Aatish Bhatia

"Among articles stating that data was available upon request, only 17% shared data upon request."

Nearly 20 Percent Fewer International Students Traveled to the U.S. in August (Gift Article) The data shows the steepest decline in August international student arrivals since the pandemic.

Look up the data for more countries and regions here: (paywall-free gift link)

A bubble chart showing the change in international student arrivals from Asia between August 2024 and 2025. The average change is a decrease of -23.8%.

A bubble chart showing the change in international student arrivals from Africa between August 2024 and 2025. The average change is -32.5%.

A bubble chart showing the change in international student arrivals from Europe between August 2024 and 2025. The average change is -1.7%.

A bubble chart of student arrival changes, with the country of India highlighted. The average change for India between August 2024 and 2025 is a decrease of -44.5%.

Overall, fewer students arrived in August from most countries in the data. Africa and Asia showed the largest decline in international students visiting the U.S. in August, while Europe and Oceania showed small changes.

A line chart titled "August international student arrivals from... Iran," showing data from 2015 to 2025. The vertical y-axis shows the number of students, with markers for 1K and 2K. The horizontal x-axis shows the years. The chart shows a general decline in arrivals from over 2,000 in 2015 to under 1,000 in 2018. In 2020, there was a severe drop to nearly zero, with the lowest point labeled "Covid." This was followed by a dramatic recovery, with numbers surging to a new peak in 2023, well above 2,000 students. From this peak, the number of arrivals falls steeply. The final segment of the line, showing the decline into 2025, is highlighted in red with an annotation that reads: "1,097 fewer students (-86%)." The source for the data is listed as Trade.gov.

Iran is one of the countries facing a U.S. travel ban. The travel data shows that the number of arriving Iranian students dropped by 86 percent this August — the largest decline for any country in the data this year.

A collection of four line charts titled "August international student arrivals from..." showing data from 2015 to 2025. The main chart shows arrivals from the continent of Europe, with three smaller charts below detailing arrivals from Spain, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The source for all data is Trade.gov. Main Chart: Europe The large top chart for "Europe" has a vertical axis from 25K to 50K. The line shows that arrivals were very stable at just under 50,000 from 2015 to 2019. This was followed by a sharp V-shaped drop in 2020 to below 25,000, with the lowest point on the graph marked "Covid." A recovery followed, with numbers reaching a new peak in 2024, surpassing pre-pandemic levels. The line shows a very slight drop in 2025. This final segment is highlighted in red, with an annotation that reads "891 fewer students (-2%)." Small Charts: Spain: This chart's vertical axis goes up to 8K. After the 2020 dip, arrivals recovered to a new peak before declining slightly. The final segment is colored red, indicating a 4% decrease (-4%). United Kingdom: This chart's vertical axis goes up to 8K. Following the 2020 drop, arrivals show a steady and continuous recovery, surpassing pre-pandemic levels. The final segment is colored green, indicating a 7% increase (+7%). Germany: This chart's vertical axis goes up to 8K. After the 2020 drop, arrivals recovered to near pre-pandemic levels. The final segment is red, showing a 5% decrease (-5%).

Students from Europe make up about 7 percent of U.S. international students. But they made up about 16 percent of international student arrivals in August. Their arrival numbers stayed roughly similar to those of the past year.

A collection of four line charts titled "August international student arrivals from..." showing data from 2015 to 2025. The main chart shows arrivals from the continent of Africa, with three smaller charts below detailing arrivals from Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya. The source for all data is Trade.gov. Main Chart: Africa The large top chart for "Africa" has a vertical axis from 5K to 15K. The line shows that arrivals fluctuated between 10,000 and 12,000 from 2015 to 2019 before a steep drop in 2020 to. This lowest point is marked "Covid." A strong recovery followed, with numbers surging to a peak of over 16,000 in 2024, significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels. The line then drops sharply in 2025. This final segment is highlighted in red, with an annotation that reads "5,509 fewer students (-32%)." Small Charts: Nigeria: This chart's vertical axis goes up to 4K. After a steep drop in 2020, arrivals recovered, peaking above 4K. This is followed by a steep decline. The final segment is colored red, indicating a 48% decrease (-48%). Ghana: This chart's vertical axis goes up to 4K. It shows a steady rise before the 2020 dip, followed by a recovery to a peak above 3K around 2024. This is followed by a steep drop. The final red segment shows a 51% decrease (-51%). Kenya: This chart's vertical axis goes up to 2K. The trend is more uneven but shows a similar drop in 2020 and a recovery to a new peak around 2023. The final segment is red, showing a 17% decrease (-17%).

