Lauren McPhillips

The taste of early summer ☀️ 🍓

Coal and Gas Plants Were Closing. Then Trump Ordered Them to Keep Running.

"The grid operators in MI and PA said they hadn’t asked for the orders and hadn’t planned on using the plants this summer.

The costs to keep the plants open, which could total TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, ARE EXPECTED TO FALL ON CONSUMERS."

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/c...

Skilled immigration on the chopping block? Effects of eliminating "Optional Practical Training" in the US The White House has taken numerous steps to sharply reduce the number of immigrant workers, with or without legal status, in the US economy. These policies, so far, typically target immigrants with le...

They're terminating OPT.

Today the nominee to head USCIS stated directly: he will end Optional Practical Training, the single largest channel for high-skill immigrants to work in the US.

6 weeks ago I warned about this & summarized the research on impacts of this drastic action—> @piie.com

Media Library | Integration and Application Network The IAN symbol libraries currently contain 3075 custom made vector symbols designed specifically for enhancing science communication products with diagrammatic representations of complex processes. Yo...

Just a plug that the UMD Integration and Application Network (IAN) has some absolutely stellar scientific graphics- mostly Chesapeake Bay watershed & enviro sci related, but also lots of other work beyond as well ian.umces.edu/media-librar...

On a day when all research grants at Harvard were terminated, and in a context where Congress seems to broadly accept the notion that destroying science and health research in the US is fine, it’s worth noting that this is not what the public wants.

Exclusive: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.

Nature reports that the National Science Foundation has stopped awarding new grants and allotting funds to existing ones. All of them. @colincarlson.bsky.social says that unless the freeze is lifted, it “is going to destroy people's labs.” 2/10
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Nice, that was my guess with the old barn. Cool!

Where do you set these up?

🚨 Another major round of #NSF terminations today 😞. Please report and encourage your colleagues to as well! We need this info to shed light on the damage caused, and to organize and advocate for science that includes and benefits all. airtable.com/appGKlSVeXni... 🧪

Buy books. But not from Amazon. Buy them from Bookshop.org, the independent site. This move by Amazon is shameful.

Here is a link to my book on Bookshop.org.

bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

Exclusive: ‘I have done all I can’: NSF director announces he is resigning Sethuraman Panchanathan, a Trump appointee who has led the agency since 2020, leaves amid mass firings and grant terminations

Exclusive: The director of the National Science Foundation announced his resignation today, 16 months before his 6-year term ends, in a letter to staff obtained by Science. scim.ag/42vc3fn

Yes we have used several MX water level loggers in catch basins/ storm sewer pipes a few years ago where we wanted to download data w/o removing each time. The Bluetooth feature was great!

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Makes America’s Showers Great Again UNDOING THE LEFT’S WAR ON WATER PRESSURE: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to end the Obama-Biden war on water pressure and make

You know I’ve liked paying less for water and am still enjoying my showers. If the ‘water barely comes out’ you might have a plumbing problem www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/...

Maybe Don’t Take for Granted That You’ll Be Able to Vote in the Midterms The SAVE Act is a direct attack on women’s voting rights.

Indeed.

graph of grey and green infrastructure showing increase of green infra in 2017 and then decrease, while increase in grey infra since 2018

Intriguing trends in grey vs green stormwater infra strategies in the new ASCE infra report card. "Although green infrastructure is critical in addressing localized drainage and water quality, these systems cannot provide sufficient capacity to manage large-scale stormwater events."

Penn State is hosting the regional American Soc of Civil Engineers Student Symposium. Day 1 is in the books! So much energy and creativity in these student competitions ❤️

🤣

My son thought this was very cool :)

Awesome, good luck to them! Also, a bit funny that PA championships seem to be at WVU :)

Happy vernal equinox! Every year I am amazed again at nature's rebirth, the ability of plants to push through the depths of soil to grow again 🌱

There is a need to develop common performance standards for large-scale NBS and for guidance on which measures are key to consider for flood mitigation and co-benefits. Success of NBS for fluvial flood mitigation depends on research and practice guided by transdisciplinary systems thinking.

While we find that NBS can mitigate fluvial floods, our study also highlights that inconsistencies in methods, a dearth of empirical studies, and variability in reported values limit generalization and comparison across NBS. Co-benefits are numerous, but few are quantified.

Scaling Nature‐Based Solutions for Fluvial Floods: A Worldwide Systematic Review Studying nature-based solutions ability to mitigate fluvial floods and provide co-benefits by systematically reviewing 131 papers, with 1076 case studies, and grouping them based on Ecosystem Focus T....

New review paper out on fluvial flood reduction 🌊 from nature-based solutions (NBS) 🏞 🌳led by Marina Howarth w/ Alfonso Mejía & @drericasmithwick.bsky.social

#flooding #ecosystemservices #naturebasedsolutions

wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Same 😫

E.P.A. Targets Dozens of Environmental Rules as It Reframes Its Purpose Lee Zeldin, the E.P.A. administrator, said the agency’s mission was to make it cheaper to buy cars, heat homes and run businesses.

No, the mission of the EPA should not be "to make it cheaper to buy cars, heat homes and run businesses." ...unless we're actually achieving the triple bottom line (planet, people, & profit) www.nytimes.com/2025/03/12/c...

USGS Faces Potential Office Closures At least 30 USGS buildings appear to be on the Trump administration’s chopping block.

The USGS plays a critical role in monitoring rivers nationally. As scientists we rely on the data to understand, for example, how streams that had historic flooding during Hurricane Helene are recovering (& the people who rely on them). Ask your reps to keep them open! ww2.aip.org/fyi/usgs-fac...

“This communicative aspect, now embodied in the science communication movement, must become a formal technical frontier of the scientific enterprise, and not patronizingly summarized as ‘outreach’ or ‘activism.’”

Standing up for science is a family affair today

We are #StandUpForScience2025

EPA Press Office Fact Checks the Washington Post’s Coverage of Waste & Abuse of Taxpayer Dollars | US EPA EPA News Release: EPA Press Office Fact Checks the Washington Post’s Coverage of Waste & Abuse of Taxpayer Dollars

Is this the Onion? 🤯 www.epa.gov/newsreleases...