Physicist, occasional wiseass. Feed for Nanoscale Views (http://nanoscale.blogspot.com). He/his. These opinions are my own, obviously, and don’t represent my employer. (Annoyed that I feel like I have to say that.)
So the administration's hostility toward higher education includes the military academies. They are completists. www.cbsnews.com/news/dod-pen...
Pentagon weighs eliminating civilian tenure at military academies and reviewing all curriculum, draft memo saysThe Pentagon is considering a sweeping remake of military higher education, including an end to civilian tenure and a "line-by-line" review of courses, according to a draft memo obtained by CBS News.www.cbsnews.com🧪⚛️ The administration is considering charging someone (graduates? employers? unclear) $100K for OPT, the part of the international student visa that allows graduates to work for some time after completing their degrees. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
Exclusive | U.S. Weighs $100,000 Fee for Foreign Students Wanting to Work After GraduationThe proposed policy would particularly affect Silicon Valley, Wall Street and universities.www.wsj.com🧪⚛️ A new pilot program trying to shorten the STEM PhD timeline to four years, with direct connections to industry: nanoscale.blogspot.com/2026/07/phds...
PhDs - how long a doctorate should take, and a new pilot programI think it's safe to say that most people who've considered the issue think that a doctoral degree in the sciences and engineering in the US...nanoscale.blogspot.com🧪⚛️ This program + the DOE Genesis fellows program are of a piece: Shorten the PhD in the sciences and engineering to 4 yrs, while embedding an industrial internship. This is def worth trying, but execution and framing are *very* important. Will write more later. www.nsf.gov/news/nsf-par...
NSF partners with universities and industry on pilot initiative for four-year Ph.D. programs with real-world research placementsThe U.S. National Science Foundation announced a $47 million investment over five years, along with additional financial commitments from nearly three dozen universities and private industry...www.nsf.gov🧪 Terence Tao with a characteristically great take on AI and mathematics: teorth.github.io/tao-web/slid...
teorth.github.io🧪 Very much important to acknowledge. It’s worth noting that tenure in academia, for all its issues, protects people from being let go on the grounds of being insufficiently uncritical.
Karen K. HoI keep thinking about how often the mass layoffs in media, government and big companies, especially women and people of color, will lead to poorer outcomes for years because the people who would point out potential problems or blind spots were deemed non-essential, a "bad fit", and/or too expensive.
🧪⚛️ Here are a variety of papers and links (limits in photonics, dimensional analysis, quantum foundations, a new quantum textbook) and news items from the week. nanoscale.blogspot.com/2026/07/pape...
Papers and news itemsFirst, some science, clearing out a number of papers and articles that I've been collecting for some time in my far-too-numerous browser tab...nanoscale.blogspot.com🧪 @colesci.bsky.social with a solid piece on the recent OSTP document. Rightly asks, how much attention should this merit? Enough to see what it is, but not inflate the importance of a policy manifesto that doesn't have the force of law or regulation. www.techpolicy.press/ostp-vision-...
OSTP Vision for Science is a ‘Golden Age’ for Corporations"Science: A New Golden Age" tries to reframe the conversation away from the ongoing destruction of American science, writes Cole Donovan.www.techpolicy.press🧪⚛️ Some recent comments on my blog made me concerned about the commenter's emotional state. Please take care of yourself and your mental wellbeing. There's always someone available to listen. 988lifeline.org . nanoscale.blogspot.com/2026/07/a-br...
A brief serious note about mental health and well-beingI've been blogging for 21 years now (!!), and over that time I've had a wide variety of comments on here, but there have been a couple of an...nanoscale.blogspot.com@jtimmer.bsky.social with a thorough write-up: arstechnica.com/science/2026...
White House report says Trump can usher in a "new golden age" of scienceThe resulting report is a near-random mixture of grievances and real problems.arstechnica.com🧪⚛️ This thread makes essential points. How can anyone take OSTP's claims of embarking on a golden age of science seriously, when their report is accompanied by a budget request to eviscerate NSF and NIH?
Jonas Nahm1/ Trump's OSTP just dropped "A New Golden Age" — a big vision for reforming US science: less bureaucracy, more risk-taking, DARPA-style bold bets. Sounds great. Except it's landing inside an administration whose actual actions look nothing like it. www.whitehouse.gov/science/#cover
So, is NSF on this trajectory, too, or is the money being snagged back from its units’ budgets going to get funneled to some White House project? Both are bad alternatives.
Josh ChafetzVery important piece by Cerin Lindgrensavage and @davidasuper.bsky.social. This behavior by the administration is not only illegal, it is anti-constitutional. thehill.com/opinion/cong...
🧪⚛️ Some science highlights from last week's META 2026 conference in Dublin - neat stuff in the world of metamaterials, plasmonics, and (nano)photonics! nanoscale.blogspot.com/2026/07/a-fe...
A few optics/metamaterials highlights from META 2026This past week I attended META 2026 , the 16th International Conference on Metamaterials, Photonic Crystals and Plasmonics, at Trinity Colle...nanoscale.blogspot.comXenophobia.
Nicholas GrossmanThe US built the greatest talent magnet ever, attracting the smart, skilled, and striving. They’d come to study, then stay and build things here, or leave with positive impressions and fruitful connections. Helped make the US wealthy and powerful. Then America chose to throw it away. And for what?
As a rule I avoid commenting on peoples’ appearances, but wow, Stephen Miller ragging on someone’s looks is a heck of a choice.
PEIPolitical 🇨🇦Miller: "It's not a coincidence that when you look at these violent Antifa demonstrations not one of the people that is demonstrating looks like a normal person. Not one looks normal. They're all deformed in some way in their appearance, in their dress, in their mannerism." #cdnpoli
🧪 Stephen Miller wanted to do this in Trump’s first term. It’s a confluence of punishing universities and hating foreigners. This will be catastrophic in the short term for doctoral programs in the sciences and engineering. If it sticks, I could imagine major structural changes in PhD programs.
Matthew KirschenbaumAs with so many things, it is critical to realize this is not bumbling or ineptitude or not thinking through policy implications. On the contrary: making it impossible for foreign students to do the doctorate here is THE WHOLE POINT. It’s about starving higher ed under the guise of America first.
Waiting for the follow-up, about how robo-cameras were disguised as piles of discarded energy drinks to monitor college students unobtrusively.
Digital BrainBBC engineers built robo-cameras disguised as dung heaps to film wildlife at distances no human crew could ever get close enough to reach.