🌡️Have you been feeling the heat this week? Stay informed, hydrated, and safe! Dangerously hot days are on the rise across the U.S. according to this map from @cmshintani.bsky.social. This week’s extreme temperatures are part of a larger trend of climate change.

Python slithers to the top of the programming language leaderboard

AGU H3S invites you to submit an abstract to our session at #AGU25 Thinking Outside the Box Plot: Communicating Science Beyond the Paper! The session explores creative ways to communicate research. Conveners: @adischner.bsky.social @acarneiromar.bsky.social @gescilam.bsky.social Cee Nell Emily Ellis

Proposed NOAA budget zeros out ALL climate laboratories and cooperative institutions. GFDL, NSSL, GML, etc. This appears to also end the US greenhouse gas sampling network, including at Mauna Loa, the oldest continuous carbon dioxide monitoring site on Earth. www.commerce.gov/sites/defaul...

This comparsion in the NYTimes today is pretty stark. China is racing ahead to be a high-tech exporter of 21st century technologies, while the US is doubling down on being a petro-state exporting the technologies of the 19th century: www.nytimes.com/inte...

#madison WI #NoKings

Doge is a failure that’s going to cost taxpayers more money in the long run. This is the study I referenced that found Doge will cost the gov $135 billion this year alone due to firings, re-hirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/u...

What Elon Musk Didn’t Budget For: Firing Workers Costs Money, Too

nytimes.com

The FBI began Pride month by asking Americans to report doctors, hospitals and clinics who offer gender-affirming surgeries to minors, claiming that those procedures amount to child mutilation.

FBI wants to investigate doctors who provide gender-affirming care to minors. Experts question its legal basis | CNN Politics

The Federal Bureau of Investigation began Pride month by asking Americans to report doctors, hospitals and clinics who offer gender-affirming surgeries to minors, claiming that those procedures amount...

cnn.com

The USGS ecosystems research program doesn't just study wildlife. Its researchers work on rangelands and forests, fisheries and aquaculture, and critically, wildfire. Trump's proposed budget eliminates this program entirely, allocating $0 for 2026. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/c...

Trump’s Proposed Budget Would Cut a Major Ecology Program

nytimes.com

Very excited to share the newest (and my first!) post on the water data blog, announcing the next generation of USGS Water Data APIs: waterdata.usgs.gov/blog/api-wha...

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."

Inside Climate News@insideclimatenews.org · last yr.

A new study from the U.S. Geological Survey finds that groundwater in Appalachia, the Gulf Coast and California is susceptible to contamination from orphaned oil and gas wells.

They left because they couldn't take the instability and the limits on their ability to work, and they could see the writing on the wall. Now, Trump is closing many of these USGS Water Science Centers that are essential to the safety of our nation.

Trump officials gut 25 centers that monitor flooding and drought in the US

White House orders closure of USGS water science centers, which shares data with weather service for flood warnings

theguardian.com

Want to see something really insane? Look at this website for USGS's Water Science Centers and Regions and see how many of their directors have "Former Employee" after their names. Everyone's gone! My best friend from grad school was one of them. Who's monitoring floods, droughts, etc?

Water Science Centers and Regions

A list of all of the USGS Water Resources Mission Area Science Centers and regions, hubs for critical water science funded by Federal, State, and other partners and stakeholders located throughout the...

usgs.gov

For nearly 15 years the US Dept of Interior's Climate Adaptation* Science Centers have supported hundreds of scientists studying how ecosystems respond to climate change & pollution, invasive species, sustainable wildlife & wild lands management, and more. Now the admin wants to cancel them all.

Trump swings budget ax at USGS biology research

Plan to eliminate $307 million ecosystem program could face obstacles in Congress

science.org

Museum and Planetarium Friends, Many of you use NASA SVS material. Right now it is critical that we are able to document SVS's impact. Please let us know how you are using our content (use my email address at the bottom of this page: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov). Thank you!

The current regime does not read.

Time to throw up a bat signal for a specific skillset for @skypeascientist.bsky.social We have a classroom that is looking for a scientist who can do a session with them in ASL. Do we know any scientists who would be willing to do a Q&A with a deaf classroom in ASL?

Jazz up your ggplots! ‘Useful tricks to elevate your data viz via `ggplot` extension packages in R” Custom themes, fonts, annotations, arrows & more By the USGS waterdata.usgs.gov/blog/ggplot-... #RStats #ggplot2 #ggplot #Dataviz

INCREDIBLE Ruling! Judge Reyes just ruled that transgender people have served honorably in the military, judges Trumps trans military ban - which states trans people are inherently dishonorable - as unconstitutional and motivated by animus. Trans military members may continue to serve.

The #scicomm group COMPASS is offering a free communication workshop on April 2 for current or former government workers - federal, state, and local levels www.compassscicomm.org/event/sharin...

Sharing Impact & Value: Strategic Communication for Government Workers | COMPASS

Strategically and clearly communicate the importance of your work to relevant audiences, without partisanship. Government workers at all levels — local, state, and federal — provide important and nece...

compassscicomm.org

Another dataset I like and have used extensively is streamflow and other river data from USGS. I don't know if another country has so much of their data online and accessible, but I've tried to get data for France in the past and it was not easy.

USGS | National Water Dashboard

Access river level and other water information and weather conditions in your neighborhood! A map viewer showing real-time river level and water data collected at U.S. Geological Survey observation st...

dashboard.waterdata.usgs.gov

This one is a bummer. The Interior Department had only recently established a formal advisory committee on scientific integrity to ensure external experts were informing its scientific work.

SciLight@scilight.bsky.social · last yr.

Breaking: Trump Disbands First Ever Scientific Integrity Committee open.substack.com/pub/scilight...

Once again, the New York Times gives the dataviz community an opportunity to reflect on its purpose. Can everything be quantified and turned into a chart? Most important: what are the consequences of a chart? If words matter, charts matter too.

Toby Buckle@polphilpod.bsky.social · last yr.

Of course the NYT sees the "DEI" stuff positively & is neutral on anti-trans discrimination

18F was doing exactly the type of work that DOGE claims to want – yet we were eliminated shortly after midnight. Read our letter to the American people: 18f.org

The mass firing of both new hires and recently promoted senior staff within #NOAA, including mission-critical and life-saving roles at the National Weather Service (#NWS), is profoundly alarming. 1/11

Public comments are open for gender marker changes for trans people on passports. DS-11 Application for passport: www.federalregister.gov/documents/20... DS-82 Passport Renewal: www.federalregister.gov/documents/20... DS-5504 Name Change and Corrections. www.federalregister.gov/documents/20...

‼️ The National Park Service has REMOVED mentions of transgender people being involved with Stonewall. Not only did the remove the world "Transgender" but changed "LGBTQ+" to "LGBQ+". The federal government is attempting to erase us and take away our history. This pride, we riot.

A new issue of Cell is out, featuring the 4 winners of the Rising Black Scientists Awards. Their essays bring hope, inspiration and reinforce the importance of equity in science. Do take a moment to check them out: www.cell.com/cell/current @cp-cell.bsky.social

Unfortunately, all Census TIGER/Line and cartographic boundary shapefiles are down as of this evening. This means that the tigris #rstats and pygris #Python packages will not work, and geometry support in tidycensus will also fail. The Census API, for now, is still up.