David J. Gillcrist

There goes several months of hard work🥲

The new surface-colouring option in @desmos.com 3D allows a cute way of visualizing conic sections.
www.desmos.com/3d/fiv5gnltdl
(The option to have translucent surfaces doesn't save with the graph itself, so needs to be re-toggled on. It's important for seeing the full curves)
#MathSky #iTeachMath

How New Trump Multiyear Policy Makes NIH Grants Even Harder To Get The new Trump administration multiyear funding policy for NIH grants has dropped National Cancer Institute grant funding rates from one in 10 applicants to one in 25.

How New Trump Multiyear Policy Makes NIH Grants Even Harder To Get

Here’s my coverage in @forbes.com of this

🛟 🧪 😷 #AcademicSky #MedSky #episky🩺 #HiSciSky Public Health #science

www.forbes.com/sites/brucel...

Moral of the story: if you catch someone saying "Trump has a 'majority' mandate," you can just tell them this. Okay. I promise I'm done now 😁

Also, to correct/specifiy my own math. If the tally error rate is applied only to the remaining, non-Trump votes you get ≈49.801%, but if you apply the rate to all the votes cast but miraculously say none of those are in Trump's votes you get ≈49.806%. Regardless, the point's still the same 😅

more than 50% of votes cast. A majority voted for someone else. Perhaps this individual was missing sufficient information on how to interpret properly what winning the majority of the electoral college votes means. But, either way, a "majority" mandate, Trump has not. (4/4)

the stops for Trump, he still lands with merely a plurality of votes. A large plurality albeit, but only a plurality nonetheless. He may have done better in this election than either of the previous two he ran in, but that doesn't make him something he's not, that being a candidate who won (3/4)

i.e. 1 out of every 10,000 votes counted is inaccurate, and say all those inaccuracies are in Trump's favor, that raises his total count to 77,310,374, putting his percentage at ≈49.801%. Assuming we're defining "majority" reasonably as winning 50%+1 of votes cast, even when pulling out all (2/4)

It's also funny because, according to the FEC's Official 2024 Presidential General Election Results, the total number of votes cast was 155,238,302; 77,302,580 of which were for Trump. Meaning he received ≈49.796% of the popular vote. Even if we use an exceptionally large tally error of 0.01%, (1/4)

Sooo, when are we gonna get a collaboration between Noah Kahan and Canada's Noah Kahan (i.e. Cameron Whitecomb)? #Canada #Music #CanadianMusic

Wishing a happy 83rd birthday to NASA mathematician and researcher Christine Darden, who specialized in the analysis of supersonic noise and research into its reduction. She was the first Black woman at NASA to reach Senior Executive Service status.

#WomenInSTEM #NASA #MathSky 🧪🚀

We published this on the @fancycomma.bsky.social blog and it feels very true right now, as it has always been, in my experience. Read: fancycomma.com/2025/06/07/f... #SciComm #SciPol

Hmmm 🤔, do mathematicians count?

I forget where I originally saw this, but it's one of my absolute favorite memes. #MathSky #iTeachMath #MathMemes #ScienceMemes

This meme probably best describes my research life for the past three months. #MathSky #Science #MATLAB

🎻 96% of all classical music is heard on public radio. If Congress approves a proposal to strip public radio funding, on-air classical music would virtually cease to exist in the United States.

Take action today to #SavePublicRadio and the music you love at goACPR.org

Screenshot of table showing number of grants and total value terminated by NSF directorate. STEM Education directorate is highlighted, with 417 terminations totaling 322 million dollars. CSV of table: Directorate,No. Terminated,Total Value Biological Sciences,46,"$27,960,075" Computer and Information Science and Engineering,85,"$44,630,113" Engineering,94,"$33,472,485" Geosciences,52,"$36,454,740" Mathematical and Physical Sciences,30,"$6,418,312" Office of the Director,7,"$4,859,738" STEM Education,417,"$322,680,063" "Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences",266,"$77,635,904" "Technology, Innovation and Partnerships",46,"$62,231,309"

UPDATE: We have data on >1000 terminated #NSF grants at grant-watch.us. Thanks to all who have been contributing data the past few days.

We've also added a "Reports" section with some analyses. For NSF, we see that the STEM education directorate has been absolutely pummeled.

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me"
– Martin Niemöller, Lutheran Pastor, Holocaust Survivor
(5/5)

with it.

"First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

(4/5)

faced the utmost scrutiny of the people that elected them. Call your local, state, and federal representatives and put all the pressure you can muster on them to stand against the zealous grab of power we're witnessing . People that do not live with virtue should never be expected to govern… (3/5)

baselessly as the outcome of a mother's choice who was swiftly and forcefully ejected out of this nation is one of the sorriest excuses for a deplorable act of this regime. Governments, regardless of the parties that steer them, are never owed the benefit of the doubt, and should ALWAYS be… (2/5)

U.S. judge says 2-year-old apparently deported to Honduras 'with no meaningful process' The toddler, a U.S. citizen, was apparently sent to Honduras with her mother and 11-year-old sister, even as a federal judge tried to contact an attorney representing the government.

There is no singular article that reflects the autocracy—and the rampant violations of the core rights and principles that go along with it—happening right now in the United States. However, stripping children away from a country they have a constitutional right to be in, and justifying it… (1/5)

French university opens doors to US scientists fleeing Trump’s research cuts Aix-Marseille University in the south of France says it's ready to welcome American scientists, whose work has become untenable following the Trump administration's cuts in certain academic sectors.…

The brain drain from the United States begins (as expected):

www.rfi.fr/en/france/20...

I internalize posts like this as subtly encouraging us to not dispair and be optimistic about the future. Sometimes a calm meditative moment is enough to promote a proactive attitude for positive change. I for one WILL watch some birds this weekend. 😊 #Science 🌍🌎🌏

"Get up offa that thing,
And shake 'till you feel better,
Get up offa that thing,
And try to release that pressure!"

In other words, JOIN the #standupforscience2025 MOVEMENT!

And Happy Valentine's Day to all those cardiovascular scientists out there! 🫀(😘)

#AcademicSky 🧪

Open letter to the President of the Royal Society – time to stand up for your values If you wish to show your support for the letter below regarding apparent inaction by the Royal Society in the face of breaches of its code of conduct by Elon Musk FRS, please sign below. I invite anyo...

Thanks to the more than *1100* members of the scientific community who have signed the letter to insist that the Royal Society remains true to values that we all hold dear but that Musk FRS has ridden roughshod over.

Please keep signing & sharing.

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

got a lingering suspicion that their scores are AI written. There seems to be very little info on their website about them. I'd love to know if there's anyone in #sciart with a better understanding of orchestral music who could weigh in, as I'd prefer to give my attention to actual composers. (2/2)

Eternal Eclipse

I think everyone in #sciart agrees that AI generated art is overall bad for the art community, and society by and large. We seem to have a good eye for finding visual AI art, but what about music? I hope I'm not defaming anyone, but after listening to Eternal Eclipse's cinematic music, I've… (1/2)