Amanda Heidt

Class of 2025: five PhD students reveal realigned priorities in wake of COVID and cuts Scientists who began their doctoral studies in 2020 found their feet during a global pandemic and are graduating into an uncertain and chaotic future.

Tough PhD timing - the cohort that started in 2020 (Covid) and finished by 2025 (waves hands) speaks out about their career high's and low's, how they coped and what they are doing to navigate the chaotic job market. Reporting by @scattercushion.bsky.social.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Bringing men into conversations about parenting in academia A new campaign by the non-profit group Mothers in Science highlights the challenges and experiences that fathers face, providing actionable steps to becoming a better parent and ally.

🧪I've been following the work of @mothersinsci.bsky.social since their first event back in 2020. This week, they've launched a campaign giving fathers space to share their experiences and confront stigma. Read all about it!

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Exhibit A - Spreadsheet – #147, Att. #1 in Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Kennedy, Jr. (D. Mass., 1:25-cv-10814) – CourtListener.com Exhibit A - Spreadsheet

There's a lot of confusion about which NIH grants will be reinstated after Monday's ruling.

Right now, we can say many grants from PIs who were members of either APHA or UAW OR grants at public unis in plaintiff states.

A partial list is available now. We'll update Grant Watch ASAP

How to Grill Meat Safely—According to Science Food microbiologists explain how to ensure different proteins, such as beef, chicken and pork, are prepared safely

🧪This is the third story of mine to make it into @sciam.bsky.social's Ask the Experts column that stems from a weird thought I had while talking to my friends or hiking or otherwise just living my life. I dunno about y'all, but I've been grilling up a storm lately.

Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at a Crossroads In this Viewpoint, former members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) caution that the sudden change in the ACIP may reverse the achievements of US immunization policy, includin...

👀 Hot off the press: A scathing open letter co-authored by all 17 former ACIP members. It's a frank look at ACIP history and the hard truths America will grapple with in the upcoming months.
Turns out the former ACIP members have more spine than CDC leadership 🙄
jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

How To Tell If You’re Dead The line between life and death has never been clear—and modern technology blurs it further

🧪A weighty but very engaging story to sit with at the level and for the length of time a feature requires. The online article is paywalled, but I've got the (beautiful!) print layout up on my website. My editor on this one is my old boss from my days as a staffer at TS, and I've missed our old team.

Judge rules against NIH grant cuts — and calls them discriminatory The decision means that the US biomedical agency has to restore funding to hundreds of research projects, but the government will likely appeal.

After ruling the NIH grant cuts were illegal yesterday, Judge Young, a Reagan appointee on the bench since 1985, ended the hearing with a blistering 15-minute speech.

I've cleaned up my notes — here are his remarks in full. 🧵

Quantum Physics Collaboration Bridges Geographic, Intellectual Separation The Max Planck–New York Center for Nonequilibrium Quantum Phenomena aims to develop new methodologies and tools for studying quantum materials and to make this type of research more accessible and…

When my editor asked me if I wanted to write about quantum materials science, I said "Dear god, why?" and then agreed because I'm a Type A with six siblings who doesn't know how to turn down a challenge. Behold!

annualreports.simonsfoundation.org/2024/quantum...

Damn, my story on how we define death went to print a few days ago 😖

Somewhere behind the scenes of the Oslo Natural History Museum is an exhibit designer with a lot of old taxidermy and a VISION.

BREAKING: A few minutes ago, a vehicle of three people was rammed by a truck belonging to federal immigration authorities in Boyle Heights, CA. According to security footage shown to me, they deployed chemical munitions & detained the driver at gunpoint. All are US citizens according to the wife.

Meet the engineer using deep learning to restore Renaissance art As a student, Alex Kachkine can only afford damaged art in need of repair. Here’s how they turned their conservation work into a science.

🧪My gosh, did I have fun writing this one. Don't skip on the great visuals in this piece, including a slider that shows the damaged areas the machine learning model flagged for repair. Big thanks to Alex for sharing his unique story with me.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Today, my NIH colleagues and I did something scary but really important. We spoke up about egregious harms we are seeing happen to research participants and public health through thoughtless and politicized policies at NIH. 🧵1/3

apnews.com/article/nih-...

