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Category: Science/mathematics

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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White House wants NOAA to cancel climate research and promote fossil fuel industry

White House wants NOAA to cancel climate research and promote fossil fuel industry

Politico reports: The Trump administration wants to effectively break up NOAA and end its climate work by abolishing its primary research office and forcing the agency to help boost U.S. fossil fuel production, budget documents show. The move, outlined in a memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget, carries forward President Donald Trump’s broader goals of slashing federal spending, gutting climate research and unleashing U.S. energy production. But it also represents a dramatic shift in NOAA’s mission….

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America is at risk of losing a generation of scientists

America is at risk of losing a generation of scientists

Neel V. Patel writes: American science has been a beacon for aspiring researchers since the end of World War II, when a rivalry with the Soviet Union spurred the United States to make huge investments in science and technology research and recruit the most brilliant thinkers from abroad. Scientists saw the United States as a kind of nationwide laboratory for pursuing work under the best conditions possible — a remarkable combination of positive pressure and competition that pushed them to…

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Hundreds of scientists accuse Trump of censorship

Hundreds of scientists accuse Trump of censorship

The Verge reports: More than 1,900 scientists and engineers have signed a letter saying they “see real danger in this moment” as the Trump administration slashes federal support for scientific research. “Wise investments by the US government have built up the nation’s research enterprise, making it the envy of the world,” says the open letter published on Monday. “Astoundingly, the Trump administration is destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific…

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Trump’s science policies pose long-term risk for the U.S., economists warn

Trump’s science policies pose long-term risk for the U.S., economists warn

The New York Times reports: President Trump’s tariffs could drive up prices. His efforts to reduce the federal work force could increase unemployment. But ask economists which of the administration’s policies they are most concerned about and many point to cuts to federal support for scientific research. The Trump administration in recent weeks has canceled or frozen billions of dollars in federal grants made to researchers through the National Institutes of Health, and has moved to sharply curtail funding for…

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New study challenges the story of humanity’s shift from prehistoric hunting to farming

New study challenges the story of humanity’s shift from prehistoric hunting to farming

Phys.org reports: A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has turned traditional thinking on its head by highlighting the role of human interactions during the shift from hunting and gathering to farming—one of the biggest changes in human history—rather than earlier ideas that focused on environmental factors. The transition from a hunter-gatherer foraging lifestyle, which humanity had followed for hundreds of thousands of years, to a settled farming one about 12,000 years ago has been…

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The Trump administration’s attack on academic freedom

The Trump administration’s attack on academic freedom

Christopher L. Eisgruber writes: The United States is home to the best collection of research universities in the world. Those universities have contributed tremendously to America’s prosperity, health, and security. They are magnets for outstanding talent from throughout the country and around the world. The Trump administration’s recent attack on Columbia University puts all of that at risk, presenting the greatest threat to American universities since the Red Scare of the 1950s. Every American should be concerned. The rise of…

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Scientific research: ‘I fear we’ll lose a generation of talent that will take decades to recover’ — if at all

Scientific research: ‘I fear we’ll lose a generation of talent that will take decades to recover’ — if at all

Sam Stein writes: In the first month of the second Trump administration, the world’s richest man—underinformed, chronically online, and staffed by a coterie of teenaged and twentysomething former engineering interns—has been moving at warp speed to reshape, reduce, and even dismantle the United States government. But while Musk’s rampage has been feverishly covered, the scope of its impact remains largely underappreciated. Experts say it can’t be measured in weeks or months or even in government services affected. Rather, it will…

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How humanity moved from eternal to finite time

How humanity moved from eternal to finite time

Thomas Moynihan writes: Do you recall the first time you knew you would die? It’s a milestone, realising your time is limited. That things happened before you, and will happen afterward, in your absence. As we grow up, the understanding of death comes in stages, but it culminates in acknowledgment of one’s own – unavoidable yet unpredictable – mortality. Sometime between the ages of six and 10, children become aware that their time is inescapably bounded. Roughly the same might be said…

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To better understand the world, follow the paths of mathematics

To better understand the world, follow the paths of mathematics

Gordon Gillespie writes: In 1959, the English writer and physicist C P Snow delivered the esteemed Rede Lecture at the University of Cambridge. Regaled with champagne and Marmite sandwiches, the audience had no idea that they were about to be read the riot act. Snow diagnosed a rift of mutual ignorance in the intellectual world of the West. On the one hand were the ‘literary intellectuals’ (of the humanities) and on the other the (natural) ‘scientists’: the much-discussed ‘two cultures’….

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