The shutdown story no one is talking about
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- Опубліковано 23 січ 2019
- The longest partial government shutdown in history is damaging American science in multiple and unexpected ways. As many science-related agencies try to operate on skeleton staff - research is being disrupted, astronomy is suffering and scientific progress is grinding to a halt. Jayde Lovell gives the lowdown.
Script
We’ve all seen shutdown stories about the TSA employees working without pay, because TSA employees are the federal employees that most people actually see. Especially when they stop giving a sh-t and start blasting dirty Kanye and Drake tracks over the loudspeakers at JFK.
But the vast majority of employees copping it sweet because the shutdown aren’t in border security - they’re in science.
Science organizations have been hit hardest by the shutdown -
NASA has furloughed almost 90% of its staff.
NOAA has given half of its workers the temporary boot
Same for most of those on payroll at the U.S. Geological Survey
Oh, and all 19 Smithsonian museums are closed
Sure, “essential” science is still happening. USGS is still sending earthquakes alerts, and NOAA is still sending out weather forecasts - that said, they can’t update the forecasting models of hurricanes and stuff like that - but that doesn’t seem that could cause any major issues.
But right now, most U.S. science is as dead as this lab skeleton - part of the skeleton stuff that’s now running the NIH.
There’s been so many tragic victims of this shutdown, but clearly, the most tragic is the loss of Panda Cam. Smithsonian scientists have turned off the live feed of the National Zoo, so right now, you cannot watch Tian Tian, Mei Xiang and Bei Bei being adorably ridiculous in real time!
What am I paying my g-dd-m taxes for!?! Trump, you can take my tax return, but don’t you dare take my panda cam.
Not surprisingly, shutting down pretty much all U.S. science has some pretty bl--dy serious effects. A lot of research is time sensitive, so if you don’t capture that data now, the research will be lost forever.
Once we start paying TSA workers, they’ll stop playing Kanye mixtapes, and we can go back to the standard clusterf-ckery of TSA line-ups - but it’s not the same for scientists - we’ll never be able to go back and get the time-sensitive data that they’ve lost.
For example: California’s seafood levels have been painstakingly monitored every winter for more than 70 years, so we know how to set fishing quota. But like last year’s Fyre Festival, this year’s California Fisheries seafood expedition was cancelled moments before liftoff. Why? Well, surprisingly, neither Ja Rule or unpaid salaries were to blame - it’s because their bl--dy research ship is owned by the government, and the government is, well - you can guess the rest.
Look, in all seriousness, this isn’t just about my sushi. The world’s longest running study of wolves has been going on continuously for more than 50 years … until now. Researchers want to do the work, but because the National Park Service is shut down, scientists can’t actually get into the park, ya know, where the wolves live.
Because of Trump, this will be the first winter since 1958 that we haven’t recorded information on the wolves. We will never know how many wolves there were in the winter of 2019. Never.
And it’s not just data here on earth being lost.
American Taxpayers like you paid about five billion bucks to build the Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Now - it’s basically floating space junk, because the people trained to operate the thing are based at the Smithsonian. And you remember what happened there!
Sources:
www.nature.com/articles/d4158...
www.space.com/26612-nasa-chan...
www.sfchronicle.com/science/a...
eos.org/articles/federal-gove...
www.washingtonpost.com/weathe...
www.schumer.senate.gov/contac...
For more on science & the shutdown, check out Emily Atkin: newrepublic.com/article/15291...
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Produced by Jayde Lovell and Bec Susan Gill. ScIQ is a partner of the The Young Turks Network.
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Editor: Brandon Palmieri - Наука та технологія
Thank you for getting the word out. I'll be sure and share
Thanks for sharing!! We just wish we could do more to help! - Jayde
I love science as much as Richard Dawkins but even I wouldn’t do it for free.
Hahaha - I'm sure people WOULD do it for free, they just CAN'T! We all gotta eat! - Jayde
ScIQ Yeah i meant i would do some for free but not 1 month or i would have just given up. If i lost 1 month of labs in school i would probably give up and drop it. But hey they may have more optimism than me.
When my Mother eats shit I want Jayde to deliver the news.
I get the point about research being lost forever and that is very important, but don’t dismiss the long term affects of TSA and other government agencies
She didn't dismiss anything. In fact, she highlighted them as being obviously problematic, so much so that there are already hundreds of stories about that. Giving a different perspective about something doesn't mean nullifying the other possible perspectives.
Of course! I think groups like TSA, because their visible, are getting a lot of press already. We just wanted to highlight those lesser-known stories. My heart goes out to EVERYONE not receiving their paychecks today. - Jayde
The beauty of the written word...
Such a great point. It's crazy this is happening. I envy your Australian citizenship right now. Nice to see you back Jayde and Co!
THANK YOU! We're glad to be back! The Shutdown was nightly news every night in Australia, the whole world is watching. - Jayde
@@ScIQ
Definitely keep it up, I feel you get less credit than you deserve, these are seriously important topics.
I play Sci Q at work and sometimes my coworkers ask. Jayde and friends, I really think you guys are going to make a difference and hope you guys keep it up.
Maga
Not a 'story' but a gripe over a dozen seperate things.
What do you guys think? Maybe you're a scientist, or know someone affected by the shutdown? We’d love to hear your shutdown stories. Write to us in the comments below.