The number of international students arriving from Africa fell by nearly a third in August. The shares of students arriving from Ghana and Nigeria fell by nearly half.

In July, the U.S. placed tighter rules on many categories of visas for citizens of Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Cameroon.

A collection of four line charts titled "August international student arrivals from..." showing data from 2015 to 2025. The main, large chart shows arrivals from Asia as a whole, with three smaller charts below detailing arrivals from China, India, and South Korea. The source for all data is Trade.gov. Main Chart: Asia The large top chart for "Asia" has a vertical axis from 0 to 300K. The line shows that arrivals were steady at just under 300,000 from 2015 to 2019. This was followed by a very steep drop in 2020, with the lowest point on the graph marked "Covid." A recovery occurred from 2020 to 2024, with arrivals peaking at over 250,000. The line then drops in 2025. This final segment is highlighted in red, with an annotation indicating "59,561 fewer students (-24%)." Small Charts: China: This chart's vertical axis goes up to 200K. It shows a steep drop in 2020, followed by an uneven recovery that remains well below pre-pandemic levels. The final segment showing the trend into 2025 is colored red, indicating a 12% decrease (-12%). India: This chart's vertical axis goes up to 100K. After the 2020 dip, arrivals from India surged dramatically, peaking in 2023 at nearly 100,000, well above pre-pandemic levels. This is followed by a steep drop. The final segment is red, showing a 44% decrease (-44%). South Korea: This chart's vertical axis goes up to 40K. It shows a general downward trend from 2015, and a steeper 2020 dip. The recovery was modest, and the line continues to decline. The final red segment shows an 11% decrease (-11%).

This year, the number of international students arriving from Asia in August fell by 24 percent — the lowest August numbers on record outside of the pandemic.

The number of international students arriving from India dropped by 44 percent, following prolonged delays in processing student visas.

A line chart titled "International student arrivals to the U.S. in August" showing data from 2015 to 2025. The vertical y-axis represents the number of students, with labels for 200K and 400K. The horizontal x-axis represents the years. The line shows that student arrivals were consistently high, just over 400,000, from 2015 to 2019. In 2020, there was a drop to well around 50,000, with this point on the graph labeled "Covid". After 2020, the number of arrivals recovered sharply, peaking in 2023 at just under 400,000. The line then shows a decline to 2025. The segment from 2024 to 2025 is highlighted in red, with a text annotation pointing to the 2025 data point that reads: "73,802 fewer students (-19%)". The source is cited as Trade.gov. A note at the bottom reads: "Note: The data for August 2025 is preliminary and excludes visitors who arrived from Mexico via land, and visitors from Canada."

The decline is occurring as the Trump administration has delayed visa processing, instituted travel bans or restrictions for 19 countries, threatened to deport international students for pro-Palestinian speech, and heightened the vetting of student visa applicants.

Flat, graphic poster of a Whooping Crane standing in the negative space of many Sandhill Cranes. The poster reads "The Great Midwest Crane Fest - Nov. 15-16, 2025 Baraboo, Wisconsin.

Poster I made for the Great Midwest Crane Fest!

Nearly 20 Percent Fewer International Students Traveled to the U.S. in August The data shows the steepest decline in August international student arrivals since the pandemic.

When you consider that 41% of PhD level STEM jobs in this country are occupied by folks born in foreign countries, this is huge.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Nearly 20 Percent Fewer International Students Traveled to the U.S. in August The data shows the steepest decline in August international student arrivals since the pandemic.

The decline is occurring as the Trump administration has delayed visa processing, instituted travel bans or restrictions for 19 countries, threatened to deport international students for pro-Palestinian speech, and heightened the vetting of student visa applicants.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Nearly 20 Percent Fewer International Students Traveled to the U.S. in August (Gift Article) The data shows the steepest decline in August international student arrivals since the pandemic.

The number of international students arriving in the U.S. in August fell by 19 percent this year compared with last year — the largest decline on record outside of the pandemic.

Very interesting podcast episode on how social networks become polarized

History of English podcast

YouTube video by minutephysics Common Moon Mistakes

I love this video so much. Classic Minute Physics.

