I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding. It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

Medical Research Funding — Unbreaking

How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.

unbreaking.org

Hi! We just released three new pages. First up, we break down the devastating defunding of medical research in the US, including grant terminations and delays representing nearly $5B in funding losses, cuts to future funding, and attacks on training programs: unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

Medical Research Funding — Unbreaking

How the administration is breaking the government, and what that means for all of us.

unbreaking.org

👋 Hi, we’re Unbreaking, a volunteer-run collective working to document our current moment of institutional collapse and its human costs—as well as the pushback and resilience work already underway. We believe this is critical work for building and retaining political agency.

I can’t recommend this enough. UNBREAKING, a new project from @lizneeley.bsky.social & co, documents & explains our many concurrent institutional collapses. It’s beautifully executed work, full of intellectual & moral clarity. 3 pages are live, more will come. It’s SO GOOD, & I learned so much.

Unbreaking@unbreaking.org · last yr.

👋 Hi, we’re Unbreaking, a volunteer-run collective working to document our current moment of institutional collapse and its human costs—as well as the pushback and resilience work already underway. We believe this is critical work for building and retaining political agency.

Genuinely delighted that @unbreaking.org is now doing our work in public. I cannot tell you what it means to be a part of it, or how much its already helped me. If my Meeting the Moment newsletter has helped you, Unbreaking is going to bowl you over. So much more ambitious and helpful. Join us!

Unbreaking@unbreaking.org · last yr.

👋 Hi, we’re Unbreaking, a volunteer-run collective working to document our current moment of institutional collapse and its human costs—as well as the pushback and resilience work already underway. We believe this is critical work for building and retaining political agency.

AN IMMENSE WORLD: YOUNG READERS EDITION is out today! 🥳 I’m really grateful to AnnMarie Anderson for adapting it, Rebecca Mills for illustrating, Tom Russell for shepherding, and Rose Eveleth for reading the audiobook. (And it’s dedicated to Typo.) bookshop.org/p/books/an-i...

An Immense World (Young Readers Edition): How Animals Sense Earth's Amazing Secrets

How Animals Sense Earth's Amazing Secrets

bookshop.org

👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

chris xu@chrysaora.bsky.social · last yr.

Every week @lizneeley.bsky.social’s newsletter manages to pull coherence & moral clarity out of the wreckage of the news around science and higher ed. This week it feels particularly impressive (and more critical than ever!) to have pulled off. buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Encouraging news I would've missed if it weren't for Liz's weekly update: "The Rutgers University Senate passed a resolution proposing a Mutual Defense Compact in which members of the Big Ten conference will pool funding and legal, policy, and communications capacity and expertise." More of this!

Liz Neeley@lizneeley.bsky.social · last yr.

I flew home from #SciTalk25 last night, so this week’s Meeting the Moment debrief was written at altitude, while I watched lightning pulse in thunderclouds. What’s happening in science & higher ed: buttondown.com/liminalcreat... Thread to come after some much needed coffee and hiking.

I flew home from #SciTalk25 last night, so this week’s Meeting the Moment debrief was written at altitude, while I watched lightning pulse in thunderclouds. What’s happening in science & higher ed: buttondown.com/liminalcreat... Thread to come after some much needed coffee and hiking.

The latest issue of @lizneeley.bsky.social’s essential weekly newsletter on the continuing attacks on science & higher-ed, and living through these times: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Week 10

Figuring out what to focus on now & what next in science and higher ed

buttondown.com

I’ve had a several dozen requests to write or be interviewed about the 5th anniversary of Covid and said no to all of them… except this one with @alexis-madrigal.bsky.social. Here’s our chat on the things we’ve memory-holed, and where we go from here. www.kqed.org/forum/201010...

Ed Yong on the Pandemic’s Legacy on Science Research and Reporting | KQED

As part of our series looking at the legacy of the pandemic five years on, we talk to Ed Yong about how COVID changed our relationship with health news, reporting and research.

kqed.org

Modern science is international. Travel is essential for training & collaboration, but the US is not reliably safe for many of us. We all have ways to confront the threat, even if leadership is failing us. More on that + Dept of Ed in this week's debrief buttondown.com/liminalcreat... (1/5)

Week 9

Figuring out what to focus on now & what to focus on next in science and higher ed

buttondown.com

The World Health Organization calculates that measles vaccinations saved 60 million lives, 2000-2023. On Thursday, CDC scientists were forbidden to co-author papers with WHO colleagues. Other attacks on science + what to do about them in this week's debrief buttondown.com/liminalcreat... (1 of 11)

Week 6

Figuring out what to focus on now & what to focus on next in science and higher ed

buttondown.com

Vermilion flycatcher🪶 📷 Alameda Creek This bird, which is rare for the Bay Area, was spotted in last year's Christmas Bird Count. No one has seen it for 7 weeks, and a lot of folks have looked. And then it just showed up in the same spot 2 days ago.

One last thing I’ll say about this is that judging by people’s messages, the audio version has some stuff not in the edited online transcript, including a discussion of the false tension around empathy in journalism, and a bit about paying attention to sparrows.

Ed Yong@edyong209.bsky.social · last yr.

