@lizneeley
Founder of Liminal (LiminalCreations.com) & co-founder of Unbreaking (Unbreaking.org) Focused on turning knowledge into action. #science #communication #sensemaking #scicomm She/her. Married to Ed Yong.
Every time you experience something new, your brain faces a decision: Should it update an existing memory or create a new one?
In our new paper in @sfnjournals.bsky.social #JNeurosci, we isolate that exact decision, moment-by-moment during learning 🧵
Each Friday night, I write a briefing on what happened in US science & higher ed. 🧪
Mar 6 (Year 2, Week 10)
- NIH revoking certification of early career workers union
- FDA 'chaos' & Prasad out (again)
- even more delay & interference in NIH funding
& so much more
buttondown.com/liminalcreat...
A new Annenberg poll shows Americans trust federal career scientists and independent medical groups more than in the political leaders running U.S. health agencies
www.annenbergpublicpolicycenter.org/stark-divide...
Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302
The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.
What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.
Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.
Grant Witness is hiring! We're seeking a full-time data scientist to join our team building data resources to support journalism, litigation, and activism protecting science, public health, and the rule of law. grant-witness.us/apply.html #rstats
TFISE sunrise logo
My research institute, the Tracy Farmer Institute for Sustainability and the Environment, is rolling out a new flagship program: the Tracy Farmer Scholars!
UKY undergrad, grad, and professional students can apply for up to $6,000 in research funding. Apps due 3/27.
research.uky.edu/tfise/scholars
awful news 🧪
Everyone has a role to play in ensuring colleges and their communities are safe from ICE. Our next organizing call will focus on what you can do to keep ICE off college campuses.
Urgently needed, funny, and sharp as hell. Cannot wait to read everything published by @rahawahaile.bsky.social, @manjula.bsky.social @latriagraham.bsky.social @maggiemertens.bsky.social
They write about “What happened to journalism? What happened to the short story writer? What happened to the memoir market? Why aren’t authors getting paperback releases anymore? What happened to celebrity book clubs guaranteeing book sales? Why is the Newsletter Industry all we have left?”
“We are living through a moment where the labor of writers is being exploited to create rapacious technologies that make everything stupider, exponentially hasten the demise of the planet’s ecosystems, and prop up fascists and dictators worldwide.”
Enter SCRATCH www.talkscratch.com/the-new-scra...
New from me, at @vqr.bsky.social: a few years ago two people contacted me about a TEDx talk I once gave, “The Art of Haunting.”
When I replied I’d never given a TEDx talk, things just got weirder.
On AI, ghosts, what it means to tell a story, and what Italo Calvino saw coming 60 years ago. Enjoy!
Each Friday night, I cover what happened in US science & higher ed. 🧪
Year 2, Week 9: Feb 27 - on "epistemic vigilance" and
- precipice of war
- travesties in leadership (NIH director now also CDC head)
- surgeon general confirmation hearing
- NASA warnings & more
buttondown.com/liminalcreat...
What good can you do today? What trouble can you cause? What suffering can you ease? What needs to exist, and can you help build it?
The scalded ocean and the blazing well
For vengeance, and the ashes of language
Well now the Wayback Machine won't believe I'm human, so I guess it's time to call it a night
The last-minute change in eligibility criteria excluded second-year grad students, so the total number of NSF GRFP applications is likely to be MUCH smaller.
We're playing word games if they don't tell us % of applications returned without review.
I appreciate @klangin.bsky.social's work on this!
it was such a delight to get to talk to the incredible @lizneeley.bsky.social - everything she and the team at @unbreaking.org are doing gives me immense hope!
Television pioneer Fred Rogers, gone 23 years ago today.
His acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award is always worth a watch.
#RIP 💔
Who else is working on Friday evening and annoyed that Nature is down?
Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers.
The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇
Couple takeaways:
-more info about GRFP stats on Friday
-NSF plans to hire because they lost too many staff to DRP
-big emphasis on presidential priorities (AI and quantum 'frontiers' in the director's office)
-a lot about reducing bureaucracy, not a ton of justification
“I give the EPA employees here a lot of credit,” says Nicole Cantello, the president of AFGE Local 704 in Chicago. “They want to survive this. They want to live to … rebuild this agency.”
www.biographic.com/the-fight-fo...
Chris, thank you! (@wespin.bsky.social made me smile to see your name on that report)
Scoop: The Climate Prediction Center is being folded into other agencies overseen by the National Weather Service
The change follows moves by the Trump administration to dismantle climate science programs
By @weathersullivan.bsky.social & @laurenthal.bsky.social
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
A tumblr post from user nitewrighter: Me: I don't get it. I thought I was doing a lot better than I was a few years ago. I'm like 10 times more on top of things than I used to be. How does everything feel terrible now? The Tiny Me in OSHA-approved Hi-Vis Gear Who lives in my brain and pulls all the levers: Boss, it's the fascism. You're completely gunked up with cortisol due to the fact that your entire daily life is now underscored with a haunting awareness of the rapid erosion of your rights, dignity, and any and all social safety nets, and you're also bearing witness to the most vulnerable people immediately being persecuted. This creates a natural stress response that basically means you're going to continue having memory and organizational problems, as well as emotional imbalances. Me: BUT I HAVE A BULLET JOURNAL AND I MEDITATE NOW. Tiny OSHA Me: BOSS, THE FASCISM.
Boss, it's the fascism.
These charts are so helpful - how should I cite/share?
And the Researcher Support Consortium can help research group leads, center directors, department chairs, and other leaders think about how to better support and protect your colleagues. Feel free to email us at researchersupport@proton.me and check out resources at researchersupport.org
Yes! Expert Voices Together can help individual scholars (faculty, post-docs, PhD students) proactively or as part of crisis response. (Though we definitely recommend proactive planning!) Request assistance anytime by filling out our secure intake form:
expertvoicestogether.org/researcher/i...
I'm a cognitive scientist with an interest in epistemic vigilance, and this essay that's been going around gave me pause.
I don't think it's straightforward to apply the concept of epistemic vigilance to interactions with LLMs, as this essay does.
🧵/
sbgeoaiphd.github.io/rotating_the...