Opinion | I have no meaningful relationships with Black people, Hispanic people, government workers, or women. Here's why Democrats should make a full push for Elon Musk to join their party.

Oh my goodness I cannot know this. Good thing the nudi is an unobtainable 30k, because if it was 6k I'd probably be selling my possessions.

A vertical landscape shot of a place called Vestal Bason depicting a meandering creek in the foreground and a massive, tooth-shaped peak in the background.

A landscape photo of the Weminuche Wilderness, showing a swathe of wildflowers in the foreground, a series of alpine lakes surrounded by snow in the midground, and distance peaks in the background.

An orange tent pitches beside a lake, with a massive, cone-shaped peak in the backgroun.

A man walks along a trail surrounded by wildflowers.

I have officially accepted my last assignment before I go dark for two months to hike 500 miles across Colorado with my pup! It's wild that this thing I decided to do last fall is now happening. Here are some pics from old trips I've taken in the same areas. Cannot wait to get out there!

Big news: The Trump administration has essentially proposed shutting down tribal colleges and universities, displacing more than 20,000 students.

My latest for ProPublica:

Wow, yes. An amazing glimpse of the LLM Lie Machine at work. Anyone whose students are bring tempted by LLMs, sharing this could be very helpful showing how it lies, and how it fails.

Update: I may be debatably bad at my job, but I’m also a millennial who knows how to stalk people on the internet. I’m pretty sure I know who this person is. Doxxing is almost always unacceptable, & I won’t be doing it here, but maybe we all remember that it costs nothing to be kind next time, yah?

Yes, hello, it's me. 👋

You can read my response to that here:

bsky.app/profile/scat...

Also, last thing: What are the other opinions here I'm not giving credit to? This is not a "both sides" issue. Women disproportionately bear the burden of caregiving in academia and elsewhere. If there's someone out there who says that's fine, you're right, I sure won't be including them.

And, I guess, for me to ask: Are you a father in academia trying your best to be an equal partner in parenting? Do you want to tell me about why you think that is important? If so, please reach out!

In journalism, we grant anonymity very sparingly specifically *because* it makes it hard to hold people to account. There's nothing for me to do here other than walk you through this process.

I agree that journalism has a lot of issues, absolutely. I work all the time to address them. But my dude (?), this is not the way. I stand by my reporting 100%, and I encourage anyone with questions about the process to engage in an honest conversation with me.

There is always reporting that doesn't appear directly in a story. People I speak to but don't include, or whose contribution comes from the context they share. I try to be respectful of people's time, & I've been getting more responses to my requests, so I try to be realistic re: expectations.

The general rule of thumb is 1 source per 200-300 words, and I'm within that range. But I'm also getting a lot of responses to my request, so I'm hearing a range of perspectives. If something interesting or unusual pops up, I can pursue it further. I have that option because I put out a wide call.

Now, usually for a "study story"---say, when new research comes out---I'd speak to at least one author & two outside commenters. This is standard practice. But we're not talking about new research here that needs a little extra peer review, we're seeking perspectives on a systemic issue in STEM.

For this piece, I'm speaking to a (female) organizer of a new initiative, a (male) panelist participating in a related event, and one (male) parent who is not affiliated with the initiative at all. This latter source is my "outside commenter."

US National Academies report outlines barriers and solutions for scientist carers Carers need better support from employers, such as paid parental leave, subsidized childcare and relief for other types of caregiving. But is there will among institutions to provide it?

Without giving away too much detail on embargoed news, I'm writing a piece about getting fathers more involved in conversations about parenting in academia. The toll that caregivers pay is one I've written about a lot across multiple years and outlets. For example:

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Both are true in this case. I'm looking for academics who are also fathers, and who are working to ensure their partnerships and parenting are equitable. Unless they've researched this or spoken openly about it, I might never know unless I ask. I've gotten amazing story ideas off of social this way.