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Category: Science/mathematics

The Trump regime’s assault on science feels eerily Soviet

The Trump regime’s assault on science feels eerily Soviet

Lois Parshley writes: In the fall of 1925, agronomist Trofim Lysenko arrived on the dusty plains of what is now Azerbaijan, hoping to keep cows from starving to death over the winter. The young scientist, who learned to read as a teenager during the Russian Revolution, dismissed the rapidly advancing field of genetics. He believed nature could be bent to human will. Lysenko denounced the idea that genes pass traits down as a “degradation of bourgeois culture,” and couldn’t understand…

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The controlled demolition of American science

The controlled demolition of American science

Ross Andersen writes: Roald Sagdeev has already watched one scientific empire rot from the inside. When Sagdeev began his career, in 1955, science in the Soviet Union was nearing its apex. At the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow, he studied the thermonuclear reactions that occur inside of stars. A few lab tables away, Andrei Sakharov was developing the hydrogen bomb. The Soviet space program would soon astonish the world by lofting the first satellite, and then the first human being, into…

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Trump’s full-scale war on science

Trump’s full-scale war on science

Micah Altman and Philip N. Cohen write: The Trump administration has unleashed a tsunami of budget cuts to federal science programs. Mass firings have taken place at both the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education, part of a deliberate decimation of research staff across the federal government. Since January, the administration has systematically cut science funding to its lowest level in decades and issued a flood of budget plans and executive orders that are reshaping how the government uses and supports science. Some outcomes have been…

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Trump seeks to cut basic scientific research by one-third, report shows

Trump seeks to cut basic scientific research by one-third, report shows

The New York Times reports: President Trump’s budget plan guts federal science funding for the next fiscal year, according to an overview published by an external group. Particularly at risk is the category of basic research — the blue-sky variety meant to push back the frontiers of human knowledge and sow practical spinoffs and breakthroughs in such everyday fields as health care and artificial intelligence. The group says it would fall by more than one-third. The new analysis, made public…

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Senate committee poised to reject Trump’s proposed massive science cuts

Senate committee poised to reject Trump’s proposed massive science cuts

Nature reports: A key US Senate committee has indicated that it will reject the massive budget cuts that President Donald Trump proposed for some science agencies, including the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA. The US Senate Committee on Appropriations was prepared to vote today to advance a bill laying out fiscal year 2026 funding for science. However, the senators came to an impasse on an unrelated matter — the location for the new headquarters of the Federal Bureau…

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American academics being offered ‘scientific asylum’ in France

American academics being offered ‘scientific asylum’ in France

The Guardian reports: It was on a US-bound flight in March, as Brian Sandberg stressed about whether he would be stopped at security, that the American historian knew the time had come for him to leave his home country. For months, he had watched Donald Trump’s administration unleash a multipronged attack on academia – slashing funding, targeting international students and deeming certain fields and even keywords off limits. As his plane approached the US, it felt as though the battle…

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The Trump regime’s war on science

The Trump regime’s war on science

ProPublica reports: The National Institutes of Health is responsible for more than 80% of the world’s grant investment in biomedical research. Its funding has sparked countless medical breakthroughs — on cancer, diabetes, strokes — and plays a fundamental role in the development of pharmaceutical drugs. Scientists compete vigorously for a slice of the more than $30 billion that the agency doles out annually; they can spend years assembling grant applications that stretch thousands of pages in hopes of convincing peer reviewers of…

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The Trump regime has shut down more than 100 climate studies

The Trump regime has shut down more than 100 climate studies

MIT Technology Review reports: The Trump administration has terminated National Science Foundation grants for more than 100 research projects related to climate change amid a widening campaign to slash federal funding for scientists and institutions studying the rising risks of a warming world. The move will cut off what’s likely to amount to tens of millions of dollars for studies that were previously approved and, in most cases, already in the works. Affected projects include efforts to develop cleaner fuels,…

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Trump follows Soviet Union and Nazis in an effort to control science

