Modern science on ancestry and genealogy points to conclusions that unify humanity, reminding us of our common identity.

What does it mean to be “made of star stuff”? And how can carbon, which made complexity possible, end it all?

This may be the most important and timely video I've ever hosted. Want to understand mass extinctions- including the one we are enduring now? You should. We still have a chance to change for the better.

This is the U.S. Geological Survey’s budget justification for 2018. The USGS is a scientific, research-based organization within the Department of the Interior. Meaning, should congress vote to pass Trump’s proposed budget, these are the changes/eliminations/reductions that USGS would have to undertake. 

This cut in particular caught my eye (pg. 52): 

The Smithsonian is a federal agency that receives 60% of its funding from congress, federal grants and contracts. This is an instance where a portion of the funding for the curatorial research positions at the Smithsonian that are supported by the USGS would be eliminated. Not the entire curatorial or collections staff - that would be … insanity. But 11 full time employees (FTE) and $1.6million would be cut from the Smithsonian’s operating budget.

Take a look at the rest of the report. The budget request includes a 16% reduction of the USGS workforce. USGS currently employees 4,923 full time employees. This would be a reduction of more than 800 people - and, again, these are primarily scientific research positions. The federal government employs a lot of scientists (or, traditionally has in.. recent years). 

Pg. 54. 

pg. 57. 

I could go through the rest of the report but if you want to get a sense of which programs are being cut, just ctrl + F “eliminate” and scroll on through. 

What’s so disappointing to me is that the United States has been at the forefront for so many research areas in recent decades. We built an infrastructure that supported not just innovation in a variety of fields, but a system which allowed for long-term monitoring of our planet. Big, comprehensive datasets are invaluable for our understanding of change over time - how we come to know what a place used to be, or look like, and how that’s different from today. This information helps us mitigate problems and anticipate change. 

With the sudden halt of many of these programs, we would be creating gaps in our knowledge base. Like little moments of amnesia, our country’s scientists would be deprived of information which could further progress. And this goes well beyond our borders: the research conducted by USGS and other federal agencies benefits our global partners, our world’s citizens, and future science.

This is a tough road for so many young scientists here in the states; we’re going from a STEM-centric system that advocated for increasing scientific involvement and literacy in our country, to swiftly dumping them in a world where we have eliminated their jobs and have quickly undervalued their credentials. And that’s frightening because the world is not going to stop and wait for us to catch up - the changes happening around our planet necessitate immediate action. At a time when we need science and science literacy more than ever, opportunities for both are decreasing.

I’m not proposing any sort of solution (I don’t have one) nor do I mean for this to feel like Dooms Day is upon us - but we have to keep paying attention, to stay engaged, and to continue dialogue. I don’t think it’s an overreach to say that our future depends upon our sustained engagement with the problems that face us today.

Jeeeeeesus

The international impacts of this…

Scientists and researchers worldwide use the Smithsonian specimen collection - it provides a vast, historical record of phenotypic changes, range expansions/contractions, even disease in wildlife populations (the oldest record of Bd in North America comes I’m pretty sure from a frog preserved at the Smithsonian). Without active curation - actively adding specimens, actively conserving historical ones - we not only diminish our ability to learn from our past, we also destroy the ability of future generations to make use of it (especially for things like gradual phenotypic change, having an unbroken historical record with a high geographic range is key - this is why the ongoing divestment by universities of their specimen collections is especially tragic, because they are often highly regional, allowing us to fill in gaps in broadscale datasets like the Smithsonian collection).

The vast majority of endangered species in Canada? Their ranges extend into (and often lie mostly) in the US - a reduction in species-specific wildlife research leaves Canada (and probably Mexico) spinning our wheels, and trying desperately to conserve species without any kind of regulatory or research access to the majority of their ranges and populations.

USGS climate data sets are used worldwide as a baseline for climate research - and again, having unbroken continuity is of utmost importance. Scientific innovations coming out of the USGS drive the evolution of biological, geological, and geographic field work. Also - all the research programs that are called out in that paragraph? They’re not about proving climate change is real - that boat has long since sailed. They’re about allowing us to continue using the land we rely on in the face of a changing climate. 

“Investigation of hydrologic and biogeochemical change in the Prairie Pothole wetlands” - the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is the wheat belt. Ongoing changes in hydrology and biogeochemistry in the local wetlands are having devastating effects on agriculture - flooding of croplands, drying and pollution of aquifers, as well as extinction risk for grasslands birds like the tree swallow, which rely on insects emerging from these wetlands as a food source during nesting. The PPR is also a large stopover for migratory birds moving between the arctic and the southern US - many of which are high-demand game species.

“production of datasets of land management practices and the effects of climate fluctuations on recreational uses of wetlands and other lands characterized by organic soils” - this is farmland. And peat bogs, and the Everglades, probably - but organic soils almost invariably mean farming. These datasets on land management practices? Are mostly used to increase our knowledge of what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to agriculture. Also, wetlands are essential to the healthy functioning of the ecosystem - they do a lot of water filtering and runoff control, they harbour huge amounts of biomass, and sequester carbon. So, for that matter, do organic soils.

