Cede nothing

Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash

Has it only been a week since our last wrap up? Well, what a week it has been:

  • The Big Ugly Bill was signed by the President on July 4th. According to nonpartisan analysis, “cuts to federal health care spending of this magnitude are likely to have consequences for hospitals and could lead some to lay off staff, offer fewer services, or close altogether. On top of that, with nearly 12 million people projected to lose health insurance, many would have a harder time affording needed care.” All this to give millionaires tax breaks they don’t need and supercharge ICE to disappear millions of people who have not been charged with any crimes. 

  • The dismantling of USAID and the majority of US foreign humanitarian efforts could result in the loss of an additional 14 million lives in the next 5 years, including 4.5 million children under the age of 5, according to the article published in The Lancet.

  • The Intercept has published the full commencement speech of Harvard’s Divinity School graduate Zehra Imam after the school refused to do so when she went off-script, centering the experience of Palestinians. “There are no safe zones left in Gaza after 600 days and 77 years of genocide,” Imam said in her commencement speech in May. “I center these students with urgent desperation because time is running out — no meaningful aid has entered Gaza since March 2, and this is on our account. I center Palestine today not just because of its scale of atrocity but because of our complicity in it.”

  • The administration suspended and is investigating ~140 EPA employees who spoke out publicly against the treatment of federal employees and how the agency is handling climate change and public health.

  • The Trump administration’s policies & actions will result in an additional 7 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

  • And first responders are still searching for missing people as the number of people killed by flash floods in Texas grows, the people in charge pointing fingers at each other, as the president golfs. Our anger is only surpassed by the grief we feel for all the victims and their families.

Finding hope at this moment is hard but absolutely necessary. We must contest every harm and every loss. We must cede nothing. 

take action

Weekly win

  • High Court in India affirms trans women are women

  • US medical societies sue RFK and HHS over decision to stop recommending vaccination

check it out

pods in action

  • The 500WS Corvallis Pod hosted a Tap Talk last night “Stop living through screens and start living with the land” 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

perennial reads

book nook

  • “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” by El Akkad “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” 

  • “Imagination: A manifesto” by Ruha Benjamin is a proclamation of the power of our imagination and an invitation to build new mental models that are free of the tyranny of today’s dominant narratives

… by the way

The US measles outbreak spread is hitting 33 year high

🙃

Women climate scientists are connected, productive, and successful but have shorter careers. Martin et al. 2025 PNAS

“Well, shit….”  - anonymous woman climate scientist

When dissent is not enough

Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

If you want to know what a society values, look at what they spend their money on. As we write this week’s update, the US Senate passed a monstrosity of a budget that strips healthcare and food assistance from the most vulnerable people in our society, cuts science funding and kills our ability to solve our most pressing challenges, gives rich people a huge tax break, and funds gestapo and literal concentration camps on US soil and abroad. 

The capacity of the legal system to slow or stop authoritarianism in the US is increasingly unlikely. Last week, the Supreme Court allowed 28 states to deny birthright citizenship, a decision that is in direct contradiction to the US Constitution. On top of that, the Court just gave parents the right to object to their children’s reading of LGBTQ+-inclusive literature in public schools and sided with the State of South Carolina, paving the way for the defunding of Planned Parenthood. After three years, the full ramifications of the Dobbs decision that overturned federally protected access to abortion are still unfolding. To date, 13 states have fully banned abortion and another 7 limit access to abortion to pregnancy lengths of 6 -18 weeks. In Georgia, the 6 week ban on abortions led to a woman being kept alive to act as a human incubator for her 9 week old fetus.  

As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent in the birthright citizenship case, “With the stroke of a pen, the President has made a ‘solemn mockery’ of our Constitution. Rather than stand firm, the Court gives way. Because such complicity should know no place in our system of law, I dissent.”

The most recent slew of Supreme Court decisions add fuel to the fire that is burning our democracy to the ground. And at the same time, the Senate just voted to strip Medicare from millions of people, take away food assistance programs, including to children, tax clean energy and increase energy costs for most Americans, all while pouring money into ICE and increasing the US debt by trillions. 

