The Environmental Protection Agency is home to a large number of scientists who have tried to contribute to the understanding of many issues affecting Americans: the health and safety of water sources and supplies, the contamination of air and its effects on our quality of life, and the changing of […]
This was quite a week. I touched down in Dallas on Saturday night after a very long set of flights from Geneva. It had been an excellent two weeks at CERN (my small cold aside), but I was relieved to be home. We even landed early… but in air travel, […]
On Tuesday, February 28, President Donald Trump gave his first address to a bicameral meeting of Congress. While not a “State of the Union” address – a President in office only 5 weeks is in no shape to discuss the state of the union over which they preside – this […]
This past week was my last week at CERN during my two-week trip to the laboratory. It was a week filled with many activities: we has an awesome group dinner; I got a tour of the ATLAS Fast TracKer laboratory; I got involved in a short-fuse project to study CPU […]
I am on an approved leave from teaching and university service this semester so that I can focus on research. While I’ve had a number of things going since before the New Year, the last two weeks have been the start of the “traveling” phase of my semester. For me, […]
There is a question that hangs on the lips of scientists in America right now. If science is under threat, what is the best way to act? There is no simple answer to this. Indeed, this is a deeply personal question for each scientist, one that can only be answered […]
President Trump’s candidate for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, was approved today by the Senate committee that conducted her hearing. During her hearing, a question was asked of Mrs. DeVos by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) about whether or not she would work to keep “junk science” (such as “Intelligent Design” […]
A story hit the press today – behind closed doors last night, while meeting with both Democrats and Republicans, Trump advanced the idea that the world is flat and not round. In a story tonight on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” excerpts from a press briefing today with Press Secretary Sean Spicer […]
In a continuing look at the signs and portents regarding science policy and spending from the Trump administration, let’s look at a few headlines that made the rounds in the past day. These concern the possible gutting of the Energy Dept. under the guise of “cutting the deficit” and the […]
In a continuing effort to collect the signs and portents from the Trump administration that might signal actual science policy, here is a quick look at the White House website [1]. After Friday, the website changed over to the new administration and with that came a set of new issues […]
It’s been days since the confirmation hearings of Mr. Rex Tillerson for United States Secretary of State. I was not able to listen to his hearing, but his testimony has been available in recordings with some transcripts becoming available. The topic of most interest to me was potential U.S. climate […]
Since the election, while I have paid attention to the developments of the Trump administration, I have withheld on commenting about any of the news so far because nothing has actually happened. On the science front, the most salient decisions related to science policy that Mr. Trump has made so […]