Alexandra Witze

NSF and NIH suspend grants to UCLA Move follows Trump administration finding that school didn’t effectively combat antisemitism

"The suspended NSF grants, a list of which Science obtained from an agency source, span work from computer science and plasma physics to the measurement of volatile compounds created by this year’s Los Angeles fires." By @dangaristo.bsky.social in @science.org 🧪

www.science.org/content/arti...

Thanks @evaholland.bsky.social for this investigation into what happened to the #climate film FOR WINTER. I sent a couple half-assed inquiry emails to NatGeo about this earlier this year, got no response, and let it drop. You took it and ran. 🙏

Early universe’s ‘little red dots’ may be black hole stars Puzzling objects spotted by NASA’s JWST telescope may be entirely new class of celestial entity

JWST may be finding BLACK HOLE STARS, colossal balls of gas that are larger than the Solar System, powered not by nuclear fusion but by black holes? Whaaaat? 🤯

Fascinating #astronomy story by @danclery.bsky.social 🧪🔭

Columbia researchers eager to restart science after university’s deal with Trump The institution agreed to increased federal oversight in exchange for restored grants and an end to government investigations.

“It’s a ransom to release funds.”

During my conversations with Columbia scientists about the university’s new settlement, the word “foreboding” came up in just about every interview. Hear their thoughts in my @nature.com story with @alexwitze.bsky.social:

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

Never forget

why are volcanoes so awesome

This is a VERY large earthquake, possibly/probably among the 10 largest ever recorded. A clear subduction zone megathrust event. And it is another M>8.5 event with a notable foreshock (the recent M7.4 in same location), like Tohoku in 2011.

M7.4 earthquake strikes the Kamchatka Peninsula Questions about megaquake advisories, revived?

You can read about the faults in this area, and the history of great earthquakes here, in our posts from July 20, 2025 (after a M7.4) and August 2024 (after a M7.1).

earthquakeinsights.substack.com/p/m74-earthq...

earthquakeinsights.substack.com/p/m71-strike...

*correction: Rita Aksenfeld

Thanks Andy. I miss Twitter. 🪦

one day i will remember this

Meet the early career scientists planning to leave the United States Decreased funding, reduced opportunities and growing uncertainty has made life tough for international postdocs living in the US.

"I wanted to stay here." - an early-career stem-cell biologist who is now looking to leave the US for a career in Europe. Reporting by Rita Akensenfeld & @jennaahart.bsky.social, for @nature.com 🧪

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

And who doesn’t want to narrowly skirt the laws of thermodynamics??

Words by @dangaristo.bsky.social

🧪

Hello lil hidden star fren

Dr. Makenzie Lystrup, director of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, announced that she will leave NASA, effective Friday, Aug. 1. As center director of Goddard since April 2023, Makenzie also was responsible for guiding the direction and management of multiple other NASA field installations including Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, Katherine Johnson Independent Verification & Validation Facility in West Virginia, the White Sands Complex in New Mexico, and the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Texas. Having served in a variety of science and aerospace civilian and government roles in her career, Makenzie contributed to a variety of NASA's priority science missions including successful operations of our James Webb Space Telescope and Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer, as well as development of the agency's Roman Space Telescope, and more. As a planetary scientist and astronomer, Makenzie's scientific work has been in using ground- and space-based astronomical observatories to understand the interactions and dynamics of planetary atmospheres and magnetospheres - the relationships between planets and their surrounding space environments. We're grateful to Makenzie for her leadership at NASA Goddard for more than two years including her work to inspire a Golden Age of explorers, scientists, and engineers. Following Makenzie's departure, Cynthia Simmons will serve as acting center director Cynthia is the current deputy center director. She previously served as the Director of the Flight Projects Directorate at Goddard and has extensive experience supporting missions for NASA, DoD and commercial space and science missions. We are confident Cynthia is prepared to guide Goddard through this transition. Before joining the agency, Makenzie served as senior director for Ball's Civil Space Advanced Systems and Business Development, where she managed new business activities for NASA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and …

Goddard Director resigned…

‘We dissent’: NASA staff declare opposition to Trump cuts Declaration of dissent, which warns that science and safety are at risk, joins similar documents from staff at the EPA and the NIH.

NASA employees have released their own 'dissent' letter, joining NIH and EPA employees in protesting agency changes in the Trump administration. They call it the Voyager Declaration. Words by me: 🧪🛰️

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

Aaaaaaah so many congrats!!!

How to avoid nuclear war in an era of AI and misinformation Nuclear deterrence is no longer a two-player game, and emerging technologies further threaten the status quo. The result is a risky new nuclear age.

Are you ready to read about nuclear arsenals & operations? Of course you are! I explore the modern risks of nuclear war, from AI to misinformation, for @nature.com.

Thx to many experts including @mattkorda.bsky.social @cosmicpinot.bsky.social for this one.

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

🧪

<marks calendar for late November>

And yet there is arxiv tonight

WUT

A black and white, high-speed photograph of the Trinity explosion at 0.025 seconds, showing what looks like a very large, slightly irregular bubble with a curtain of dust all around its bottom edge against a pitch dark sky. A scale indicating “100 meters” shows that the fireball was already approximately three times that size.

Another black and white photograph of the Trinity explosion a few milliseconds later, showing an almost ghostly mushroom cloud with glowing tendrils rising from the ground above the very bright fireball.

Another black and white photograph of the Trinity explosion with the same 100-meter scale, this time at 60 seconds post-detonation, showing a very large and billowy mushroom cloud rising into the sky.

Another black and white photograph of the Trinity explosion taken some minutes after the previous photograph and showing the ominous looking mushroom cloud at a distance, its top spreading out and merging with regular clouds.

80 years ago this morning—at 5:29 AM (Mountain War Time)—about 35 miles southeast of Socorro, New Mexico, the nuclear age began with a big bang. Contrary to widespread assumptions, the area surrounding the remote Trinity test site was not uninhabited, and the fallout did not drift away harmlessly.

Uh, who’s to say I’m not??

Left: a tissue box, with a multicolored diagram of Layers of the Earth on its side. Right: a tissue box, 3D printed in the shape of Mount St Helens

Important office decor update!

Tissue box switch is happening….

Left: out

Right: in

Thank you @phaneritic.bsky.social for my @mountsthelens1980.bsky.social tissue box! 🤩🌋

US senators poised to reject Trump’s proposed massive science cuts Committee gives first hint that policymakers might preserve, rather than slash, funding for US National Science Foundation and other agencies.

The Senate Committee on Appropriations gave the first signs Congress will push back on Trump's proposed budget cuts to science and instead keep funding flat, though an unrelated issue (the location of the FBI headquarters) stalled any vote today.

@alexwitze.bsky.social and I report:

Hi you're completely fine! No worries. I was posting obscure material with no indication of what I was actually talking about. You're good. Thanks for reading 🙏

perhaps by technological design

President Trump has named Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy as interim NASA Administrator in a post on Truth Social. Duffy says on X he's "honored to accept this mission. Time to take over space. Let's launch."
x.com/SecDuffy/sta...