The science and research fields are alarmed by President Donald Trump's anti-science policies.  The White House would argue that it is pushing for  gold-standard science . What is that? The administration released their  MAHA Report , injecting politics into science. And in a “Gold Standard Science” executive order last week, President Donald Trump outlined a new level of oversight over what counts as quality evidence and what does not, putting “a senior appointee designated by the agency head” in charge of overseeing “alleged violations.” Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a briefing that the goal of the executive order is to “rebuild the American people’s confidence in the national science enterprise … the status quo of our research enterprise has brought diminishing returns, wasted resources and public distrust.” A petition led by the advocacy group Stand Up for Science with more than 5,000 signatories says th...

  The Viking Tir leaves Vienna this afternoon for Budapest, which will be featured in my blog tomorrow.  Today.  I'll instead post a sci-tech article which usually appears on Wednesdays. I regularly report on information provided by the American Energy Society.  While this society promotes energy, it tries to protect the environment, and attempts to curb global warming is an important goal. This year, the  AES writer of the year is Rosanna Xia . Her works offers new ways for us to think about resiliency and our relationship with the environment. Xia is an environmental reporter for the  Los Angeles Times . She wrote an award-winning 2023 book,  California Against the Sea . This year, she released  Out of Plain Sight,  a documentary film about the half a million barrels of toxic waste that were quietly dumped into the ocean decades ago, just off the coast of Los Angeles. I haven't read her book, nor seen her documentary, but understand from wh...

Did you know yesterday was Super Tuesday II?  Not that it mattered, but both Joe Biden and Donald Trump officially are now their party's choice to run on November 5.  Of all the ironies, Hawaii, the state that never votes electorally for Donald Trump, almost pushed him over the line to officially make him the Republican primary victor.  However, Washington was that state. By the way,  Georgia Judge Scott McAfee  just announced that 6 of the 41-count indictment returned by the Fulton County grand jury in August must be quashed.  These were not all that critical, and a lot more is left for Trump and his cronies to worry about.  McAfee reiterated that he will announce his decision on Friday about the fate of Fani Willis.  The nation awaits the televised trial of Donald Trump.  Remember Trump's mug shot?  Done in Georgia. Oh, one more political matter.  GOP Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado not only will not run for re-election, he will quit at...