On the cutting room floor is the bit where the host introduced their interview series, The Interview, and I asked how long it took to come up with the name. Anyway, here’s me talking about birds and science and burnout and moving through the world. The photo’s nice! www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...

This is excellent

Dr. Rebecca Calisi-Rodríguez@rebeccacalisi.bsky.social · last yr.

I emailed university faculty/staff/administrators a roadmap to support DEI through legal challenges, collective resistance, and institutional protections for faculty. The question isn’t whether institutions will comply—it’s who will fight back, and how! greencarelab.ucdavis.edu/how-universi...

Every Friday, I write a debrief about what’s happening in science & higher ed. It goes out late, and is written for all the friends & colleagues I wish I could sit down and talk it through with over drinks. buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Week 5

Figuring out what to focus on now & what to focus on next in science and higher ed

buttondown.com

On the cutting room floor is the bit where the host introduced their interview series, The Interview, and I asked how long it took to come up with the name. Anyway, here’s me talking about birds and science and burnout and moving through the world. The photo’s nice! www.nytimes.com/2025/02/22/m...

‘The Interview’: Ed Yong Wants to Show You the Hidden Reality of the World

The Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer talks about burnout from covering the pandemic and how bird-watching gave him a new sense of hope.

nytimes.com

We do this all to stay focused, not flooded. I share the sense we’ve made in a late Friday night debrief. There is a lot to feel sad & sick about. I can’t tell you things will be okay, but I can tell you A LOT about efforts to make it better. This was week 4. buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Week 4

Figuring out what to focus on now & what to focus on next in science and higher ed

buttondown.com

If you care about science & higher ed in America right now, your world has changed. We have been forced into a battle we didn’t choose. Whatever our titles, our jobs now also includes emergency response, psychological first aid, organizing & many other things we weren’t trained in

Well. I have been informed that it is the weekend, again. When you are ready to sit down together & figure out what just happened and what to do, we’ve got you: buttondown.com/liminalcreat... It’s also okay if you’re coming in hot! “What the actual fuck??” is a sensible start place at the moment.

Week 3

Figuring out what to focus on now & what to focus on next in science and higher ed

buttondown.com

Here’s @lizneeley.bsky.social’s latest newsletter, documenting the ongoing attacks on science and higher ed, and figuring out what to focus on: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Week 3

Figuring out what to focus on now & what to focus on next in science and higher ed

buttondown.com

1/8. This week I had a few different conversations with scholars who, in the face of the attacks on science and institutions of learning in the U.S., are wondering what to do. One suggestion I have is: keep doing your work. It matters in and of itself. Why do I say that? A few reasons.

This is the kind of simple and direct message we need right now: long-term damage aside, this attack is going to very quickly make it even harder for people to have the jobs and medical care they need.

Alondra Nelson@alondra.bsky.social · last yr.

Research universities are often the largest employers in their region. They are often the primary health care providers to communities. This funding shift will not only reduce US research leadership, it will put working people out of work and reduce healthcare access.

"Anyone who has studied science under the Nazis...cannot fail to be dismayed and alarmed at the parallels in the response so far of scientific institutions and academies to the purges and abuses of power following Trump’s executive orders" 🧪 #scicomm www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/scie...

Scientific institutions have a long history of anticipatory obedience

Societies should learn from this and speak up to support inclusion

chemistryworld.com

@lizneeley.bsky.social is publishing a weekly newsletter to track the ongoing attacks in science and higher ed. If you want to keep abreast without drowning in the news, I recommend it: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Making Sense of It All

Hi! I’m Liz Neeley and I’m glad you’re here. Making Sense of It All is an outlet for my work at Liminal, which focuses on sensemaking in a noisy and complicated world. I built Liminal as an antidote t...

buttondown.com

Liz Neeley@lizneeley.bsky.social · 2y ago

The news cycle right now - even just for science & higher ed - is overwhelming. We have to do it, but fortunately, we don’t have to do it alone. My team is focused on tracking what’s happening to research funding, jobs & salaries, shared datasets, university responses & safety of our communities

And finally, this isn’t about exhaustive knowledge about what is happening - it’s about figuring out what to DO. We made an acronym to help us cope each time we feel our adrenaline spike. That & more in this week’s issue: buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Please read, share, subscribe. And if you have bandwidth, please join us - from just sharing links to curating the data to building better the workflows on the tech side - you can meaningfully help us all navigate a poisonous information landscape. DM me or bit.ly/Liminal-slack

Each week, we are collecting, reading, vetting & tagging all the links, news & rumors you’re seeing whiz past you online. We are also talking to dozens of researchers & PIs about their firsthand experiences. Every Friday, I debrief you over a drink at buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Making Sense of It All

Hi! I’m Liz Neeley and I’m glad you’re here. Making Sense of It All is an outlet for my work at Liminal, which focuses on sensemaking in a noisy and complicated world. I built Liminal as an antidote t...

buttondown.com

The news cycle right now - even just for science & higher ed - is overwhelming. We have to do it, but fortunately, we don’t have to do it alone. My team is focused on tracking what’s happening to research funding, jobs & salaries, shared datasets, university responses & safety of our communities