Mary Merrill

I feel this so deeply.

"106,636 years of federal work experience were lost across the 10,109 employees with Ph.D.s who departed STEM or health roles 1 January–30 November."

It isn't just the scientific knowledge but the *institutional* knowledge that's been lost. Rebuilding federal science will be a generational effort.

Tree mostly obscuring the view of a bunch of college kids in the snowy street, ready to help motorists, in Columbus Ohio

Feels like society’s really broken down in the US in a way that’s deeply traumatic.

But also there are college students knocking on doors asking for shovels (they’re not well-prepared) and helping trapped motorists by shoveling and pushing out cars. Up to 24 of them now, wandering streets together

E.P.A. to Stop Considering Lives Saved When Setting Rules on Air Pollution

I mean, what do you say any more?

I've watched thousands of videos from the Jan. 6 riot as part of NPR's reporting and archive project on that day.

Here are some of the lesser known videos that have really stuck with me.

🧵

“This irresponsible and purposely misleading guidance will lead to more hepatitis B infections in infants and children.” Read our full statement by AAP President Dr. Susan J. Kressly:
www.aap.org/en/news-room...

Qiyam Ansari tenderly holds an inhaler attached to a face mask to the face of a fluffy black cat.

Qiyam Ansari has asthma — an attack nearly killed him — and even his cat suffers from it. Their region is notorious for its air pollution.

Trump has halted rules that would have forced companies to more accurately measure and reduce emissions in such areas.

🔗 Full story: https://propub.li/4hDtkcb

More Than 170 U.S. Citizens Have Been Held by Immigration Agents. They’ve Been Kicked, Dragged and Detained for Days. The government does not track how often immigration agents grab citizens. So ProPublica did. Our tally — almost certainly incomplete — includes people who were held for days without a lawyer. And near...

Americans have been dragged, tackled, beaten, tased and shot by immigration agents.

They’ve had their necks kneeled on.

They’ve been held outside in the rain while in their underwear.

At least three citizens were pregnant when agents detained them.

Toxic Wastewater From Oil Fields Keeps Pouring Out of the Ground. Oklahoma Regulators Failed to Stop It. Salt water laced with cancer-causing chemicals, a byproduct of oil and gas drilling, is spewing from old wells. Experts warn of a pollution crisis spreading underground and threatening Oklahoma’s drinking water.

NEW: Salt water laced with cancer-causing chemicals, a byproduct of oil and gas drilling, keeps shooting out of the ground in Oklahoma.

Experts say it means even more wastewater is spreading underground, poisoning the state’s water supply.

US citizen, 67, ‘has six ribs broken’ by Border Patrol agents, his running club says The incident unfolded Saturday in Chicago’s Old Irving Park neighborhood, where residents say federal agents disrupted a children’s Halloween parade

"According to his running club, the man, who is a U.S. citizen, was returning from a team run when agents pulled him out of his vehicle, tackled him to the ground and kneeled on top of him, allegedly breaking six ribs and causing internal bleeding"

‘Change course now’: humanity has missed 1.5C climate target, says UN head Exclusive: ‘Devastating consequences’ now inevitable but emissions cuts still vital, says António Guterres in sole interview before Cop30

This is the news I've dreaded all my life, and it's here: Humanity has failed to avoid dangerous climate change.

We have now entered the overshoot era.

Our new goal is to prevent as many irreversible tipping points from taking hold as we can.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Cannot express enough appreciation for the teams *flying through a hurricane* while not being paid.

Furloughed feds pick up Seattle beach trash to keep serving the public Furloughed federal employees were out in the rain picking up cigarette butts, bottle caps, and other trash at Seattle’s Golden Gardens Park on Friday.

Here in Seattle, furloughed NOAA employees were out in the pouring rain cleaning up beaches yesterday, part of a national week of service organized by federal workers who can't do their jobs due to the shutdown.

Story by @heyjohnryan.bsky.social at KUOW, our federally defunded public radio station.

Trump slashed funding for universities that helped create these vital drugs Medications that prevent HIV, shrink tumors and treat seizures were invented with government funding. At research universities, that money is now canceled or in jeopardy.

The Trump administration has frozen billions in research grants to universities it accuses of bias unrelated to the research, jeopardizing the development of new medications that could prove lifesaving or life-changing.

Graph of polio cases and death rates from 1910 to present. Very high cases of 10-37 per 100,000 population per year, but they literally drop to zero after the polio vaccine became available in the late 1950s.

Picture of 30 or 40 people in "iron lungs" after succumbing to polio.

The graph shows what happened when the polio vaccine became available. Deaths and illness stopped. People begged to get it when it became available.

Reversing this is what Florida just announced it intends to do.

The health burden and racial-ethnic disparities of air pollution from the major oil and gas lifecycle stages in the United States Largest total population health burden is from O&G end-use, but greatest relative disparities are linked to downstream activities.

