Ben Cotts

truth

lol

Every reputable expert I know considers mRNA vaccine technology to be one of the most revolutionary advances in medicine in our lifetimes. Its inventors won the Nobel Prize in 2023. Shutting it down now is pointless self-harm to humanity.

We could have had cancer vaccines, and instead the United States will contribute nothing whatsoever to mRNA research, condemning millions of people worldwide to unnecessary illness and death

YouTube video by The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel Tom Lehrer - The Elements - LIVE FILM From Copenhagen in 1967

We're saddened to hear that the musical satirist Tom Lehrer passed away this weekend. His original and witty songs were loved by audiences worldwide, but to chemists he'll always be remembered for this classic: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcS3...

From a time when childhood vaccines were just a figment of imagination.

Row after row of baby headstones.

Chat, is it good when your military in a liberal democracy is talking about Tiananmen Square

This is what dictatorship looks like.

The disparity btwn what’s actually happening in Los Angeles and the way it’s being mischaracterized is one of the biggest stress tests of modern media in recent memory. Botted socials, AI, old clips, declining literacy—it’s like seeing a broken emergency response system hit by a storm.

One thing that I haven't seen said in the last 24 hours is that the Democratic Party had an opportunity, as an institution, to help shape, foster, and direct the grassroots popular uprising against Trump II.

They made a conscious decision not to.

Right now, Dems are hiding in their offices, scrolling their phones fearfully, wondering "how are voters going to feel about the National Guard being deployed?"

The right, meanwhile, is vigorously *attempting to shape* how voters feel about it, filling every medium with coordinated propaganda.

I think it's important to continuously reiterate that federal science funding grants in the US (and elsewhere) are made because the government, with the input of panels of independent experts, have concluded that the work being done is IN THE INTEREST OF THE NATION.

Nobel Prize Laureate Kip Thorne speaking yesterday at the Albert Einstein Institute in Postdam, Germany:
"Donald Trump is destroying America's capacity for [leading science]. We are counting on Europe to take over here and elsewhere." ⚛️ 🧪

Trump’s call for ‘gold standard science’ has prompted an outcry: here’s why Thousands have signed an open letter against the US president’s latest order, anxious about political interference in science and more.

Nature reports on how researchers are mobilizing against an executive order from President Donald Trump mandating the promotion of “gold standard science.” Researchers fear that the order will put US scientists and science under the thumb of political appointees. #academicsky 🧪

Check out page 27 and 28 of this report. It looks like they are planning to zero out A LOT of NSF training programs - including REU, LSAMP, and ASCEND. nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/00-NSF...

Graphs showing 25 years of budgets for the National Institute of Health, NASA, and the NSF. In all cases, the proposed budget for next year is far, far below any year of the previous quarter century.

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

A lot of folk are in denial about being middle aged even though tons of locals recently died in a plague and we literally have a king

This policy alone will do enough to slow PRC brain drain into the United States that China should remove Rubio from its sanctions list as a gesture of appreciation.

Covering these meetings in which the president pushed white supremacist conspiracy theories, told blatant lies, and engaged in other unseemly behavior like Real Housewives nonsense rather than international diplomacy travesties is certainly an editorial choice one could make

Political appointees controlling what constitutes truth or fact in science? Not a great idea.

Why not, you ask? Give the HBO show Chernobyl from a few years ago a watch: www.imdb.com/title/tt7366...

Karen Dunn and Other Top Lawyers Depart Paul Weiss to Start Firm

“Four top partners at Paul Weiss announced late Friday that they were leaving the law firm, a major blow to the firm in the wake of its decision to cut a deal with President Trump to head off an executive order against the firm.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/b...

Table showing the massive cuts in federal science funding for EPA- 54.5%, NASA -24%. NOAA - 24%, NSF -56%, USGS- 38% etc.

This is just a partial glimpse of the destruction of American science by Trump and the GOP.

Can’t find an NBA postgame show, but hey at least we have … whatever this is.

CNN homepage with How Trump managed to get his much-needed China trade win in big letters and then a separate article in small letters saying Trump's China trade breakthrough might be enough to avoid self-inflicted recession

As an example of how much the media is failing the nation I present to you the first thing you see on CNN right now

The NSF Is Being Dismantled — With Broad Implications For The American Economy The economic consequences of cuts to the National Science Foundation and restricting scientific inquiry on this scale could be far-reaching.

“Science policy is not just about managing budgets - it is about shaping the future”. Never did I think a Forbes article would explain the dismantling of the NSF so clearly and expansively (beyond economics). The loss is profound, and for some of us, Earth-shattering.
www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

My interest in math and science was stimulated by an NSF-funded high school summer program, my PhD dissertation research was supported by an NSF fellowship, and some of my most creative research early in my independent career was supported by an NSF award.

#WithoutNSF

I was funded by the NSF Interdisciplinary Graduate Training program (IGERT) at UW-Madison. It connected sociology, ecology, and limnology and trained us to work together on common problems in the real world by DOING RESEARCH together. There is no question that I would not here today #WithoutNSF

I ask again, despite already knowing the answer:

Why are the police and federal agents allowed to cover their hair and faces, but private citizens are banned and ostracized for wearing face masks for medical purposes?

Demand answers from your elected officials.

"inspect your own food for arsenic and e. coli"

May 5, 2025 cover of the New Yorker. Expository text: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cover-story/cover-story-2025-05-05

Barry Blitt’s first 100 days cover for the New Yorker.