Chronicles of a Trumpastrophe 7: NIH freezes funds to Harvard and four other universities, but can’t tell them

 

• ScienceInsider
• Scientific Community

NIH freezes funds to Harvard and four other universities, but can’t tell them

Move follows broader White House attack on Harvard funding and stop-work orders to contractors

• 18 Apr 2025
• 4:35 PM ET
• By Sara Reardon

 After freezing all grants to Columbia University last week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is now stopping grant and contract payments to Harvard University and four other universities that President Donald Trump’s administration believes have not done enough to combat antisemitism on their campuses. The move will both block new funding and halt payments to investigators currently working on NIH projects.

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read more: https://www.science.org/content/article/nih-freezes-funds-harvard-and-four-other-universities-can-t-tell-them

t-invariant: American biologist Sergei Mirkin: “People don’t believe that this is happening in the United States today”

American biologist Sergei Mirkin: “People don’t believe that this is happening in the United States today”

American universities are being stripped of government funding. Some universities have announced hiring freezes this year. Others are laying off their staff. Still others – Columbia University, for example – have been left without government grants. But beyond purely financial decisions, we are also seeing interference in the substantive work of science. Why is the Trump administration turning on scientists? T-invariant talked to Tufts University endowment professor, biologist Sergei Mirkin, who has been working in the United States for 36 years.

Sergei Mirkin was born in 1956 in Moscow. He graduated from the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University in 1978, then entered graduate school at the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, defended his PhD thesis in 1983 and worked there until he left for the U.S. in 1989. From 1990 to 2006 he was faculty in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the University of Illinois at Chicago (Professor from 2002). Since 2007, he has served as Professor and White Family Chair in Biology at Tufts University (Biology Department Chair 2013-2019). Mirkin’s research interests lie in the area of DNA structure and function: the role of genomic instability caused by repetitive DNA sequences and collisions between transcription and replication in human genetic diseases. He is a recipient of several prestigious scientific awards and honors.

The main enemy is university liberals...

https://t-invariant.org/2025/04/american-biologist-sergei-mirkin-people-don-t-believe-that-this-is-happening-in-the-united-states-today/

sciencedirect: High entropy oxides-exploring a paradigm of promising catalysts: A review

 

Materials & Design

Volume 202, April 2021, 109534

High entropy oxides-exploring a paradigm of promising catalysts: A review

, , ,

^a

Mechanical Engineering Department, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi 127788, UAE

^b

Center for Catalysis and Separations, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, Abu Dhabi 127788, UAE

^c

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Thessaly, Greece

Received 2 October 2020, Revised 17 January 2021, Accepted 25 January 2021, Available online 29 January 2021, Version of Record 14 February 2021.

 

 

Abstract

This review presents the structural elements and discusses the great potential of high entropy oxides (HEO) as promising catalysts. A critical comparison is provided with the medium and low entropy metal oxides in terms of the important functionality of HEO to exhibit higher oxygen mobility and withhold high population of oxygen vacancies as well as leading to high metal dispersion. This review study critically compares the performance of the thermal, electro- and photo- high entropy oxides catalysts with the conventional metal oxides and demonstrates their superiority over them while discussing the governing characteristics of HEO. The HEO complex structure is highlighted using ab initio calculations on understanding and tuning their electronic/structural properties. Catalysts’ design criteria and direction in the studies of the HEO as catalysts for energy and sustainability are proposed.

 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264127521000873

sciencedirect: Control of experimental conditions in reaction flash-sintering of complex stoichiometry ceramics

 

Ceramics International

Volume 46, Issue 18, Part B, 15 December 2020, Pages 29413-29420

Control of experimental conditions in reaction flash-sintering of complex stoichiometry ceramics

Eva Gil-González a, Antonio Perejón b c, Pedro E. Sánchez-Jiménez b, Daniel Román-González b, Luis A. Pérez-Maqueda b

a
    John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 02138, United States

b
    Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Sevilla, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas−Universidad de Sevilla, Calle Américo Vespucio 49, Sevilla, 41092, Spain

c
    Departamento de Química Inorgánica, Facultad de Química, Universidad de Sevilla, Sevilla, Spain

Received 20 January 2020, Revised 7 May 2020, Accepted 8 May 2020, Available online 23 May 2020, Version of Record 24 October 2020.

 

 

Abstract

The inherent potential of reaction flash-sintering for the preparation of complex oxides is evidenced by the one-step synthesis and densification of a ceramic of complex stoichiometry. The system Bi_0.93La_0.07FeO₃, a multiferroic ceramic with promising technological applications, has been chosen. This system presents three different metals in its composition and it is extremely challenging to prepare by conventional procedures. Non-stoichiometric materials with unwilling secondary phases are usually obtained by conventional methods, due to the high volatility of bismuth oxide at the temperatures required for inducing the solid-solid reactions. Here, it is demonstrated that a careful control of the experimental flash conditions (applied electric field and selected current density limit) is required to obtain a high quality ceramic. Small deviations from the optimum conditions result in either non-stoichometric or poorly densified samples.

 

 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272884220313791

science.org: International scientists rethink U.S. conference attendance

 Careers/Scientific Community

International scientists rethink U.S. conference attendance

Opposition to Trump administration and fears of customs run-ins are shifting travel plans

31 Mar 20255:10 PM ET By Katie Langin

 

 https://www.science.org/content/article/international-scientists-rethink-us-conference-attendance

Harmful Advice on Destroying International Scientometrics

 
Russians are trying to bypass international scientometrics in their usual propaganda method. In the Tatarstan Business Newspaper published in Russian, an article by Sergey Anureyev appeared, who is more of a profiteer than a scientist, who was engaged in business and investment in Russia, and is also a doctor of economics at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.
Despite the fact that he himself is a businessman and dealer, he accuses Scopus and Web of Science of speculation and greed. And reproachfully writes that they are private organizations. I see in this a clear contradiction and conflict of meanings.

Here is the advice he writes to Donald Trump (Google translation from Russian):


The "bomb" under scientometrics and ratings is now in the first and second positions of SJR. If in the almost thirty-year ranking the USA is still ahead of China, then in 2020 the latter came out on top in the annual ranking, and in 2023 it has already broken away from the USA by a third. What if Donald Trump with his "Make America Great Again" pays attention to this rating and decides to correct it? Correct it with his characteristic methods of the "common sense revolution": either by abolishing this rating or by revealing fraud in it. Trump has serious geopolitical "inconsistencies" with Britain and the European Union, and both private scientometrics companies are headquartered in London (one is partly in Holland). The USA has even more complicated political and trade relations with China, and here China has overtaken the USA in scientometrics. Trading stocks in New York makes these two scientometrics firms easy targets for Trump, and there's plenty to dig into even with a cursory glance at their balance sheets and stock prices.