New study shows health damage in US from oil & gas emissions, 90,000 premature deaths nationally, with California, New York, and Texas suffering the most.
@doreenharris.bsky.social
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

If you burn down a forest, you don't miss out on lumber for just that season. You have to replant all the trees, nurture them, and wait for them to grow.

The science and research budget cuts happening now are wanton, senseless arson. Recovery, if it ever happens, will take generations.

I've seen folks talk about how "in four years" they'll be able to get back to their planned projects and I really don't think that's going to work out. People & projects losing funding now will not be able to hit pause and come back once funding is restored. Hard-won progress & capacity will be lost

A small cunner (Tautogolabrus adspersus) peers through strands of sugar kelp (Saccharina latissima) in a lush kelp forest ecosystem on Cashes Ledge in the Gulf of Maine.

Kelp forests on the coast of Maine are in decline owing to rapid ocean warming and are being replaced by turf algae, which alter the ecosystem’s chemistry, hindering the recovery of kelp forests.

Learn more in this week's issue of Science: scim.ag/4dwzl8j

Be Tenacious on Behalf of Life on Earth My 2023 commencement speech 🎓 at Middlebury College

In the spirit of graduation season, sharing the commencement speech I gave at Middlebury College in 2023. It’s a message I stand by 2 years later.

Go where there is need and where your heart can find a home.
Be tenacious on behalf of life on Earth.
ayanaelizabeth.substack.com/p/be-tenacio...

Texas Won’t Study How Its Abortion Ban Impacts Women, So We Did Since Texas banned abortion, no one has studied the statewide effects on pregnant women experiencing complications. Here’s how we sifted through data on millions of pregnancy hospitalizations and…

Earlier this year, ProPublica found that the sepsis rate in second-trimester pregnancy loss hospitalizations increased by more than 50% under Texas’ abortion ban.

Here’s how we did our analysis.
(Published Feb.)

Trump Administration Cancels $1 Billion in Grants for Student Mental Health Congress authorized the money in a bipartisan breakthrough around addressing gun violence after a shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, killed 19 children and two teachers.

The Trump administration halted $1 billion for mental health services for children, saying that the programs funded by a bipartisan law aimed at stemming gun violence in schools were no longer in “the best interest of the federal government.”

Trump has cut the part of the FDA that notifies doctors and the public when there is a safety problem with a drug or a medical device.

www.politico.com/news/2025/04...

New research 🏭📈:

Bitcoin mines in the U.S. used more electricity in 2022 than all of Los Angeles combined.

But who breathed the air pollution from generating all that electricity?

Our answer: mostly people in New York City, Houston / Austin, NE Texas, and IL / KY border.

Check it out:

🧵 1/n

A natural experiment on the effect of herpes zoster vaccination on dementia - Nature Using a natural experiment that avoids common bias concerns, this study finds that the live-attenuated shingles vaccine reduced the probability of a new dementia diagnosis within a follow-up period of...

The vaccine against Shingles helps protect against dementia, results of a natural experiment, adding to prior evidence
"implications are profound"
New @nature.com
www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com/articles/s41...

How to delete genetic data from 23andMe • Log into your 23andMe account. • Go to your Profile, then tap Settings. • Scroll to the "23andMe Data" section at the bottom of the page and click View. • If you want to download your data, select what you want. • Scroll to the "Delete Data" section and click Permanently Delete Data. • Confirm your request: You'll receive an email from 23andMe, and click the link in the email to confirm.

23andMe declared bankruptcy and the company is gonna be sold off for parts. That includes your DNA information and the only amount of control you have is to delete your info immediately. It’s very simple to do.

Gift link: wapo.st/4kUsBEF

As Ebola Spreads in Uganda, Trump Aid Freeze Hinders Effort to Contain It, U.S. Officials Fear Two more people are reported dead from the disease, and dozens are in isolation, as the outbreak grows.

President Trump’s freeze on international aid has hampered Uganda’s ability to respond to an Ebola outbreak, U.S. officials said in private.

How extreme car dependency is driving Americans to unhappiness A car is often essential in the US but while owning a vehicle is better than not for life satisfaction, a study has found, having to drive too much sends happiness plummeting

“…this extreme car dependence is affecting Americans’ quality of life, with a new study finding there is a tipping point at which more driving leads to deeper unhappiness…having to drive for more than 50% of the time for out-of-home activities is linked to a decrease in life satisfaction.”

What would NIH funding cuts mean for Alabama? 5 things to know NIH grants support medical institutions and research across the state.

This is what local news orgs should be doing now:

"In 2024, the Univ. of Alabama was in the top 1% of NIH-funded institutions.
The university, Alabama’s largest public employer, has received more than $1 billion in NIH funding.
NIH grants in Alabama supported 4,769 jobs"
www.al.com/news/2025/02...