Fieldwork Fridays are the best Fridays!!

Head of NASA Sean Duffy intends to destroy a satellite that collects key data on carbon dioxide and plant health, by causing it to burn up in the atmosphere. The U.S. Dept of Agriculture and private agriculture firms use the data to forecast crop yield, drought conditions and more.

Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose

The Trump administration has asked NASA staffers to draw up plans to end at least two satellite missions that measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to current and former NASA employees.

npr.org

Asparaguuus. As-par-a-gus.

The GRFP was already brutally competitive and underfunded given the talent applying. To me, this is a clear snapshot of the reality we face, as we try to play the game without acknowledging how much the game has changed.

Dr. David Miller 🏳️‍🌈@davidimiller.bsky.social · last yr.

🚨 Not a drill: NSF GRFP results are NOW OUT!!!!! But...good news and bad news. 👍 I'm *thrilled* for the grad students for whom getting this award will be life-changing, esp now. 👎 # of fellowships went down by 51% (1000 this year vs. 2036 last year) See here: www.research.gov/grfp/Awardee...

My company Silvec may have developed a treatment for Citrus Greening, a disease decimating citrus trees worldwide. Field trials supposed to start this year but funded USDA grant being held up. Who benefits from this? Not terminal Florida citrus industry. When is this madness going to end?

JD Vance is so nauseatingly unlikeable that he’s literally dragging down the AfD’s approval rating

The root that tears apart your foundation begins as a seed of distrust, hate, and blame. The seed that grew into a dictatorship in Europe didn’t arrive overnight. It started with everyday Germans mad about inflation and looking for someone to blame.

Vance visiting Dachau and then meeting w the AfD and urging German politicians to welcome them into government is a "gotta hear both sides" for the ages.

Taniel@taniel.bsky.social · last yr.

meanwhile, in the foreign affairs department (www.nytimes.com/2025/02/15/w...)

Just a reminder that Germany was the center of scientific progress until the Nazis suppressed, drove away, or killed all the non-Nazi scientists.

“This isn’t just hippie-dippy stuff,” said Aaron Pape, who raises cattle, pigs and poultry on 300 acres in Wisconsin. “This is affecting mainstream farmers.”

Trump’s Funding Freezes Bruise a Core Constituency: Farmers

A rapid-fire array of directives by the Trump administration have left farmers and businesses in rural America reeling.

nytimes.com

Many people from the #USDA were terminated yesterday/today. A place where agricultural research is done to support agricultural production. Scientists, research assistants, custodians. This is unacceptable. #PlantPathology #PlantScience #USDA-ARS #AttackOnScience

Good people doing good work in communities around the country are being fired randomly. These people were hired in competitive searches to do important jobs. The stupidity of this is astronomical.

Congratulations to Naomi Huntley and Samantha Seibel, the selected participants for the 2025 summer internship program with @qiagen.bsky.social ! 🎉🥼🇩🇪

Please RT Housing policies in the US (eg redlining) made it more difficult for Black Americans to generate wealth through home ownership. This has bothered me. I ran across a curated list of GoFundMe accounts for Black homeowners who lost their homes in the LA fires docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Displaced Black Families GoFund Me Directory

docs.google.com

New Glassman lab paper led by my former PhD student Fabi! Some of you may remember the Stirling Ultracold freezer saga of 2020. Well, we made lemonade out of lemons! If this happens to you don’t rush to throw everything away. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

Not all is lost: resilience of microbiome samples to freezer failures and long-term storage | mSphere

Microbiome studies heavily rely on ultracold freezers for sample storage. Unfortunately, these freezers are prone to frequent malfunctions, resulting in the loss of invaluable samples at laboratories worldwide. Such losses can halt research progress due ...

journals.asm.org

The #2 most viewed article belongs to Penn State students and their lessons learned as #summerinterns. The article features OHMC graduate students Ashley Ohstrom and @jamiespychalla.bsky.social and their experiences as interns at @qiagen.bsky.social! 🔗Read it here: www.psu.edu/news/academi...

In photos: Internships prepare students for career success | Penn State University

Baking in the test kitchens at The Hershey Company. Studying the effects of space weather on satellite communication with NASA. Working on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., as a congressional intern. ...

psu.edu

Pinning the EcoEvo job board so I’ll no longer have a reason to revisit the blue bird website. 🚨📌 docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

ecoevojobs.net 2024-25

docs.google.com