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mpotter27.bsky.social

@mpotter27.bsky.social
337 followers 2K following 0 posts

Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, mathematics, software... CEO and co-founder of VeraChem.

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Reposted by @mpotter27.bsky.social
ACLU @aclu.org · 24/07/2025
BREAKING: President Trump signed an executive order directing states to criminalize and institutionalize people experiencing homelessness, addiction, and mental health disabilities.
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Jim Woodgett @jwoodgett.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Good grief, the US National Cancer Institute projects it will fund only one in 25 RO1 grant applications in 2026. This is massively defunding cancer research. Despicable vandalism. www.cancer.gov/grants-train...
National Cancer Institute projection of a 4% pay line in FY2026.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
In order to understand and communicate about the implications of this multi-year funding scheme, I put together a simple computer simulation. 1/n
media.tenor.com
a cat wearing glasses and a bow tie is sitting on a laptop
ALT: a cat wearing glasses and a bow tie is sitting on a laptop
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
Good Scientific American story about the letters of dissent from 4 federal science agencies (to date)... www.scientificamerican.com/article/trum...
scientificamerican.com
Federal Science Workers Say Agencies Are ‘Going in the Wrong Direction’
Hundreds of staffers at the National Institutes of Health, Environmental Protection Agency, NASA and the National Science Foundation have signed public letters to leadership opposing the direction in ...
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 22/07/2025
NIH staff are being required to fully fund ~ 50% of their grants. This means that all 4 years of an award will be paid out of this appropriation. This will help them get the appropriated funds spent, but will mean they can only fund (1/2 + 1/4*1/2) = 5/8 has many grants as they would have otherwise.
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Mike Feigin 🥯 @mikefeigin.bsky.social · 23/07/2025
“With these considerations, we expect to fund through the 4th percentile.” There it is, in black and white, the destruction of cancer research in the US.
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mossworm.bsky.social @mossworm.bsky.social · 15/07/2025
"Trumpy closing the USGS BIML native bee lab is a terrible and avoidable loss for all of planet Earth" and "USGS BIML practices are going to make things hard for bee science to fix even if it miraculously comes back" can both be true at once
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Kelly Hereid @kellyhereid.bsky.social · 09/07/2025
Observations are the load-bearing infrastructure of weather forecasts. Cutting weather balloons and buoys directly degrades critical weather information used across the entire economy.
Federal support for the Coastal Data Information Program, operated by UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, was drastically cut by nearly 70%. The drop in funding, set to take effect Sept. 1, will force some ocean buoys offline, scientists say, making weather forecasts less reliable, compromise public safety and hamper ship operations.
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Jeffrey Vagle @jvagle.me · 02/07/2025
ICE wants $170 billion. For reference, the entire Marine Corps budget is just over $53 billion.
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Carolyn Bertozzi @carolynbertozzi.bskyverified.social · 30/06/2025
Much appreciated support from biotech execs and investors 🙏 www.statnews.com/2025/06/27/b...
statnews.com
Proposed cuts could have ‘catastrophic effect,’ 110 biomedical, health sciences industry leaders tell Congress
Proposed cuts will have “a catastrophic effect on the advancement of biomedical and biotechnology capabilities in the United States,” more than 100 leaders of biomedical/health sciences companies tell...
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Aaron Reichlin-Melnick @reichlinmelnick.bsky.social · 28/06/2025
If the GOP reconciliation bill passes, ICE gets through FY2029: - $45 billion for detention, on top of the current annual budget of $3.4 billion - $14.4 billion for transportation and removal, on top of the current annual budget of $750 million - $8 billion for hiring/retention - Billions more.
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David A. Graham @dgraham.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
Duke appears to have lost NIH grants because they used the prefix "trans" in reference to disease transmission, transgenic genetic material, translational studies, or signal transduction www.dukechronicle.com/article/2025...
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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
The #SCIMaP team announces a major update: an analysis of the economic impacts of the White House's NIH FY26 budget. Bottom-line, we estimate $46B in total economic loss, 202K lost jobs, and impacts in communities nationwide. Interactive map and shareable report: scienceimpacts.org/fy26 a 🧵
Economic loss due to NIH budget cuts by congressional district, scienceimpacts.org/fy26
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ACLU @aclu.org · 27/06/2025
BREAKING: We're filing a new class-action lawsuit to challenge President Trump's lawsuit restricting birthright citizenship. The 14th Amendment is clear: Every child born on U.S. soil is a citizen, whether the president likes it or not.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 27/06/2025
