New: In about 10 minutes the Senate should start an initial vote on a continuing resolution. The CR contains a provision that would temporarily (but completely) block OMB's proposal to overhaul federal grants. Our story on that Senate measure and some of the pushback which lead to it:

Controversial White House plan to overhaul US science funding faces Senate opposition

Proposal to put political appointees in charge of research grants could be temporarily halted if lawmakers’ efforts are successful.

nature.com

Scoop: The Trump administration is sending a letter to college presidents asking them to pledge a series of policy changes by the end of the year. Unlike last year's Compact, this effort was devised with input from higher ed leaders. Free link to my exclusive: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

McMahon Asks US Colleges to Pledge Campus Reforms by End of 2026

Education Secretary Linda McMahon is sending a letter Monday to the leaders of US universities asking them to commit to a slate of campus reforms by the end of 2026 in the Trump administration’s lates...

bloomberg.com

Scientists have begun to re-deploy ocean monitoring equipment yanked from Pacific Northwest waters by the Trump administration (as my @kuow.org reporting exposed) in September. www.kuow.org/environment/...

Northwest’s yanked ocean observatories start to return to sea

Scientists have begun to re-deploy ocean monitoring equipment yanked from Pacific Northwest waters by the Trump administration in September.

kuow.org

arXiv has spun out as an independent non-profit like openRxiv. Today they announce their new CEO and founding Board blog.arxiv.org/2026/07/30/a...

arXiv welcomes inaugural CEO and founding Board of Directors

arXiv welcomes inaugural CEO and founding Board of Directors

blog.arxiv.org

Spin qubits, which have lagged as candidates for the nuts and bolts of quantum computers, limited in number and quality, have made striking progress in the last year. But the specter of science funding trouble is here, too. My reporting:

Underdog ‘spin qubits’ leap forward in race to a useful quantum computer

Four independent research teams report big advances in devices built with the underestimated quantum bits, including lower error rates.

nature.com

Applied research typically takes precedence in these discussions, so it's nice to see something like the Higgs discovery foregrounded.

ProPublica@propublica.org · last wk.

NEW: A proposed White House rule would give political appointees unprecedented control over scientific funding. One physicist, who helped discover the Higgs boson, the so-called “God particle,” explains how the move would’ve stifled that breakthrough:

White House science policy captured headlines this week, with the announcement of awards for its flagship AI program, Congressional hearings, and a Vannevar Bush-esque report "Science: A New Golden Age." We fashioned the news into one big story—incl. key updates at NSF. Reported w/ Kaia Glickman:

White House rolls out AI funding — and signals a new era for US science

Chief US science adviser calls for a shakeup in funding while handing out grants to accelerate research with AI.

nature.com

Unfortunately for Ryan, this isn't going to get a ton of attention because it's not rage bait. Clear-eyed reporting on what the report says and what it can actually do.

Ryan Quinn@ryanequinn.bsky.social · 2w ago

Here's my attempt to write a non-histrionic story about the new White House Office of Science and Technology Policy report, and what it does and doesn't say, and what remains unclear (a lot): www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

"For example, in the 2022–23 and 2023–24 academic years, more than 95% of international physics and astronomy PhD students in the United States took longer than four years to complete their programmes."

International PhD students to face strict limits on time in the US

Trump administration takes action to address ‘forever students’.

nature.com

Extremely rare to see a story this fraught reported this well.

Science Magazine@science.org · 2w ago

Exclusive: A cutting-edge gene-editing trial in China went disastrously wrong. A family wants accountability. https://scim.ag/3RuHuDB

Here's the link to the House Science hearing, which should start at 10:15 a.m. ET

"Examining the Priorities of the FY2027 Research and Technology Enterprise"

YouTube video by House Science, Space, and Technology Committee

youtu.be

Dan Garisto@dangaristo.bsky.social · 2w ago

Ahead of a hearing before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee tomorrow, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has released a 120-pg report, "Science: A New Golden Age" www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u... Here's the summary from the press release:

So the Genesis Mission announcement is being livestreamed but the audio is going between 'underwater' and 'ear-piercing static'. Good luck and don't wear headphones.

Genesis Mission Annual Summit

YouTube video by ORISE Peer Review

youtu.be

Some interesting proposals here about reshaping federal agencies, but this is... a pretty wild suggestion in the year 2026. Making every federal employee at-will, with the limitation of 5%/year means political appointees could fire 100,000 people each year with complete impunity.

Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li@sjshancoxli.liberalcurrents.com · 2w ago

so i think as we try to reconstruct a functional mass politics for the 21st century, we need to both be honest about mass politics as it was, and realistic about what the social conditions of today make possible and rule out nostalgia is not a plan.

Ahead of a hearing before the House Science, Space and Technology Committee tomorrow, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has released a 120-pg report, "Science: A New Golden Age" www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u... Here's the summary from the press release:

the most realistic scene in Jurassic Park is when two scientists make a questionable decision — traveling to an undisclosed location with a strange man — on the promise of three years of modest funding

NSF grantmaking update Three weeks ago (6/28) New grants: 1835/5202 — 35.3% of avg. Obligations: 1.9/3.08 billion — 61.6% of avg. Now (7/20) New grants: 2850/6,397 — 44.6% of avg. Obligations: 3/4.04 billion — 74.3% of avg. Data from grant-witness.us/funding_curv...

On Wednesday, Munster will make his initial appearance before a judge over charges related to allegedly smuggling non-infectious MPXV without declaring it. The case has become a cause célèbre for Republican politicians and activists who have been targeted virologists for years. My reporting:

Smuggling charges against NIH virologists trigger political uproar

Other researchers say that non-infectious viral samples in luggage posed no risk, but might have violated import rules.

nature.com

"As of Friday afternoon, more than 70 projects that had won an estimated $185 million in funding commitments had received these 'nonaward' ... That’s roughly half of all the active grants AHRQ had listed this week."

Trump administration ends dozens of grants for studying patient care

“Nonaward” notices discontinue grants from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality whose annual funds had been stalled

science.org

I wrote about the game

Ode to Spain, Our Competent Kings of the World Cup

Spain’s style may be dull, but their logistical excellence is strangely inspiring

theringer.com

Last week the NSF introduced a new policy that would prohibit collaboration with 'restricted entities'—including numerous top universities in China. At a hearing Wednesday, House Republicans pushed NIH and DOE to adopt similar measures. My reporting on the hearing and research security, broadly:

US politicians push agencies to restrict research collaboration with China

Republicans and Democrats worry about research theft and exploitation — but don’t agree on how to solve the problem.

nature.com

"They couldn't find 'em. They weren't in the chip-making business, I guess, right?" A little incredible for him to pick semiconductors, of all things, given Lynn Conway's contributions to the field.

Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 3w ago

Trump on the CHIPS Act: "If you weren't transgender, you didn't qualify. So they'd get the money, they'd look all over for transgender people to run the company."

...I should not have scheduled a work call for 4 p.m.

The House Select Committee on China is holding a hearing on research security with DOE/NSF/NIH witnesses at 10 a.m. I'll try to follow along and liveblog it here.

Protecting American Innovation: The Federal Research Security Enterprise

YouTube video by The Select Committee on China

youtu.be

Comments on the OMB rule close tonight and MIT has submitted a 6-pg note, arguing it "would substitute political views for scientific judgment, short-term alignment for long-term stability, and insularity for the openness that has been a source of American strength." web.mit.edu/files/MIT-co...

Pre-2023 scientific data equivalent to low-background steel… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-bac...

Alexander Lees@alexanderlees.bsky.social · 3w ago

Our new commentary rdcu.be/ftx6h in @natecoevo.nature.com written with folks from @inaturalist.bsky.social and @cornellbirds.bsky.social shows that use of AI to manipulate existing or create new wildlife images undermines the huge value of vast citizen science databases. 🌍🪰🪶 #Ornithology 🧵 1/10

The Ebola outbreak in the DRC keeps growing at a shocking pace. We're already close to 2000 confirmed cases. Right now: 1926 confirmed cases (incl. 53 new cases in the last 24 hours) 702 of these have died insp.cd/sitrep-n058-...

Admittedly, this does make the OMB inference at NSF and other federal agencies look a little quaint. www.nytimes.com/2026/07/11/u...

New: The National Science Foundation is preparing to claw back some $500 million in funds from some of its core science programs in physics, math, computer science, and engineering in order to fund a project from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

NSF plans cuts to core science programmes to fund White House initiative

A proposed clawback of already distributed research funds comes as the US agency’s budget is already squeezed and it struggling to clear a backlog of grant applications.

nature.com

Collins: “[M]id-award termination of Federal awards ... would inject uncertainty into the Federal award process ... This uncertainty could disincentivize scientific researchers and institutions from seeking the Federal financial assistance they need to participate in multi-year, lifesaving trials."

Sen. Collins Asks OMB to Withdraw Parts of Grant Rule, Extend Comment Period | United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

United States Senate Committee on Appropriations

appropriations.senate.gov