This is basic scientific research that underpins important shit like agriculture, hunting and fishing, and the availability of clean water. I’m just. I’m fucking boggled.

Good comments.

when i grow up i want to be emily graslie

❤️❤️❤️ Let's hang out and talk about slugs

Crocheted Lace Jewelry Inspired by Organic Specimens

this is what I live for

Happy Earth Day !

This makes me so happy ❤️

Thanks to everyone who showed up yesterday all around the world. It's nice to see people talking about and rallying behind science in our communities. Whether you participated or not- I am grateful that the conversations are happening.

The date for the Science March on Washington (and like a billion other places) has finally been announced and everything about it looks lit

On Wednesday, the March for Science Twitter account posted an announcement stating that the march would take place on April 22 — which also happens to be Earth Day. Here’s everything you need to know to make sue you show up in force no matter what.

April 22.

this made my heart warm

See you there.

ACTUALLY, FOUR ASTRONAUTS AND A FIGHTER PILOT! 

“From left to right; astronauts Stephanie Wilson, Joan Higginbotham, Mae Jemison, Yvonne Cagle and fighter pilot Shawna Kimbrell”

Source

Learn more about these great women:

1. Stephanie Wilson

2. Joan Higginbotham

3. Mae Jemison

4. Yvonne Cagle

5. Shawna Kimbrell

Reblogging for Black History Month 2017!

HELL TO THE FUCKING TO THE YES

YAY FOR THOSE WOMEN! POWERFUL BLACK WOMEN.

I will never be this cool and that is a million times percent okay with me

I don’t want to give Breitbart page views, but just letting you guys know what kind of sexist bullshit they’re writing about.

because this kind of thing exists^

is my response when I’m asked 

“Why do you have a ‘Women in Science’ group? Why do you have to make it gendered/why can’t it just be for everyone”

In light of the recent gag orders on US scientists...

Story time:

I’m a scientist and while I was in undergrad I had an 8 month work term in a laboratory and one time my mom came to pick me up to go home for holidays or whatever and I took her around the lab to see what I was doing and to let her meet my supervisor, who we both love to this day.  

The next year I was in a different lab working on a project for my degree and again, mom was coming up and I wanted to show her the lab.  I asked my new supervisor for permission because well, its a lab, there are lab and sciency things happening and mom wanted to see the multi-million dollar electron microscopes I was using.  You try to restrict people that don’t know what they are doing  from the environment because there are many dangers, chemicals, machines, expensive equipment etc plus it’s just polite.  I made sure to tell him she wouldn’t touch anything

Well he said something to me that I always think about and that I think is relevant.  He said (or or less):

“I’m paid by tax payers, this research is mostly tax payer funded.  Of course you can bring you mom in because she pays taxes and should know what she pays for.”  For him it wasn’t even a question of if I was allowed to, it was silly, it was of course she can come and see the lab!

Now that does not mean just anyone can or should be able to walk in and take a look around.  It’s a dangerous environment if you don’t know what you are doing and obviously I was there to ensure she didn’t touch anything.  

But the message stuck with me during all my research, which has been mostly tax payer funded (government funding for stipend and grants and PI’s paid from government funded unis, etc).

The tax payers pay for (a lot of) scientific research.  They should be allowed to know what is going on and (figuratively) see into the work spaces they are paying for.  That supervisor also said that the more the tax payers understand about research the more they will want to fund it and the better society will be.  

When someone is trying to block the results or data that the tax payers pay for, that is not good.  It’s blocking transparently into what the government is doing with your money.  The money you pay in taxes.  It also makes it easy for them to defund important research because if the ‘common people’ aka tax payers can’t see where that money is going they won’t support it which in turn allows the government to feel it can get away with reducing funding to researchers. 

—-

Tagging some people in the hopes they could boost this, because I feel it is an important message:

@nanofishology, @entoderek, @thebrainscoop, @ehmeegee, @squidscientistas, @wilwheaton

I heartily agree that transparency in science isn’t about giving some edge or secret away to your opposition or competitors (like some would have you believe) - it’s an integral part of creating meaningful connections with people, to build trust and support. Obviously logistical and safety concerns prevent us from going ahead and installing revolving doors on our collections and labs - but I resist the idea that ‘the public’ is somehow innately unable to appreciate and understand scientific work when/if granted the chance to experience it for themselves. 

Even if we aren’t partially or completely reliant on federal funding, we’ll all be doomed if our fields of study are continued to be seen as exclusive and impenetrable towers of secrecy and elitism. 

A scientists march on Washington is being planned

The responsible application of science to government

Twitter: @ScienceMarchDC Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1862739727343189/ Reddit: /r/scientistsmarch Get Email Updates To help: https://goo.gl/forms/zAdY02dBEz3Ykii42 Contact: scientistsmarchonwashington@gmail.com

We accept the following as provisionally true:

Who can participate:

Science is a methodology and a way of thinking. Anyone who uses and values these tools for understanding the world, not just professional scientists, may participate.

How can I help?  

We are still in the very early stages of organizing this event. We need all the help we can get, especially from people with expertise in the following areas:

You don’t need to be a professional scientist to participate! 

If you are a scientist and want to run for office you should!

COUNT ME IN