this court says that allowing EPA to regulate carbon emissions is a "major question" that demands congressional debate. but allowing the president to, with a flick of the wrist, end a straightforward constitutional right is something that must be allowed to stand?
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Chelsea Harvey @chelseaeharvey.bsky.social · 27/06/2025
A DoD weather satellite program will stop distributing data products by June 30, per an announcement this week. The program collects vital information used in hurricane forecasts, and meteorologists are alarmed -- one told me his "gut reaction was disbelief." My story: www.eenews.net/articles/tru...
eenews.net
Trump terminates satellite data considered crucial to storm forecasting
Meteorologists called the end of the DOD program "insanity" and "alarmingly bad news" as the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season ramps up.
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Chise @sailorrooscout.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
PLEASE SHARE 🧪‼️ Vaccination schedules on the CDC website have already started changing under RFK Jr. Scientific American has published a guide to the EVIDENCE-BASED vaccine recommendations in place BEFORE ACIP members were removed by the administration. www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-...
scientificamerican.com
Here’s Your Cheat Sheet for Vaccine Recommendations Backed by Science
These graphics will guide you through science-based vaccine guidelines for children and adults
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Eli Perencevich @eliowa.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Can’t believe we’re closing the lab that could prevent an agriculture apocalypse. wapo.st/3T61km6
wapo.st
Bees are collapsing in the U.S. A key to their secrets might vanish.
The top federal lab on native bees is set to close under President Trump’s budget.
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MarkH @markhoofnagle.medsky.social · 18/06/2025
I don't like linking wapo these days but the story of how this guy is probably going to die because the idiots have cut the staff at NIH and his CAR-T is locked up in a freezer somewhere is beyond the pale.
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Laurel Oldach @laureloldach.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Hard to know what to say about all these policy flip-flops, except: as demoralizing as they are for those of us trying to keep scientists informed, they must be 10x worse for NIH staff trying to roll them out and 100x worse for PIs trying to figure out if they can make payroll.
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Andrew Johnston @andrewjohnston.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
Want to set up your own photo-stacking imaging system for under $3000? This post which outlines all the off-the-shelf items I used this year along with some recommendations for how to use it. Planning to talk about this at @entcollnet.bsky.social this November, too! www.insectid.org/post/focus-s...
insectid.org
Focus-stacking photography: Building your own system
Ten years ago, Alex Wild published a guide on Scientific American on how to make your own focus-stacking system for under $6000. I can't seem to find that post any more, just some secondary posts with...
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David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
My latest for American Scientist Magazine helps give scientists the tools to fight back against politicized charges that our research is silly or pointless- tools that will work whether you’re asked “why are we funding this” from your asshole uncle at Thanksgiving or an asshole US Senator. 🧪🌎
americanscientist.org
“Why Are We Funding This?”
Long-standing myths about “silly science” have contributed to the reckless slashing of government-supported research.
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etoiline @etoiline.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
"If someone had said, “Who cares how desert lizard venom works? Let’s not fund that research,” we never would have discovered semaglutide, a key component of drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic, which have helped millions of Americans lose weight." Curiosity-driven research is amazing.
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Disgruntled Lesbian @southernish.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
This is incredibly harmful BUT I want to make sure people understand that the Trevor Project’s own hotline will still exist & anyone (including queer youth) can still call 988, they just won’t be able to be connected to TP via 988. It’s hateful & cruel but there are still resources.
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Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
Last February, I led a proposal submission that encompassed six months, hundreds of hours, four institutions, a massive team, and and 256 pages. NSF just informed us that the entire Biology Integration Institute program was archived and our proposal would not even be reviewed. With a form email.
A screen shot of an email reading: 

Dear Dr. Gill, Jacquelyn,
 
I am writing to let you know that given the current budgetary projections and recent adjustment of NSF’s over-arching priorities, NSF/BIO will not be making any new awards through the Biology Integration Institutes Program. Therefore, the solicitation has been archived, and NSF has returned your proposal without review so you can re-submit it, or portions of it, to appropriate BIO programs that currently are receiving new proposals, if you wish.
 