Its hard to overstate the importance of this moment in US politics. Its natural to feel overwhelmed and helpless and there are no easy answers. Many of us came here to fight for science funding. But the fight was always bigger than that. For us, it was always about systems change and collective liberation.  

Its not too late. Join us.

take action

  • Support EPA Staff. Read their declaration that addresses the new Administrator Lee Zeldin with their 5 concerns and invites him to “change course by re-committing to his oath to protect the health of the American people and our environment” 

  • Protect students and colleagues at your institution from ICE - Science For Everyone blog has some ideas for how.

  • Stand Together for Higher Ed - join faculty and staff across US institutions

  • Join others in speaking out at Home of the Brave

  • Use this Network Tracker to track ICE in your area

weekly wonder

check it out

  • The destruction of USAID is going to cost millions of lives, literally. 

  • The US Global Change Research website and the last 5 National Climate Assessment reports have been taken down

  • NIH no longer has access to Springer Nature publications

  • Hold strong Harvard, do not give in to extortion. 

  • Meta wants your photos and is being sketchy about what they will be used for.

  • Documented environmental destruction and public health crisis in Gaza

perennial reads

all ears

watch this

…by the way

Loving Kate Marvel’s new book! Human Nature: Nine Ways to Feel About our Changing Planet. Her words are bold, inspiring, wise, and personal -- as one of the book jacket blurbs states the book is “immediately timely. Over and over again I was, and remain, struck and challenged by the fierce, wise beauty in these pages”

The heat is on

Photo credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory

As our US government institutions increasingly fail to keep us safe, many individuals and civil society groups are organizing and stepping up to protect each other. That’s heartening and much needed at a time when the slide into authoritarianism is more rapid in the US than most experts anticipated. Life may seem “normal” in your corner of the world, with the daily grind of work and life, brunch, kiddo playdates, concerts, etc. That normalcy is deceiving and dangerous, as dissidents from other authoritarian regimes warn us.

While its deeply human to seek normalcy, even in deeply un-normal times, its critical for us to remember and track that none of this is normal, that the cruelty and harm are real and will continue to increase. Autocrats are never satisfied until there is complete submission, oppression, and they hold unlimited power.

Everything we can save is worth saving. What can we do? Keep a daily/weekly journal, record what is being taken away, who is being harmed, and how you feel. Write it down, talk to your friends, neighbors, and even strangers about what is happening. Give the feelings space and a voice. It may not change things but it will help build psychological safety and maybe even strengthen your community to resist!

None is this is normal. None of this is normal. None of this is normal.

take action

weekly win

  • Mahmoud Khalil released from Ice detention

  • Zohran Mamdani won the NY state primary for governor

  • A slew of legislative losses for the administration:

    • Judge block’s administration’s suspension of Harvard’s ability to bring in international students 

    • Public land sales blocked from inclusion in Trump’s tax bill

    • Federal judge orders Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s release before trial

  • You can track the recent and current legal actions here

weekly wonder

  • Vera C. Rubin Observatory (funded by NSF and DOE) released first images of the universe

  • James Webb telescope captured unprecedented direct images of TWA 7b, the first exoplanet discovery!

    • Astronomy, like most science, is threatened by the Trump administration

check it out

perennial reads

book nook

  • It Rhymes with Takei by George Takei, with Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and Harmony Becker - Takei shares his story of navigating life as a closeted gay man to speaking his truth at the age of 68 in this memoir graphic novel.

all ears

  • The Upstream podcast episode “How to fall in love with the future with Rob Hopkins”

watch this!

  • Check out “Flow,” an animated film that won an Oscar this year.

🙃 Childcare costs in the US rival or surpass mortgages.

The nature of resistance

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

It's been a week of shocking violence and at the same time, inspiration and bravery, as more than 5 million people across the US got into the streets on June 14th and denounced the current US administration’s authoritarianism, cruelty, and frankly, stupidity.

Violence is escalating in the US and across the world, from targeted assassinations of Minnesota legislators and their family members to violence against peaceful protesters (including violence perpetrated by law enforcement groups), to escalation of war in the Middle East, Sudan, and Ukraine. It is tempting to look away, but we need to remember that turning away is a privilege and many do not have that option.  