Messenger It's a small planet, but someone's gotta make the deliveries.

I enjoyed this game a lot, and am in awe of the creative and technical skill behind it. (Played it fullscreen on desktop, not sure what it's like on mobile) messenger.abeto.co

‘Completely shattered.’ Changes to NSF’s graduate student fellowship spur outcry The announcement comes months later than usual, leaving many would-be applicants stranded

Today was a hard day for Ph.D. students who found out that they can no longer apply for NSF's prestigious Graduate Research Fellowship Program. "Devastating“ was how one student described it to me. #GradSchool #NSFGRFP

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

Hi @npr.org! We worked late tonight putting together this handy pocket guide!

It doesn't address road design issues, but if we're going to educate road users, we should include drivers.

It's the size of a folded business card. Print it, fold it, put it in your wallet!

A black and white photo of Albert Einstein, around age 25, sitting at a desk. He is a wearing a flannel suit and resting his right arm on the desk. Einstein is looking to the left of the photographer in this posed photo.

The first paragraph of the paper, in German. Translated to English is reads: It is known that Maxwell's electrodynamics—as usually understood at the present time—when applied to moving bodies, leads to asymmetries which do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena. Take, for example, the reciprocal electrodynamic action of a magnet and a conductor. The observable phenomenon here depends only on the relative motion of the conductor and the magnet, whereas the customary view draws a sharp distinction between the two cases in which either the one or the other of these bodies is in motion. For if the magnet is in motion and the conductor at rest, there arises in the neighbourhood of the magnet an electric field with a certain definite energy, producing a current at the places where parts of the conductor are situated. But if the magnet is stationary and the conductor in motion, no electric field arises in the neighbourhood of the magnet...

Happy 120th birthday, special relativity!

Albert Einstein introduced special relativity in the paper "On The Electrodynamics Of Moving Bodies," published in Annalen der Physik #OTD in 1905. 🧪 ⚛️ 🔭

Manuscript: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
English: www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/einst...

Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harbourless immensities.

In a brick-lined planter along a quiet breezeway, two periscope-like grey pipes erupt from the ground like brontosauruses. They each are painted industrial grey and are roughly person-sized. From this angle, the closer "Periscope" reveals a bulbous screen that is displaying a watery natural scene.

From a few feet away, their setting is more apparent. They are at two different heights, pointed, as if curious creatures, in two different directions.

A close-up view shows another natural scene, this time showing a swamp. There is a hood over the end of the artwork, akin to a traffic light or signal. It has big chunky bolts.

A side view shows the artwork's proximity to a central square within its host development.

Here's my first permanent public artwork, "Periscopes." When you look through its bulbous lenses, you see scenes that might seem faraway, such as heron stalking their prey; but all of the footage was filmed (by me) within 10mi of its site at Buzzard Point in southwest Washington, D.C., USA.

Mars First Logistics, our open world physics game about building rovers and delivering stuff is coming out of Steam Early Access in 2 days with a big update!

Tag your favourite influencial person who you think might enjoy it!

🌍 2025
🗓 24th - 25th September
🕘 09:00Z
🛰 Meteosat-9

Graph showing: Chinese new passenger car sales by type: Monthly

The rise and fall of the internal combustion engine, China edition.
robbieandrew.github.io/carsales/

YouTube video by minutephysics Why Do Wind Turbines Have Three Blades?

Why Do Wind Turbines Have Three Blades? Excellent minute physics explainer.

$100,000 Per Employee: How the H-1B Visa Fee Could Reshape Work Forces Because sponsoring a visaship comes with significant upfront costs, employers need higher-earning workers to justify the new expense.

"Nearly one in four scientists and one in five computer programmers are college-educated people from other countries." www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Here is a look of #Helene and the Predecessor Rainfall Event, which began setting up around this time a year ago.

I updated this to incorporate the @nws.noaa.gov flash flood warnings and flash flood emergencies.

#FLwx #GAwx #ALwx #SCwx #NCwx #TNwx @spann.bsky.social @wxbrad.bsky.social

An array of 9 purple discs on a blue background. Figure from Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt.

A nice shift in perceived colour between central and peripheral vision. The fixated disc looks purple while the others look blue.

The effect presumably comes from the absence of S-cones in the fovea.

From Hinnerk Schulz-Hildebrandt:
arxiv.org/pdf/2509.115...

(or minimum in this case)

yes! maximum solar derivative day!