Nigel Goldenfeld

Federal funding for US biomedical research is moribund.

Since October 1 2025, NIH is -80% in new grants and -70% in values (total dollars).

Labs are closing down and researchers are leaving science.

To what end?

Line graph of the number new and competitive renewal grants funded by NIH in fiscal year 2026 through February 20, compared to fiscal years 2020-2025. The fiscal year 2026 is well below the other curves.

New and Competitive Renewals

Only 803 grants have been made compared to ~2650 in fiscal years 2023 and 2024 through February 20.

All institutes and centers (include OD now) have made awards except NIAAA, NLM, NCCIH, and FIC.

3/4

The FBI Director, everyone. You paid for it.

“Then they came for the economists”

E.P.A. Weakens Limits on Mercury From Coal Plants

sooooooo
Mercury in vaccines = 🤬
Mercury everywhere else = 😀👍????

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/20/c...

Evolution of error correction through a need for speed Kinetic proofreading is a class of error-correcting mechanisms in biology that expend energy to avoid mistakes during replication, transcription, and translation. Proofreading is typically assumed to ...

@science.org Evolution of error correction through a need for speed | Science #evolution 🧬🔬 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Tagging @takumimatz.bsky.social this time!

Huge thanks to Takumi Matsuzawa and William Irvine who built and performed the experiments and @minhui-zhu.bsky.social who worked with me on theory! An amazing collaboration.

... because the excitations scatter of the cores of quantum vortex lines, transferring momentum between the two fluid components. Thus, by observing quantum vortex lines, we could in effect measure the vorticity in a highly turbulent fluid. Our superfluid wind tunnel was only a few inches long!

We discovered then that vorticity decayed in time as w ~ t^{-3/2}, which is exactly what you would expect in a classical fluid. But superfluid helium is a quantum fluid composed of a Bose condensate and thermal excitations (ie 2-fluid model). When turbulent, the two fluids get coupled together ...

Screenshot of PRL 71, 2583 (1993) the first study of decay of superfluid turbulence.

Who cares? Understanding the behaviour of turbulent fronts is important for control & confinement of turbulent fusion plasmas in tokamaks.

I started work on this type of problem 30 years ago with the late Russell Donnelly. We used superfluid helium not water.

journals.aps.org/prl/abstract...

We took high resolution data in space & time, analyzed using novel computational tools & modeled using a nonlinear diffusion equation, due to Kolmogorov and Barenblatt. We found two scaling regimes of energy & enstrophy, as the blob spread, then hit the walls of the box, and eventually decayed.

We used 8 transducers to fire vortex rings into the center of a tank of water, making a turbulent blob. It is like an experiment at the LHC, except with vortex rings. And a lot less $$$.

The blob has *sharp* fronts as it spreads, because the energy diffusion coefficient depends on sqrt{energy}.

Pictured are 3D trajectories of turbulent particles colored by speed, showing two large vortices. Takumi Matsuzawa, Minhui Zhu et al. observed the expansion and decay of a blob of turbulence created in the center of a tank of still water. The results revealed steep fronts separating turbulent and undisturbed regions, the nonlinear transport and decay of the turbulent blob, and a persistent signature of turbulence late into the decay process. According to the authors, the analysis could help provide insight into processes ranging from star formation to fusion reactors. See the article by Matsuzawa, Zhu et al. e2526858123. Image credit: Takumi Matsuzawa.

🧪⚛️ Ever wondered what would happen if you thrashed around in a water tank, creating a blob of turbulence, and then watched it spread and gradually dissipate energy?

So did we. But we did the experiment, now out in PNAS and on the cover! It only took us 7 years ...

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

ICE-Cold Cash: Private Prison Companies and Executives Have Donated Millions to Members of Congress Find out if your representatives have taken cash from the companies fueling ICE’s mass deportation efforts.

#CoreCivic donates to politicians, by far the majority being to Republicans, as described here:

inthesetimes.com/article/ice-...

"It appears their investments have paid off....In 2025, ... CoreCivic​’s ICE contracts are expected to generate over one billion dollars in revenue."