Frank O’Hara wrote in Meditations on an Emergency “In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.” Today, we are in a moment of crisis that is likely to get much worse, especially for the most vulnerable among us.  In just over 150 days, the US administration’s actions have already cost thousands of lives, fueled violence in the US and across the world, and will take decades to generations to recover from.

Rebecca Solnit writes in her Meditations in an Emergency newsletter: “Even if we prevail, the harm is real and repairing the profound damage to the nation and society will be the work of years if not generations, to say nothing of the repair to psyches. But I am not giving up. I'm hopeful because I believe in civil society, I believe in our power, and I believe in our idealism. I don't know what is going to happen, because we make the future in the present, but in the present I see solidarity, commitment, principle, and courage.”

In solidarity, lets get into it.

take action

pods in action

  • CA Bay Area pods and folks, check out this opportunity to get involved in a rally and teach-in. 

  • Remember to log into Orca and update your pod membership information.

weekly win

  • More than five million people turned out for 2100+ No Kings rallies across the US

  • CDC is rehiring 400+ laid off employees

  • NIH grant terminations ruled void and illegal (Judge Young’s comments are well worth reading 🎉)

check it out

  • Early to mid-career STEM folks are getting a much-needed boost 

  • Teen Vogue continues to shine in their political coverage. Check out this op-ed on who the administration is targeting with its anti-immigration actions and how to fight back

  • Scientists are speaking out, locally and enmasse (NYT paywall)

  • CDC staff demand RFK Jr resignation

perennial reads

  • Rebecca Solnit’s Meditations on an Emergency continues to be exactly the right thing for this moment, especially this post on the nature of violence and what is going on in LA

book nook

  • Hot off the presses, “Human Nature” by Dr. Kate Marvel explores human emotions as a lens to better understand climate change.

all ears

  • We are big Drilled podcast fans around here and the new season focuses on the Standing Rock protests, walking listeners from the protests to the lawsuit that slapped Greenpeace with $666 million in damages.

watch this

🙃

How to be brave

What does everyday bravery look like? How can we take strength and inspiration from ordinary people doing incredibly brave things? Think about what it takes for folks like high school teachers and librarians to push back against book bans, knowing their jobs are on the line. Think about people showing up for their neighbors and community members who are being harassed or detained by fully militarized and masked ICE agents. Think about what it takes to organize Pride events in ultra conservative communities, where LBGTQ+ visibility is so important and where LBGTQ+ folks risk so much just to be who they are. Think about staff from the National Institutes of Health and Health and Human Services who recently posted a letter to their leadership demanding academic freedom and scientific excellence, as they and their colleagues lose their jobs.  

Scientists - its time to be brave! We must stand firm in our commitment to rigor, to push back against further politicization of our work, to call out pseudoscience, and to ensure science is truly serving the public good. 

take action

weekly win

The US courts continue to hold our shambles of a democracy together

  • A judge blocked the administration’s anti-DEI and anti-trans EOs

  • A judge issued a preliminary injunction that will restrict how the Department of Government Efficiency can access Office of Personnel Management databases

weekly wonder

  • Bedbugs have been our passengers for centuries

check it out

  • Funding to research vaccines, chronic diseases, and global health are disappearing (NYTimes, pay wall).

Perennial reads

book nook

all ears

we got the beat

watch this!

We recently discovered Leah Litman and her inspiring “incandescent rage” on an episode of The Daily Show. Litman, a constitutional law professor at the University of Michigan, she also co-hosts the Supreme Court focused podcast “Strict Scrutiny” - new episodes drop Mondays.

…by the way

A little late, but KlimaSeniorinnen (Swiss women aged over 65) won a landmark climate change case in April 2024 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

🙃 TSA developing haptics to feel bodies in VR - no thanks

Two things can be true

Photo by Jeswin Thomas on Unsplash

Authoritarianism is rapidly spreading in the US and globally. As scientists who are deeply concerned about the onslaught of attacks on science, we must learn how to navigate a world where multiple things can be true. The US administration is expanding cuts to science funding, while masked ICE agents are grabbing people off the streets, while LGBTQ+ communities are finding ways to celebrate Pride month, despite increasing hate and violence targeting their communities. Violence happening in the US is being justified by violence happening in Gaza, an ever increasing circle of pain and suffering that will be used to expand xenophobia as policy. 