Sincerely,
 
Jim Deshler
Division Director (Acting)
Division of Biological Infrastructure
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Seth Abramson @sethabramson.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
(🧵) I’ve never—in 30 years in journalism—published a report like this: one that could genuinely bring hope. I spent the last 15 hours curating and labeling photos from hundreds of No Kings Day protests. It’s the largest archive of its kind and it has *lots* of Easter eggs (memes, an essay and more).
sethabramson.substack.com
Over 250 Photos From Around the Nation and the World From the Historic “No Kings Day” Protests
Almost no one showed up to Donald Trump’s surprisingly timid, depressing, and generally lackluster birthday party in Washington, but protests against him were bursting at the seams across the globe.
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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
We're not getting out of the current mess without somehow removing people from the polluted information space. Too many of our leaders have lost any connection with reality.
theguardian.com
Eight US states seek to outlaw chemtrails – even though they aren’t real
States introduce chemtrail-coded legislation as conspiracy theories take root in some US chambers
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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
This is serious, rigorous analysis and it should change the way the media has been covering these protests. These were, in the aggregate, *massive.*
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Joseph Menn @joemenn.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
I count 49 news headlines on the NYT mobile app home page right now, not including opinion, sports or cooking. None of them are about the massive protests yesterday.
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Garrett M. Graff @vermontgmg.bsky.social · 15/06/2025
I didn’t believe this, but looked for myself. Two headlines about the parade … and zero about two percent of all Americans taking to the streets yesterday to protest Trump.
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ProPublica @propublica.org · 10/06/2025
BREAKING: The enforcement chief at America’s consumer watchdog is quitting, ProPublica has learned. Cara Petersen writes in her sign-off letter that it’s “clear that the Bureau’s current leadership has no intention to enforce the law in any meaningful way.” 🧵 1/
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Ted Pavlic (he/him/his) @tedpavlic.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
Major increase in tech layoffs may have nothing to do with AI but more to do with a change in tax law during Trump 1.0 that had implementation delayed for political reasons. It kicked in recently, and tech couldn't write off R&D expenses the same way they could in the past. qz.com/tech-layoffs...
qz.com
The hidden time bomb in the tax code that's fueling mass tech layoffs
A decades-old tax rule helped build America's tech economy. A quiet change under Trump helped dismantle it
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BWJones @bwjones.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
This is a fascinating read on the games Trump 1.0 played that directly led to the massive layoffs in tech. Trump 2.0 is playing the same games as before this time which will destroy American tech, science and engineering leadership on top of the cuts in government happening now.
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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
This shouldn't even be a particularly "hot" take in the sense that it's objectively & quantitatively correct! In formal studies on return on investment for federally funded research at universities, the enormous value is very clear. It is even (dare I say it?) a very *efficient* public expenditure.
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Karen James @kejames.bsky.social · 07/06/2025
This gift link needs to be shared far and wide. All of the NIH cancellations and delays in one place with several infographics for exploring them. 🧪
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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Presidential budget is out. Here's NSF. Biggest cut, by amount, is $1 billion, or 66.8%, from MPS (Physics & Math directorate). nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...
MPS budget
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
Glad to see this, but I have another idea...Hear me out here... Why doesn't NIH just reinstate the effing awards since they are ongoing and already made it successfully through a competitive process? Seems like this would actually be "efficient" (and also fair and just)...
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Nick Carnes @carnes.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
If we stop calling these “grants” and start calling them “contracts,” it’s clearer to people why this is such an abuse of power. This wasn’t a bunch of gifts. This was a bunch of binding contracts between researchers and the US govt for specific agreed upon projects.