Exclusive: Detention Center Captives Are Throwing Lotion Bottles Wrapped With Notes to Organizers Outside Otay Mesa Facility ~ L.A. TACO “For 280 days we haven’t eaten a single piece of fruit, banana, apple, orange, or anything fresh," an Otay Mesa captive communicated through handwritten note. "We are all in one big room with no doors...

Your tax dollars at work. Over at Otay Mesa Detention Center, run by #CoreCivic for profit, massive human rights abuses, see here:

lataco.com/captive-loti...

#SanDiego County is following up:
timesofsandiego.com/politics/202...

as are some local politicians
www.kpbs.org/news/border-...

‘I was never an activist’: The San Diegans signing up to watch ICE Community patrol groups that monitor neighborhoods for immigration enforcement are seeing a swell of interest from new volunteers.

Thx @sandiegouniontribune.com for 2 articles relevant to rumors that #ICE is ramping up activities in #SanDiego & Southern CA.

www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/02/15/i...

==> how you can sign up to watch ICE

www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/02/15/k...

==> know your risks and rights

Democracy is when voters choose their leaders. Autocracy is when leaders choose their voters.

Not only did they murder hundreds of thousands of people. They also stole the money.

Scientists thought they understood global warming. Then the past three years happened. The fastest warming period since 1880 occurred in the past 30 years, according to a Washington Post analysis of NASA data.

Gift article from WaPo: how Earth's warming is accelerating.

Meanwhile we are repealing the EPA Endangerment Finding today ... and the editorials for WaPo applaud this move. Do they read their own paper?. (No I'm not gifting this dreck www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...)

wapo.st/3MqvwbC

“What we have right now is an invading army,” he said. “What they’ve done is they’ve trampled on the Constitution and the rights of the people. Now they’ve even murdered people. So now, we just can’t say OK, everything’s fine, we’re just going to give you less money.

#ice

San Diego judge orders 3 deported families returned, finds ICE used ‘lies, deception, coercion’ The families were legally paroled into U.S. and protected by a settlement agreement in the family separate case.

San Diego judge orders 3 deported families returned, finds ICE used ‘lies, deception, coercion’

www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2026/02/06/s...

I'm speechless ...

If you wish to know more about the post I'm quote-posting, and are in the #SanDiego area, here is an account by a local journalist.

I've heard that #ice activity in San Diego has increased in the last few days.

obrag.org/2026/01/week...

🧪

Important thread below by @joshuasweitz.bsky.social and worth reading all the way through!

Top of the photo in white text reads: "BREAKING OVER 680 NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES MEMBERS, INCLUDING 10 NOBEL PRIZE LAUREATES, ENDORSE IMPEACHING RFK JR." Below that in black text is a statement reading: "We, the undersigned Members of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Engineering, writing in our private capacities, endorse the Articles of Impeachment introduced in the House of Representatives on Dec 10, 2025 by Representative Haley Stevens." Below that is the red "STAND UP FOR SCIENCE " logo. Below that is a link in white text reading: "standupforscience.net/impeach-rfkjr".

BREAKING: Over 680 members of the National Academy of Sciences, Medicine, and Engineering have endorsed articles of impeachment against RFK Jr.
(1/2 🧵)

The biweekly newsletter of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Record that discusses recent research advances, charts NIH’s progress and highlights staff members published its last issue today after 76 years [link]

TAT: [Attacking Science | Controlling Information | Hollowing State]

Tell Your Members of Congress to rein in ICE NOW On January 24, federal forces with the Department of Homeland Security killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. This was just over two weeks after the killing of Renee Nicole Good. These killings are a dire...

There's a CR to fund ICE and DHS for 2 weeks while a budget deal is done. Democrats have an opportunity -- and a moral duty to condition their votes to pass a budget on real, ironclad restrictions on ICE and CBP.

Tell Your Members of Congress to rein in ICE NOW act.indivisible.org/sign/ice-out...

Tell the Senate: Not a penny more for ICE brutality | Indivisible

The DHS funding bill can’t pass the Senate without Democratic votes.

Our senators can’t vote to give Trump’s secret police more money to kill innocent people, terrorize our communities, and violate our rights.

Demand that your senators vote later this week to rein in ICE and CBP death squads.