While retreating into research amidst the general chaos is very appealing (especially for folks who still have their research positions), we have to find ways to continue to feel the devastation and not turn away from what is happening. And we have to continue to care for ourselves and our communities. It is no easy task to care, to keep our hearts open in the face of cruelty and chaos.  But as Liz Neeley recently posted, “If the only way out is through, the only way through is together.”

So lets get into it, together.

take action

pods in action

California 👀: The California Biodiversity Project seeks citizen scientists to collect data on your next adventure. Better yet, make it a pod activity that you can get involved in with your local crew! There are three field days currently planned that folks can join too: 

  • Modoc National Wildlife Refuge Friday, June 13, 2025 | 12-5pm

    Alturas, CA 96101

    RSVP

  • Sumner Peck Ranch Saturday, June 28, 2025 | 8-11:30am
    14439 N Friant Road, Friant, CA 93626
    RSVP

  • Sierra Valley Preserve & Nature Center
    Saturday, July 12, 2025 | 9:30am-1:30pm
    495 Beckwourth Calpine Rd, Beckwourth, CA 96129
    RSVP

weekly wins

  • The Trump administration is on a massive legal losing streak - 96% loss rate in federal courts in the month of May alone! 

  • Trump’s sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs are illegal.

  • Musk is out and that is a win of sorts. 

  • Happy pride month! As attacks on LGBTQ+ communities are ramping up across America, small towns are unexpected beacons of hope.

weekly wonder

Everybody poops, but penguins release ammonia and dimethylamine in their poop, nucleating cloud condensation. Yup, penguin poop controls local weather. 

check it out

perennial reads

Book nook

all ears

watch this

  • The finale of the “Handmaid’s Tale” issues a stark warning (spoilers alert!)

…by the way

  • Suing oil and gas companies for climate change impacts is cool. The daughter of a woman who died during the Pacific Northwest “Heat Dome” in 2021 sued seven oil and companies for wrongful death in Washington state court.

  • And kids in Montana won their landmark climate lawsuit in 2023

Perseverance has its limits

Photo by Carlota Vidal on Unsplash

“To fall in love with the world isn’t to ignore or overlook suffering, both human and otherwise. For me anyway, to fall in love with the world is to look up at the night sky and feel your mind swim before the beauty and the distance of the stars. It is to hold your children while they cry, to watch as the sycamore trees leaf out in June. When my breastbone starts to hurt, and my throat tightens, and tears well in my eyes, I want to look away from the feeling. I want to deflect with irony or anything else that will keep me from feeling directly. We all know how loving ends. But I want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here” - John Greene, from “The Anthropocene Reviewed.”

At times, the world feels unlovable. The people who are taking a wrecking ball to our institutions do not love the world, they only love themselves. But to love, even in the face of a purposely cruel and violent world, is revolutionary and an act of resistance. 

As bell hooks wrote in All About Love: New Visions, “there can be no love without justice.” This week, we seek love and justice, even as the world burns.

Lets get into it.

take action

weekly win

weekly wonder

check it out

perennial reads

  • Meeting the Moment - Liz Neeley’s weekly breakdown of what's happening in the science and higher ed worlds (week 16 is a scorcher)

  • Waging Nonviolence - this week, learn how to remain engaged without being overwhelmed

  • Wonder matters - check out Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s column in New Scientist

book nook

all ears

we got the beat

  • Last Thursday, the Muppets celebrated their 70th anniversary. Enjoy Kermit singing his song, The Rainbow Connection

…by the way

🙃 meet the unsung heroes of motherhood

We are not in Kansas anymore

Photo by Pacto Visual on Unsplash

While Canada and the US rejected their far right governments during recent elections, the US continues its rapid slide into authoritarianism. Last week brought more mayhem and Resistance Kitty wrote it best:

“We are not in Kansas anymore, folks - we’re in an authoritarian fever dream with bad spray tans and worse policies. But guess what? Resistance isn’t a one-day protest. Its a daily sabotage of the unjust.