Trump follows Soviet Union and Nazis in an effort to control science

The New York Times reports: Who could argue with setting a “gold standard” for science? Actually, thousands of scientists from around the country. President Trump has ordered what he called a restoration of a “gold standard science” across federal agencies and national laboratories. But the May 23 executive order puts his political appointees in charge of vetting scientific research and gives them the authority to “correct scientific information,” control the way it is communicated to the public and the power…

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U.S. scientists warn that Trump’s cuts will set off a brain drain

U.S. scientists warn that Trump’s cuts will set off a brain drain

The New York Times reports: Ardem Patapoutian’s story is not just the American dream, it is the dream of American science. He arrived in Los Angeles in 1986 at age 18 after fleeing war-torn Lebanon. He spent a year writing for an Armenian newspaper and delivering Domino’s at night to become eligible for the University of California, where he earned his undergraduate degree and a postdoctoral fellowship in neuroscience. He started a lab at Scripps Research in San Diego with…

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EU aims to ‘attract the brightest and best talents of the world’ as they turn away from the U.S.

EU aims to ‘attract the brightest and best talents of the world’ as they turn away from the U.S.

Politico reports: Donald Trump’s war on some of America’s most iconic colleges is a major opportunity for European academia and research. Now the EU is under pressure to seize it. University professors and research center directors across the continent see silver linings in the U.S. president’s crackdown on American higher education, which includes targeting professors and students as well as heralded Ivy League institutions like Harvard and Columbia while freezing billions of dollars in federal funding. “This is the chance…

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‘If things continue as they are, American science is ruined,’ scientist warns

‘If things continue as they are, American science is ruined,’ scientist warns

The New York Times reports: For decades, Bangalore, India, has been an incubator for scientific talent, sending newly minted Ph.D.s around the world to do groundbreaking research. In an ordinary year, many aim their sights at labs in the United States. “These are our students, and we want them to go and do something amazing,” said a professor at the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, Raj Ladher. But this is not an ordinary year. When Professor Ladher queried…

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Trump cuts are killing a tiny office that keeps measurements of the world accurate

Trump cuts are killing a tiny office that keeps measurements of the world accurate

Wired reports: Cuts made by the Trump administration are threatening the function of a tiny but crucial office within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that maintains the US’s framework of spatial information: latitudes, longitudes, vertical measurements like elevation, and even measurements of Earth’s gravitational field. Staff losses at the National Geodetic Survey (NGS), the oldest scientific agency in the US, could further cripple its mission and activities, including a long-awaited project to update the accuracy of these measurements, former…

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The ‘cruel misuse of power to punish and terrorize noncitizen members of the academic community’

The ‘cruel misuse of power to punish and terrorize noncitizen members of the academic community’

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration announced criminal smuggling charges on Wednesday against Kseniia Petrova, a Harvard scientist who was detained three months ago after failing to declare scientific samples she was carrying in her luggage. In a hearing in federal district court earlier in the day, a government lawyer told a federal judge that the Trump administration intends to deport Ms. Petrova back to Russia, a country she fled in 2022, despite her fear that she will…

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Von der Leyen and Macron launch effort to make Europe a ‘safe haven’ for science

Von der Leyen and Macron launch effort to make Europe a ‘safe haven’ for science

Politico reports: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday slammed U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign against American higher education as she unveiled a half-billion-euro plan to attract foreign researchers. “The role of science in today’s world is questioned. The investment in fundamental, free and open research is questioned. What a gigantic miscalculation,” von der Leyen said. “Science has no passport, no gender, no ethnicity or political party.” Appearing alongside French President Emmanuel Macron at Paris’ storied Sorbonne University…

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Meta’s chief AI scientist calls French initiative to attract U.S. scientists a ‘smart move’

Meta’s chief AI scientist calls French initiative to attract U.S. scientists a ‘smart move’

Business Insider reports: Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has tightened immigration controls, cut funding for government grants and research, reduced staffing at NASA and NOAA, and attacked top universities. France seems to have sensed an opportunity. The National Research Agency, part of the Education Ministry, announced on Friday a “Choose France for Science” initiative to attract scientists from abroad, opening up more government funding for universities, schools, and research organizations to entice foreign talent. “As the international…

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