Barbara Thiers

@barbarathiers.bsky.social

I’m a retired botanical collections administrator, but still an active botanist specializing in bryophytes (particularly liverworts). Also still active in the natural history collections community. Other interests are gardening and baking

The Democrats on the House Science Committee have set up a website to collect stories from fired federal employees, anonymously if desired. Please amplify. (This helps the lawyers establish standing for bringing legal cases against the administration!) democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

list of banned keywords

Well the award for most cowardly, boot-lickingest academic society has squarely gone to the American Society of Microbiology, who has taken down features of various non-white scientists. Absolutely pathetic behavior. Those articles are now coming up as “under review”. Truly sickening cowardice here.

It's all gone. They've taken down all the CDC datasets from data.cdc.gov Data that's critical for public health & research. Data paid for by citizens. That the government now censors. "Do not fear those who tell the truth. Fear those who try to hide it. They are willing to sacrifice other things."

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Dr Emma Hodcroft@firefoxx66.bsky.social · 2y ago

I've seen multiple posts about this. If you know of any efforts to archive datasets/articles on CDC website, please let me know, so I can boost, and support with donations if possible. #stopTheScrub #saveCDCData #IstandWithPublicHealth

I have proudly been a scientist my whole life. We are now watching the deliberate destruction of American science at the hands of the corrupt regime. Data is disappearing, young scientists are not getting paid, free speech is crushed. We can fix this, but we don't have much time to undo the harm. 🧪🌏

A diverse group of five scientists in a lab in Borneo, Indonesia. Copyright Tom Kimmerer

One of the stories I will tell: I have maintained these experimental lines of live animals continuously for 10 years. They help us to understand the impacts of climate change in the ocean. They cannot survive for 90 days without care. A pause doesn't mean losing 90 days. It means 10 years.

a clear container containing seawater and marine plankton
Morgan Kelly@invertevoeco.bsky.social · 2y ago

Scientists its time to call congress, but also to tell the truth in every forum you have available to you. It’s hard for people to change their minds, but they are most likely to do so based on stories from someone they trust about how something like the pause on Federal grants affects real people.

I love this so much! At the inauguration, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wore a distinctive collar adorned with cowrie shells, which are believed to offer protection from evil in African traditions. This choice mirrors the late Justice Ginsburg’s practice of using collars to convey a message.

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