Be petty. Be loud. Be ungovernable”

Take Action

weekly wins

  • No to capitulation

    • Maine funds unfrozen (Maine refused to ban transgender athletes from competing in school sports)

    • Attacking law firms is unconstitutional

  • No to authoritarianism

    • Canada Liberal Party sweep and presidential win

    • Australian Labor Party huge win

  • No to deporting international students

    • Reversal of student visa terminations (thanks to the  dozens of restraining orders issued by judges)

  • No to retaliation against students and academics

    • Release of Mohsen Mahdawi ordered by federal judge

    • Rümeysa Öztürk's case ordered to be moved to Vermont, but transfer is paused

    • Mahmoud Khalil's case can move forward in federal court

    • ACLU affiliates won temporary restraining orders in several states and forced the administration to restore revoked visas

  • Yes to solidarity

    • AGU and AMS pick up the momentum on the cancelled National Climate Assessment

    • Universities stand together to oppose the current administration

weekly wonder

check it out

perennial reads

book nook

all ears

  • Pharmaceuticals are getting in our waterways and changing fish behavior (NPR Shortwave podcast)

  • On raising girls while covering the White House (Longest Shortest Time podcast)

We got the beat

watch this

…by the way

🙃 Will you accept 30 hours of transfer credit from the Dark Side?

Science is labor

Photo by Mulyadi on Unsplash

“Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world” - Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the National Farmworkers Union.

Science has a labor history and is interwoven into both labor and anti-labor movements. Organizing within science has some unique challenges, and scientists often do not see themselves as workers. But the proliferation of low-paying jobs, the reliance on graduate students and postdocs as temporary cheap labor, the expanding “soft money” worker class without job security, and institutional barriers to labor organizing within science have all deepened exploitation of researchers.  Recent movements for unionization are overcoming institutional and cultural barriers and as attacks on science and scientists are expanding in the US, more scientists are looking to the labor movements for guidance. 

The rapid decline into authoritarianism in the US and abroad is an existential threat to science and society. This is the moment for scientists to join together with worker movements. We can’t sit on the sidelines and hope we have research funding. The fight of authoritarianism is our fight too. 

Lets roll up our leaves and get into it.

take action

  • Join a rally on May Day (May 1st) in your town. 

  • “we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses” - sign on to this letter calling for academic institutions to stand together - 270 institutions have signed (more expected)

  • Join the Science Homecoming op-ed writing efforts – as a start, volunteer with the McClintock Letters project to help edit 500 letters in support of science to local papers (email partnerships@500womenscientists.org)

weekly win

  • Trump administration tried to cancel the National Nature Assessment, scientists reinvent it as United By Nature: A Knowledge Assessment of Nature and Nature’s Benefits in the U.S. (NYT op-ed paywalled)

  • Divya Tyagi, a Penn State engineering grad student, revised a version of a 100-year-old equation to improve the accuracy of wind turbine efficiency modeling

check it out

  • This year’s Treehouse Climate Action Poem Prize winners

  • Its time to be brave, a call to action from Cornell University AAUP president Risa Lieberwitz

  • Learning from Chicago’s organizing against immigration raids

perennial reads

  • Terry McGlynn’s latest “Science for Everyone” blog post and consider this: If your institution was relying on your DEI office to make progress, were you really making any progress?

  • Andy Revkin wrote about his visit to the Vatican in 2014, reflecting on a mix of science, spirit, will and love

  • Leveling up - from chilling to freezing effects on science.

    • In 2008, the Bush administration politically attacked NIH funding but NIH defended grants and no funding was lost.

    • In 2025, NIH is disqualifying universities from receiving grants if they have DEI programs and/or divestment from Israel. We are off the cliff. 

  • Republicans have terminated ~800 NIH & 1000 NSF grants so far. Those grants represent countless people, their ideas, and discoveries that will be delayed or die on the vine.

all ears

watch this

…by the way

  • It was never about illegal immigrants - the US administration deported a 2-yr old citizen (and her sister and mother). The cruelty is boundless. 

