GoKawiil
Tech News
Voters go to the polls on 3 November in elections that could flip Republican control of the House and possibly the Senate. The outcome follows Trump-administration moves that cut thousands of research grants, reduced the federal science workforce, and sought greater political oversight of agencies like the NIH and NSF, while Congress has so far resisted proposed budget cuts exceeding 50% for the NSF.
A Nature briefing reports that as more AI companies prepare to go public, the number of ultra-wealthy philanthropists funding biomedical science in the US is expected to grow. These donors tend to back higher-risk, personally meaningful projects with fewer conditions than government agencies typically impose, according to the briefing.
Nature's latest career survey of nearly 4,000 researchers, published October 13, found that scientists in the US, Germany and the UK expressed less optimism about their career futures compared with the 2018 and 2021 surveys. Meanwhile, researchers in India (70% optimistic) and China (55%) reported more positive outlooks, both above the global average of 52%, compared with Germany (38%), the UK (33%) and the US (34%).