Education thread

[neoplacebo]

I do not agree with the banning of the AP from press access. The AP provides a useful foil.

AP is also part of the conspiracy, victim SoupySales?

I wrote on my calendar yesterday that you and I agree about something. But I don't think AP is a "useful foil." I think of them as more of a factual alternative to such drivel as Newsmax, OAN, RSBN. etc.

MAGA detests higher education, too:

A New Kind of Crisis for American Universities

I read something the other day where the idea that the right wants to create a large and cheap labor force.....opposition to education certainly facilitates that. And since their nonsense about bringing manufacturing back to the US from China is nonsense, the only thing left to them is to create an army of cheap (uneducated) workers. Hell, trump used to say it loudly....."I love the uneducated." MAGA

[O Really]

Turns out if the Dept of Education cuts funds to public schools, the effect would be much more negative on rural areas (which coincidentally mostly voted for Trump) than in urban areas that have higher tax base, more people, etc. to fund their schools. But yeah, Trump loves the uneducated and wants to keep them that way.

[Whack9]

USA abdicating it's global scientific leadership position:

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science ... rcna191744

This is simply the end.”

That was the five-word message that Rick Huganir, a neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, received from a colleague just before 6 p.m. two Fridays ago, with news that would send a wave of panic through the scientific community.

When Huganir clicked on the link in the email, from fellow JHU neuroscientist Alex Kolodkin, he saw a new National Institutes of Health policy designed to slash federal spending on the indirect costs that keep universities and research institutes operating, including for new equipment, maintenance, utilities and support staff.

“Am I reading this right 15%??” Huganir wrote back in disbelief, suddenly worried the cut could stall 25 years of work.

In 1998, Huganir discovered a gene called SYNGAP1. About 1% of all children with intellectual disabilities have a mutation of the gene. He’s working to develop drugs to treat these children, who often have learning differences, seizures and sleep problems. He said his research is almost entirely reliant on NIH grants.

...

From cancer researchers to those working in maternal health, Huganir’s predicament is familiar to many scientists across the country right now. Less than a month into his administration, President Donald Trump has embarked on a cost cutting program that threatens to reshape the infrastructure that has made the U.S. the envy of the world in medical innovation. His administration has frozen federal grants, ordered sweeping layoffs across federal agencies, cut funding for biomedical research and issued executive orders that threaten to shutter government programs focused on gender or diversity.
The search for a cure for these rare disorders is a race against time, because researchers think treatment will be most effective if administered when patients are children.