🙃

Oppression is the mask of fear

Photo by Cade Roberts on Unsplash

There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this: Freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrections are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they've already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this: The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empire's authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege. Remember this: Try.

—Karis Nemik, Andor, Season 1 Episode 12

The US administration is rapidly attacking fundamental rights, including due process and free speech. The recent NSF efforts to rescind funding from projects that study misinformation, claiming "concerns for free speech," don’t square with the administration’s actions like kidnapping Rümeysa Öztürk off the streets and putting her in detention for writing an op-ed. The goals are tyranny, preemptive obedience, and control. And as Karis Nemik notes in his manifesto in Andor (season 1), the need for control is desperate. But we must also remember that it’s tenuous and the resistance will always persevere.

We continue to bare witness as things continue to unravel, so lets get into it.

Take action

  • Check the new NSF grant cancellation tracker (DOGE is in full force across the agency) to see if your work is being defunded and let your elected representatives know!

    • If your NSF grant has been terminated, please submit that information here

  • Check out and share these federal worker legal support resources

  • More actions on the Action Lab website

weekly wonder

There are ~300,000 moose in Sweden and they are on the move. Check out this livestream of their migration.

Check it out

Perennial reads

  • “What it means to tell the truth about America” by Clint Smith in The Atlantic, important read as the administration EOs target museums and libraries to white-wash and purge history.

  • The rise of unreason, coupled with our growing scientific knowledge and sophistication.

  • A catalog of cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes, lest we forget the litany of horrors the US administration is spreading across the US and world.

weekly win

  • Institutions of higher education and faculty within are uniting to defend academic freedom.

All ears

  • Check out the bio/acc podcast by Harvard sophomore Shriya Prakash Bhat, featuring deeply researched interviews on fascinating topics in biotech and human health.

…by the way

We loved hearing the news of the wandering cat who joined the White House Press Corps (and the photos of journalists holding her released by the AP). Maybe if we all had more animals to snuggle things would be better?

🙃

NIH has been instructed to hold off issuing grants to Harvard, Cornell, Columbia, Brown, and Northwestern…. but can’t tell them?!?!

For Whom, By What Means, Toward What Ends?

Photo by Waldemar on Unsplash

We are kicking things off with a blurb from the folks behind Science for the People and their latest blog about defending science. “We recognize that science is inherently political. Science is defined as a set of human practices relating to knowledge that arises from, is shaped by, and helps reproduce the social systems in which it is embedded. Thus, science is not an objective good or neutral tool; it interpenetrates with all other social phenomena such as class, race, sex, gender, geography, and culture. Science throughout history is practiced unequally, benefits few, excludes many, and is inextricable from its human consequences. To defend “science,” we must first ask: Science for whom? By what means? Toward what ends?” 

This week, we continue to scream into the void. Lets get to it.

Take Action

  • The next big day of action is April 19th - follow 50501 on Bluesky and find an event near you.

  • For folks in the US, we cannot emphasize enough how important it is to keep calling your elected representatives. 5 Calls continues to be a great resource or you can find the contacts for your representatives here.

Weekly Wins

  • Huge crowds as Bernie and AOC get back on the road for their “Fight the Oligarchy” tour.

  • Attorney General Bonta filed a brief challenging the administration’s revocation of student visas.

  • 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 major universities starting to push back against all kinds of administrative over-reach (Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, among others) even as more universities are targeted by the administration.

Weekly Wonder

Meet the Southwest peach and a Navajo researcher working to bring it back!

check it out

  • As of April 14, 1,000+ international students and recent graduates have had their legal status changed by the U.S. State Department. See where international student visas have been revoked. 

  • The National Institutes of Health is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research. See which grant programs and NIH institutes have been cut by the administration. 

  • The NASA and the CDC have been gutted.

perennial reads

all ears

This Podcast Will Kill You does an amazing job bringing evidence-based health science to a broad set of ears – exactly what the world needs when health disinformation is at a high point. We were blown away learning about Scarlet Fever, and hat tip for this week’s episode on the Childhood Vaccine Schedule.

watch this!

