Our episodes have been slightly more spaced out for a couple of months for different reasons. First, there were the holidays. Since then, I and some colleagues have been putting significant effort into a pair of tiny NASA grants as we try to get ahead on our work in case the budgets are affected by any of the changes happening to US science funding rules and guidelines. This means I’ve been focused on writing software instead of writing news. I hope to be able to share with you what we’ve been up to in future episodes.
https://motionarray.com/stock-video/paper-business-documents-fall-on-the-office-desk-2848392/?q=piles%20of%20paper&page=2&search_header=1
http://motionarray.com/stock-video/paper-business-documents-fall-on-the-office-desk-2848392/?q=piles%20of%20paper&page=2&search_header=1
The other factor, which I admit led to me taking a couple of days off, is constant whiplash from changing rules and revoked changes to rules. EVSN is produced through a small science institute, and the people I work with are directly impacted by every change to Federal Funding. My desire to report their stories is strong, but in many ways, the story is too close, and my emotions are too strong. I’m seeing people who are the best in the world at what they do having their livelihoods threatened because they are women or minorities who dare to exist in science – what alternate career is there for the planetary scientist who just lost their home to the LA fires, lost their job at JPL, and now faces a reality where NASA is removing the profiles of women and minorities from its websites and the administration is freezing and canceling grant funds to institutes. This is the question far too many are now asking.
There is a war going on inside me, as I vacillate between knowing “I need to call my congresspeople”, and “I need to do my work like normal because that’s my duty” and feeling “I just want to hide under my bed reading books waiting for the insanity to end”.
If anyone has any good books to recommend, my DMs are open. I’m currently reading Tomi Adeyemi’s Legacy of Orisha series, bu t I’m about out of pages remaining to read.
We are now about a month into the current regime, and I think it is safe to say there are no brakes that can be applied on this mad hatter’s ride through democracy. We each need to make it our personal responsibility to call our congress humans and ask for what we need in order for ourselves and the things we care about – like science – to thrive. And then we need to get on with doing what we need to do to survive through this, and for me and our team at EVSN, this means bringing you science news.
For better or worse, this week’s news includes an asteroid with a greater than 2% chance of hitting Earth, so that’s something to look forward to.
And since we’re all in a foul mood anyway, we’re going to run through the latest results in Climate Change for our closer look.