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Category Archives: United States
Friday action item: Put your Members of Congress on speed-dial
While the current administration is in office we’re posting small, concrete things you can do to help make things better, every Friday. Got a suggestion for an Action Item? E-mail us! The new Congress is just getting started, and its … Continue reading
Posted in community, politics, United States
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Friday Action Item: Science
Now that we’ve posted a few of these Action Items, I want to step back and add an important caveat to this idea of small things to do in the wake of a devastating political reversal. These posts are intended … Continue reading
Posted in Action Item, community, politics, United States
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Friday Action Item: Have a science conversation with a non-scientist
In the wake of the recent U.S. election, we’ve started these “Friday Action Item” posts with ideas about specific things you can do to support science — from calling Congress to helping crowd-fund a cool new research project. Got a … Continue reading
Posted in Action Item, politics, United States
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The road ahead
It’s been almost two weeks since we woke up to the reality that Donald Trump — the failed casino mogul, the virtuoso tax-dodger, the reality-show star, the self-described serial sexual assailant, the Ku Klux Klan endorsee and darling of white … Continue reading
Posted in citizen science, community, funding, NIH, NSF, politics, United States
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The Great Migration and African-American Genomic History
Over 45 million African-Americans share a recent common history largely shaped by “The Great Migration” (1910-1970) from out of the Southern United States. And yet, the admixture history of the African-American community, and its consequences for public health are little … Continue reading
Posted in genomics, population genetics, United States
Tagged Evolution, gene flow, Illumina, NGS, population genetics, population structure
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Raising the NIH pay-line to 20%
I bet that title got your attention. In the good ol’ days our funding record made the United States look like the land of milk and honey. As Bruce Alberts’ and colleague wrote in PNAS earlier this year: “The United … Continue reading
Posted in career, funding, NIH, politics, United States
Tagged funding, postdocs, too many cooks, young investigators
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House science committee is digging for dirt in NSF's confidential records of peer review
ScienceInsider reports that aides for the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology have been spending the summer digging through records of grant the grant review process that the National Science Foundation usually keeps confidential: The Republican aides were … Continue reading
Posted in funding, NSF, politics, United States
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The #IcedBudgetChallenge: Tell Congress to thaw out funding for NSF and NIH!
So a friend nominated me in this viral scheme to raise funds for ALS research, about which you may have heard lately. I’m all in favor of finding a cure for ALS—my grandfather died of it—but I’m also pretty skeptical … Continue reading
Posted in funding, NIH, NSF, politics, United States
Tagged Ice Bucket Challenge, Iced Budget Challenge
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Congress takes a worrying interest in peer review at NSF
Science Insider reported yesterday that Lamar Smith, a Republican congressman from Texas and the chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Space, Science, and Technology, is planning to introduce legislation to change the way the National Science Foundation decides how to … Continue reading