin Fan writes: A narrative has taken hold that science and the humanities are at odds. In universities around the world, investment in cutting-edge technologies often comes at the expense of retrenchment in philosophy, history, literature and the arts. Contraction of the humanities is presented as an unavoidable cost of modernization. But that ‘zero sum’ logic is flawed. As science and technology race ahead, the world needs humanities research to understand the reasons and implications. My experience at ShanghaiTech University...

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An EPA researcher details the agency’s assault on science

From elsewhere — Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:31:54 +0000

Elizabeth Kolbert writes: Thomas Luben is an epidemiologist who for nearly 20 years worked for the scientific arm of the Environmental Protection Agency — the Office of Research and Development — in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. His work focused on what are known as the “criteria pollutants,” which are regulated, under the Clean Air Act, by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards, often shortened to NAAQS (pronounced “nacks”). At the start of the second Trump administration, life for most...

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Trump is taking aim at forest and wildfire research just as the West is poised to burn

From elsewhere — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:13:05 +0000

NPR reports: Few public universities get more federal research funding than the University of Washington. So as President Trump has already cancelled or suspended about a quarter of all funding for the National Science Foundation and National Institutes for Health, the atmosphere on this leafy Seattle campus is tense. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought appears before the House Budget Committee at the U.S. Capitol on April 15. The budget office recently proposed a rule change...

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Profits before people: EPA scientists are being pushed to downplay potential risks of household products

From elsewhere — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 00:36:39 +0000

CNN reports: Inside the Trump administration’s Environmental Protection Agency, scientists say they’re under pressure to alter safety reviews of chemicals commonly found in consumer products like household cleaners and cosmetics to make risks to human health and the environment disappear on paper. Multiple current and former career employees at the EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention recounted being pushed by supervisors to downplay the potential risk of chemicals that are already used in products on shelves. With President...

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White House seeks to impose political test on billions in federal grants

From elsewhere — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:46:21 +0000

The New York Times reports: The White House is seeking to exert more control over billions of dollars in annual government grants, aiming to restrict a vast swath of funding — in health, housing, science and transportation — so that it primarily serves the purposes and organizations politically aligned with President Trump. While the administration says that its primary goal is to safeguard taxpayer money, its proposal amounts to a major escalation in its attempt to reimagine the nation’s spending,...

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Trump is destroying ‘the world’s most advanced continuously operating ocean observing systems’

From elsewhere — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:45:58 +0000

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration is dismantling a $368 million deep-ocean observation system that was put in place a decade ago to monitor coastal environments, marine ecosystems and powerful currents that affect the global climate. The National Science Foundation said it would send ships in June to begin removing more than 900 deep-sea instruments anchored off Oregon, Washington State, Alaska, North Carolina, and an area between Greenland and Iceland known as the Irminger Sea. Scientists have used...

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Federal judge blocks breakup of National Center for Atmospheric Research

From elsewhere — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:45:39 +0000

The Colorado Sun reports: A federal judge in Denver on Monday blocked federal officials from breaking up Boulder’s National Center for Atmospheric Research by handing over a renowned supercomputing center to the University of Wyoming, in a 38-page injunction raking the Trump administration for enacting political revenge on Colorado. Senior U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson issued an injunction because the National Science Foundation divesting the supercomputing center was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance...

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For Sergiu Klainerman, mathematics is not a human invention

From elsewhere — Thu, 21 May 2026 00:43:33 +0000

Steve Nadis writes: The equations that govern black holes were true before there were black holes. That claim is hotly contested, and cuts through one of the deepest fault lines in the philosophy of mathematics. On one side are those who hold that mathematical structures, including well-established principles and basic geometric shapes like the tetrahedron, exist independently of human thought – not as a language we invented to describe reality, but rather as the substrate of reality itself. On the...

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