The Librarians is a full length documentary about book bans sweeping the US and the librarians and educators (almost all women) fighting them.

🙃

Is it just us or is this fascism?

Good trouble

Photo by Barbara Burgess on Unsplash

Last week, US Senator Cory Booker held the Senate floor for 25 hours and 5 minutes, kicking off his marathon filibuster by saying that he has “been hearing from people from all over my state and indeed all over the nation calling upon folks in Congress to do more, to do things that recognize the urgency—the crisis—of the moment. And so we all have a responsibility, I believe to do something different to cause, as John Lewis said, good trouble, and that includes me.” The urgency of the moment cannot be overstated. Thousands of people have been laid off from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The impacts of losing entire programs and core functionality of remaining programs will be felt for years to come and the most vulnerable members of our society will pay the price. 

And that was just last week… before the US put tariffs on 150 countries, including 2 islands inhabited largely by penguins.

Lets talk penguins and more in this week’s wrap up. 

Take Action

  • Share this safety and planning information with non-US citizens 

  • Next day of collective action is April 19th, find an event here or organize one for your area.

  • If you are in the US, keep calling your representatives! 5 Calls continues to be a great resource or you can find the contacts for your representatives here.

Weekly Wins

  • 5.2 million people joined #HandsOff rallies across 1,200 locations across the US. 

  • Susan Crawford won her election in Wisconsin, helping maintain liberal majority on the state’s Supreme Court and delivering a decisive rebuttal to Elon Musk’s attempt to buy the election

  • Tesla sales continue to plummet #teslatakedown

Weekly Wonder

  • Molecular hydrogen takes a spin

Check It Out

  • Act locally and interconnectedly - Rutgers University’s faculty senate passed a mutual defense resolution, endorsed by associated unions, with an aim of acting collectively with other campuses.

  • Some advice for folks who have lost their jobs, from the wonderful Laura Helmuth

  • If your grant has been terminated, this resource may provide some useful next steps

Perennial Reads

  • Curious about the legal ramifications of EOs and other administrative actions? Check out Joyce Vance’s blog posts, starting with this one on the legality of the use of the Insurrection Act.

  • Meditations on an Emergency by Rebecca Solnit - bookmark it and read weekly!

  • Waging Non Violence by Daniel Hunter - concrete things we all must do to keep ourselves grounded and effective

  • Making Sense of it All by Liz Neeley - a weekly recap of what’s going on, with an emphasis on science and scicomm.

Book Nook

Watch This

  • Backsliding and the Resistance in the United States - professors Erica Chenoweth and Steven Levitsky discuss what can be learned from mobilization and opposition to autocracy in the United States based on historical examples, and offer their assessments of where the U.S. stands today.

… by the way

We had a little snafu with our email last week, so if you missed last week’s wrap up, you can still read it (it was a good one!).

Weekly Wrap Up

Photo by Liam Truong on Unsplash

“Part of how they make you obey is by making obedience seem peaceful, while resistance is violence. But really, either choice is about violence, one way or another.” ― Charlie Jane Anders, The City in the Middle of the Night

Its been a rough week, folks.

Any semblance of due process is quickly deteriorating in the US, where ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents in plain clothes are abducting people off the streets, often specifically targeting people with legal immigration status but who are critical of the current administration. The climate of fear is rapidly spreading across academic institutions and anticipatory obedience is commonplace. The University of Michigan is ending its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across campus, just the latest in a long list of universities capitulating to the administration’s unlawful demands to end DEI in and outside of the federal government. NYU cancelled a presentation by a Canadian doctor for fear of being targeted by the US president and Johns Hopkins University told their faculty not to intervene in potential ICE detainments on campus. Hundreds of international students from India who allegedly participated in pro-Palestine actions or shared or “liked” social media posts that are deemed anti-national got a letter from the administration telling them they had 24 hours to self-deport or they would be detained. The United States Disappeared Tracker is attempting to track people who are being detained without due process.

