Liz Neeley

Year 2, Week 9 Feb 21-27, 2026 - ready, steady

Each Friday night, I cover what happened in US science & higher ed. 🧪

Year 2, Week 9: Feb 27 - on "epistemic vigilance" and
- precipice of war
- travesties in leadership (NIH director now also CDC head)
- surgeon general confirmation hearing
- NASA warnings & more

buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

What good can you do today? What trouble can you cause? What suffering can you ease? What needs to exist, and can you help build it?

The scalded ocean and the blazing well
For vengeance, and the ashes of language

Well now the Wayback Machine won't believe I'm human, so I guess it's time to call it a night

The last-minute change in eligibility criteria excluded second-year grad students, so the total number of NSF GRFP applications is likely to be MUCH smaller.

We're playing word games if they don't tell us % of applications returned without review.

I appreciate @klangin.bsky.social's work on this!

it was such a delight to get to talk to the incredible @lizneeley.bsky.social - everything she and the team at @unbreaking.org are doing gives me immense hope!

Television pioneer Fred Rogers, gone 23 years ago today.

His acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award is always worth a watch.

#RIP 💔

Who else is working on Friday evening and annoyed that Nature is down?

White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers.

The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

Couple takeaways:
-more info about GRFP stats on Friday
-NSF plans to hire because they lost too many staff to DRP
-big emphasis on presidential priorities (AI and quantum 'frontiers' in the director's office)
-a lot about reducing bureaucracy, not a ton of justification

The Fight for the Heart of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - bioGraphic One year after the Trump administration threw the EPA into chaos, former employees continue to push back—and to dream of an agency reborn.

“I give the EPA employees here a lot of credit,” says Nicole Cantello, the president of AFGE Local 704 in Chicago. “They want to survive this. They want to live to … rebuild this agency.”

www.biographic.com/the-fight-fo...

Chris, thank you! (@wespin.bsky.social made me smile to see your name on that report)

US Climate Forecaster to Be Absorbed in Weather Agency Reshuffle The US climate forecasting service will be absorbed into other federal departments as part of a re-organization announced to staff Thursday.

Scoop: The Climate Prediction Center is being folded into other agencies overseen by the National Weather Service

The change follows moves by the Trump administration to dismantle climate science programs

By @weathersullivan.bsky.social & @laurenthal.bsky.social

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

A tumblr post from user nitewrighter: Me: I don't get it. I thought I was doing a lot better than I was a few years ago. I'm like 10 times more on top of things than I used to be. How does everything feel terrible now? The Tiny Me in OSHA-approved Hi-Vis Gear Who lives in my brain and pulls all the levers: Boss, it's the fascism. You're completely gunked up with cortisol due to the fact that your entire daily life is now underscored with a haunting awareness of the rapid erosion of your rights, dignity, and any and all social safety nets, and you're also bearing witness to the most vulnerable people immediately being persecuted. This creates a natural stress response that basically means you're going to continue having memory and organizational problems, as well as emotional imbalances. Me: BUT I HAVE A BULLET JOURNAL AND I MEDITATE NOW. Tiny OSHA Me: BOSS, THE FASCISM.

Boss, it's the fascism.

These charts are so helpful - how should I cite/share?

Researcher Support Consortium

And the Researcher Support Consortium can help research group leads, center directors, department chairs, and other leaders think about how to better support and protect your colleagues. Feel free to email us at researchersupport@proton.me and check out resources at researchersupport.org

Yes! Expert Voices Together can help individual scholars (faculty, post-docs, PhD students) proactively or as part of crisis response. (Though we definitely recommend proactive planning!) Request assistance anytime by filling out our secure intake form:

expertvoicestogether.org/researcher/i...

I'm a cognitive scientist with an interest in epistemic vigilance, and this essay that's been going around gave me pause.

I don't think it's straightforward to apply the concept of epistemic vigilance to interactions with LLMs, as this essay does.

🧵/

sbgeoaiphd.github.io/rotating_the...

Epistemic Vigilance Humans massively depend on communication with others, but this leaves them open to the risk of being accidentally or intentionally misinformed. To ensure that, despite this risk, communication remain...

Epistemic vigilance is a concept developed by Sperber et al. describing how we guard against the possibility that other people might misinform us.

Two key points in this literature:
1. We need to scrutinize the content of messages
2. We need to scrutinize the source of messages

2/

Her License Was Invalidated For Being Trans — Assigned “I wish I could convey to them that the people they’re hurting are real human beings,” says Juniper, 24, of Witchita Kansas.

Many news outlets are reporting that some trans Kansans received letters warning that their licenses were being invalidated overnight.

This morning, Evan Urquhart spoke with a trans woman who found out on Bluesky that it would be illegal to drive her car.

www.assignedmedia.org/breaking-new...

This is it. Way past time for everyone in this country - literally everyone - to find practical ways to support trans people and immigrants, this regime's primary targets.

Starting right now, find something practical to do to actually help people.

Funding cuts are devastating Black HIV prevention work. But activists say pressure is working. - LGBTQ Nation For decades, Black HIV activists have filled the gaps left by public systems. Today, that carefully built infrastructure hangs in the balance.

The unmistakable bottom line: "resilience does not erase the harm"

Praise for resilience is empty unless we're fighting to end the harm & make restitution.

(and for science/research/health funding specifically, "the harm caused by instability" is key)

www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/02/fund...

"Planning to run a workshop under air raids and blackouts required us to think of many things not covered by The Carpentries Handbook."

olexandr-konovalov.github.io/posts/2026/0...

I’m grateful for faculty with expertise and track record on prevention & response plans for targeted harassment. I’m most familiar with @rebekahtromble.bsky.social’s projects researchersupport.org & expertvoicestogether.org - I’m sure she can recommend others for everyone who needs help now

Opinion | I Was a CDC Senior Leader. From What I Saw, No One Should Run Two Agencies. Placing Jay Bhattacharya in charge of both NIH and CDC raises concerns

Running CDC is not a part time job or an afterthought and the agency needs stable leadership @medpagetoday.com @gfriedman.bsky.social @altcdc.altgov.info

I can't speak to this being THEE solution, but everything I've read says it certainly can't hurt.

You, an individual, cannot "fix" the whole world. You can act at the scale of your life. You should act at the scale of your life.

Year 2, Week 7 Feb 7-13, 2026 - with a paddle

Each Friday night, I cover what happened in US science & higher ed. 🧪

Year 2, Week 7: Feb 13
- EPA revokes authority to regulate emissions
- FDA refuses to review new flu vaccine
- NASA funding frozen
- NCAR stripped of supercomputing
- so much more (a rough week)
buttondown.com/liminalcreat...

Black Residents Win Key Ruling in ‘Cancer Alley’ Environmental Racism Case The lawsuit could force a jury to decide if turning Black communities into sacrifice zones is a legacy of slavery.

A judge ruled that groups representing residents of Louisiana’s Cancer Alley can proceed with their landmark lawsuit seeking a pause on toxic industrial plants in two majority‑Black districts

Trump administration drops its appeal of court order blocking $1.2-billion UCLA settlement The Trump administration dropped its appeal of a major higher education case in which a federal judge blocked its $1.2-billion settlement proposal to UCLA over alleged civil rights violations. But it ...

NEW: The Trump administration has dropped its appeal of a federal court order blocking its $1.2-billion settlement demand to UCLA over alleged campus civil rights violations: www.latimes.com/california/s...