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Tim Verstynen @tdverstynen.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Folks at Princeton have put together an aggregator to highlight example of how federally funded research has directly impacted people's lives. They are looking for more studies to highlight, so send along suggestions and help make the benefits of science more visible! publicusaresearchbenefits.com
publicusaresearchbenefits.com
Searchable database of tangible benefits that federally-funded research gave us.
A crowd-sourced site. Health and Well-being. National Security. Prosperity.
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Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
This is just a partial glimpse of the destruction of American science by Trump and the GOP.
Table showing the massive cuts in federal science funding for EPA- 54.5%, NASA -24%. NOAA - 24%, NSF -56%, USGS- 38% etc.
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Evan Torner @guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
There is a false dichotomy drawn between "the ivory tower" and "the real world," and I'm here to report that in a post-industrial society, your real-world economy absolutely hinges on the university. University towns are factory towns. Universities drive economic activity, not the other way around.
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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
say it again: 4 million people work in higher ed, the largest employer in 10 states, second largest employer in 10 more, and in 60 of the 100 biggest cities ROI for NIH and NSF for local economies is conservatively 4x, often close to 10x demolishing higher education is economic sabotage
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Rep. Jerry Nadler @nadler.house.gov · 16/05/2025
Trump fired over 1,000 National Park staff in February, and most still haven’t been reinstated. The $45 million he’s wasting on a military parade for his birthday could have paid their salaries for over a year.
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Pam Herd @pamherd.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
As we point out in Science, the Trump proposal to convert NIH program officer jobs into political appointments (Schedule F) will mean, that instead of actual scientific experts, people like "Big Balls" will choose how to direct NIH funds. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
The past few months at NIH and NSF preview how politicized scientific agencies would operate. Funding choices that reflected the consensus of some of the best scientists in the world were reversed by nonscientists. Program officers have, at points, been told not to communicate with the scientific community or have had their engagement limited. Scientific agencies have been directed to effectively reduce the flow of funds to a trickle by adding new layers of redundant review and red tape and even violating court orders to reinstate cancelled grants.
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K.T. Elliott @ktelliottmicro.bsky.social · 10/05/2025
I know you all know this, but apparently it needs to be said that basic science is a NECESSARY PRECURSOR to translational science
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Dustin Rubenstein @dustinrubenstein.com · 10/05/2025
NSF to ONLY fund research in five areas: artificial intelligence, quantum information science, biotechnology, nuclear energy, and translational science. Can this be happening? www.science.org/content/arti...
science.org
NSF slashes number of ‘rotators’ and well-paid managers as part of restructuring
Smaller future budgets will require fewer people, NSF official tells staff
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Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · 09/05/2025
New article on Early Cretaceous flora of Victoria, Australia, with detailed plants in these formerly polar environments, including gorgeous artwork by @bobnichollsart.bsky.social. (P.S. Let me know when you see the theropod dinosaur tracks!) #FossilFriday 🧪🌿🪨 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Scene of a cool temperate forest during the Early Cretaceous Period (125-105 million years ago) in what is now Victoria, Australia. In the foreground are many ferns and mosses in the understory and two large conifer trees on either side, framing a view in the background of a river and river floodplain with much woody debris. Further in the background is a green forest, which is in front  a mountain range with snow caps and an erupting volcano. Original artwork by Robert Nicholls.
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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 07/05/2025
New Notice on No Cost Extensions (or lack thereof) grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...
grants.nih.gov
NOT-OD-25-110: Updated NIH Processes for No-Cost Extensions
NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Updated NIH Processes for No-Cost Extensions NOT-OD-25-110. NIH
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Meade Krosby @meadekrosby.bsky.social · 04/05/2025
Meanwhile, the President's budget calls for $564 million in cuts to USGS to eliminate research funding & programs that "focus on social agendas (e.g., climate change) to instead focus on achieving dominance in energy and critical minerals."
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