If you don’t think what is happening to people like Rumeysa Ozturk can’t happen to you, consider the fact that she was detained not because she did not have a legal reason for being in the US but because she expressed an opinion, a right that is fundamentally protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Take Action

Weekly Wonder

You can nominate your pick for The Guardian’s invertebrate of the year. We are loving the clever cuttlefish 💜

Check It out

More than 10,000 federal employees were laid off last week from US Health and Human Services. Its easy to become numb as the frequency and scale of these kinds of announcements, but these are real people who were fulfilling an important mission, including supporting addiction services and community health centers across the US, monitoring infectious diseases and food safety, and overseeing health insurance programs to make sure they are not scamming subscribers. This will not make us more healthy and this will not make us more safe.

Perennial Reads

book nook

  • The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders (sci-fi, reluctant revolutionaries, and there are crocodiles, but hear us out, its a good book for our current times)

All Ears

Watch this

Rumeysa Ozturk, an international PhD student at Tufts University, was abducted by federal agents on March 25. She was likely targeted because she co-authored an op-ed critical of the university and has voiced support for Palestine. And we gotta call out the ICE agent cowardice, pulling up masks to hide their faces when they abducted Rumeysa. If you can’t publicly stand by your actions, this is a critical moment to stand against them.

…by the way

March 25th was Tolkien reading day and we can certainly get behind the quest for vanquishing Sauron.

Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

🙃 DOGE is making some big claims about improving government efficiencies but their claims don’t add up. Check for yourself - math may not be this crew’s strength.

Weekly Wrap Up

“Who has the right to have rights?” wrote Mahmoud Khalil in his letter from a Louisiana ICE detention center last week. That question has been top of mind as more information and footage is shared from ICE detention centers in the US and abroad. And just like that, the U.S. has concentration camps again.

Its been a hell of a week, lets get into it.

Take Action

Here are some recent entries to Action Lab, our database that compiles action items that YOU can take part in.

  • Hands Off April 5 National Day of Action 

  • Kill the Cuts National Day of Action will be April 8, 2025

  • Survey seeking information regarding students' perceptions of funding and workforce cuts, from SciLight and The Science Classroom.

  • We are starting a list of women & gender minority STEM folks on Bluesky - DM or message us to be added 💜

Weekly Win

  • 34,000 people came out to see Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s rally in Denver last week, and huge crowds were in attendance in Greeley CO, Tucson Arizona, and other stops on their “Fight the Oligarchy” tour. We are not alone!

Check It Out

  • The 500WS Philly Pod put together a quick guide for how to contact your local reps and schedule meetings. 

  • And the same Philly Pod is taking it to their representative Fetterman - WTF Fetterman! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Perennial Reads

Book Nook

All Ears

… by the way

As #SignalGate continues to get attention, this is a good time to learn about encrypted messaging apps security.

Weekly Wrap Up

We are back with a weekly wrap-up, bringing you just some of the important content from the week. We can’t cover everything, we are only human. 

This past week was a doozy.  As Rebecca Solnit put it, “People are rising up. I feel a groundswell. There is a lot going on. There's a whole lot going on. And that's just what I can see, and I know that a whole lot of us are organizing, resisting, and not cooperating in a whole lot of ways we can't see yet. I'm horrified by what the Trumpists are doing and by the moral ugliness of it; but I'm moved and exhilarated by what a whole lot of the rest of us are doing, and the moral beauty of it. The horror and the wonder can coexist, just as the worst and best of us do.”

So lets get to it.

Take Action

Check out our Action Lab for inspiration and to take action, based on your interest and capacity. This week, we encourage you to:

  • Share your story about the benefits of federal science

  • Share the impacts you’ve seen or experienced from federal funding cuts or illegal firings at federal agencies with the Union of Concerned Scientists

Weekly Win

  • A second judge ordered US agencies to reinstate fired employees, including at DOE, NSF, National Park Service, and USDA. For now, that means folks are getting back to keeping our critical infrastructure running and people safe.

  • Student newspapers are crushing it. Check out this opinion piece from The Harvard Crimson “First They Came for Columbia”

Perennial Reads

Book Nook

watch this

… by the way

  • We are starting a list of women & gender minority STEM folks on Bluesky - DM or message us to be added 💜

  • Happy belated International Women’s Day 🤦🏻‍♀️ with a word from McSweeney’s

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