Full Width [alt+shift+f] Shortcuts [alt+shift+k]
Sign Up [alt+shift+s] Log In [alt+shift+l]
33
Our residential seminar for 18–22 year olds was such a success that we are running it again
3 months ago

Improve your reading experience

Logged in users get linked directly to articles resulting in a better reading experience. Please login for free, it takes less than 1 minute.

More from The Works in Progress Newsletter

A $50 million foundation model to predict earthquakes

Achieving a 10-minute warning would save thousands of lives

3 days ago 6 votes
Stian Westlake on the intangible economy and paying for social science

Episode two of The Works in Progress Podcast is out now

a week ago 10 votes
What's new in biology, summer 2025 edition

The first gonorrhea vaccination program, contact lenses that see infrared light, the protein behind sweet tastes, a baby cured with gene therapy, and more

a week ago 13 votes
The end of lead

How a single taxi ride saved millions of lives

2 weeks ago 14 votes
Samuel Hughes on The Great Downzoning

Episode one of The Works in Progress Podcast is out now

3 weeks ago 15 votes

More in science

The Soviet Zond 3 Lunar Flyby: Revealing the Rest of the Far Side

Naturally, the early history of space exploration is filled with firsts. Just six decades ago at this time, the world watched as NASA’s Mariner 4 spacecraft […]

19 hours ago 4 votes
The latest on US science funding

The US House and Senate appropriations subcommittees have now completed their markups on the bills relevant to the FY26 appropriations for NSF, NASA, and NIST.  The AAAS has an interactive dashboard with current information here if you want to click and look at all the science-related agencies.   Other agencies still need to go through the Senate subcommittees.  Just a reminder of how this is supposed to work.  The House and Senate mark up their own versions of the detailed appropriations bills.  In principle these are passed by each chamber (with the Senate versions for practical purposes requiring 60/100 votes of support because of the filibuster).  Then a conference committee hashes out the differences between the bills, and the conference version of the bills is then voted on by each chamber (again, needing 60/100 votes to pass in the Senate).  Finally, the president signs the spending bills.  In the fantasy land of Schoolhouse Rock, which largely described events until the 1990s, these annual spending bills are supposed to be passed in time for the start of the new fiscal year on October 1.  In practice, Congress has been deeply dysfunctional for years, and there have been a lot of continuing resolutions, late budgets, and mammoth omnibus spending bills.   To summarize: NSF - House recommendation = $6.997B (a 20.7% cut from FY25), Senate = $9B (a 2% increase from FY25).  These are in sharp contrast to the presidential budget request (PBR) of a 55.8% cut. NASA - House = flat from FY25, Senate = $24.9B (0.2% increase).   NIST - House = $1.28B (10.6% increase from FY25), Senate = $1.6B (38.3% increase from FY25) NOAA - House = $5.7B (28.3% increase from FY25), Senate = $6.1B (36.3% increase from FY25) DOE has gone through the House, where the Office of Science is recommending a 1.9% increase, in contrast to a 13.9% cut in the PBR.   If you are eligible and able to do so, please keep pushing.  As I wrote a few days ago, this is a long-term project, since appropriations happen every year.  As long as you're making your opinions known, it's good to push on representatives and senators that they need to hold the agency leadership accountable to actually spend what congress appropriates.  A science post soon....

5 hours ago 2 votes
How Distillation Makes AI Models Smaller and Cheaper

Fundamental technique lets researchers use a big, expensive “teacher” model to train a “student” model for less. The post How Distillation Makes AI Models Smaller and Cheaper first appeared on Quanta Magazine

9 hours ago 2 votes
Research Details Devastating Toll of Colonization on Pacific Northwest Wildlife

When Europeans arrived to the Pacific Northwest, they spread smallpox that devastated the Indigenous people, plundered stocks of salmon and herring, hunted down deer and other game, and built sprawling cities and ports. New research tallies the profound impact on wildlife. Read more on E360 →

12 hours ago 2 votes
A New Geometry for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity

A team of mathematicians based in Vienna is developing tools to extend the scope of general relativity. The post A New Geometry for Einstein’s Theory of Relativity first appeared on Quanta Magazine

3 days ago 8 votes