Please comment! Anyone who cares about scientific integrity or efficient use of taxes!

Specific anecdotes from researchers whose accomplishments would have been hindered by these rule changes are especially welcome.

Please comment and cite the relevant draft section (listed next to the summary points below).

This impacts so much research both domestically and abroad, please take the time to comment!

International scholars who benefited from research, a workshop, or a conference in the US, let the US government know why you being left out would have hurt research and US scientists! US grad students who would have missed out! Cutting edge research that would have been slowed or stopped had these rules been in effect in the past!

Summary from Elizabeth Ginex’s substack blog.

1. Political Appointees Take Control of Grant Awards (§200.205)
2. Peer Review Is No Longer Binding (§200.205(d))
3. “Gold Standard Science” as an Undefined Political Test (§200.205)

• All grants must include benchmarks for compliance with “Gold Standard Science”

• Agencies must prioritize institutions that have “demonstrated success in implementing Gold Standard Science”

• Institutional prestige and historical reputation are explicitly deprioritized in favor of compliance with this undefined standard

1. Active Grants Can Be Terminated at Any Time, for Any Reason (§200.340)
2. DEI, Gender Research, and Related Topics Banned as Grant Conditions (§200.300)
3. Broad Prohibition on International Scientific Collaboration (§200.220)
4. “Domestic-First” Framework for Research Awards (§200.202(e))
5. Applicants Can Be Denied Based on Organizational “Affiliations” (§200.206)
6. E-Verify Mandated for All Grant Recipients (§200.303)

• This adds significant administrative burden to universities and research institutions and could jeopardize grants at institutions employing researchers from abroad.

1. OMB Claims Direct Binding Authority Over All Agencies

2. Conference Attendance Now Requires Express Agency Pre-Approval (§200.432)

3. Professional Memberships Require Prior Approval and Must Be “Necessary” (§200.454)

4. Publication Costs and Open Access Fees Presumptively Unallowable (§200.461)

5. Public Communications and Outreach Severely Restricted (§200.421)

6. New “Issue Advocacy” Prohibition (§200.450)

7. Program Goals Must “Align with Administration Policies and Priorities” (§200.202)

8. Agency Heads Can Exempt Grant Competitions from Public Notice (§200.204)

9. Agencies Can Restrict Eligibility to Specific Nonprofit Categories (§200.202(d))

10. OMB Gains Direct Oversight of Which Institutions Receive Grants

Source article (in German)

The inscription names four individuals — two men and two women — who are described as fellow slaves. According to Dr Rodney Ast, Academic Director of the Institute for Papyrology, the tablet may have been intended either to curse the four slaves themselves or to invoke supernatural punishment against an unnamed individual on their behalf.

The composition of the group is particularly intriguing. The two men bear Latin names, while the women have Greek names, suggesting a culturally diverse community within the Roman Empire.

I recently bought some eyebuydirect mirrored lens sunglasses with single vision rx and was disappointed that, unlike the cheap ones in the pharmacy, you can see through to the eyes. I’ll be returning these and I’m wondering if anyone has purchased a pair of prescription sunglasses with the full mirror effect?

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, alongside its Florida chapter (CAIR-Florida), today issued a joint statement commending U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) for his strong stance demanding the immediate release of Sama Safi, a 20-year-old American citizen and student who was kidnapped by the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank.

CAIR AND CAIR-Florida are also calling on all Americans to urge their members of Congress to join Senator Van Hollen in demanding Sama Safi’s immediate release.

To mark the occasion, [they’ve] made a brand new trailer

Curious how people are feeling about the governor’s race. Opinions on candidates? Favorite attack ads or attack ad sponsorships?

Recommend reader mode

According to a statement released by Antiquity, analysis of pigeon bones from the site of Hala Sultan Tekke, a harbor city on the island of Cyprus, suggests that the birds (Columba livia) were semidomesticated as early as 1400 B.C. This is about 1,000 years earlier than was previously thought based on the remains of domesticated pigeons unearthed in Greece. Pigeons are known to have provided companionship, meat, and fertilizer. “We knew that pigeons must have become domesticated somewhere in the Middle East or Eastern Mediterranean, based mostly on the written record from Egypt, but we had no idea when or how," said Anderson Carter of the University of Groningen. Isotope analysis of the pigeon bones unearthed at Hala Sultan Tekke shows that they consumed a diet almost identical to that eaten by people, indicating that either people fed the pigeons or the two species at least lived in close proximity to each other. “Either way, this very likely means that they were domesticated or on their way to being domesticated," concluded Canan Çakırlar of the University of Groningen.

Use reader mode!

The study stopped short of claiming that ancient Egyptians intentionally designed the pyramid to resist earthquakes. Researchers said there is no direct evidence proving ancient builders understood seismic engineering in the modern sense.

Still, the findings suggest the Great Pyramid’s geometry and construction methods naturally reduced seismic risks. Researchers said the monument remains “a testament to ancient seismic engineering principles” that could still inform modern heritage preservation efforts.

An international team led by researchers from the University of Reading, the University of Tübingen and Reading and Senckenberg Nature Research Society has discovered the earliest known hand-held wooden tools used by humans. 

A study jointly led by Professor Katerina Harvati from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen and Dr Annemieke Milks at University of Reading describes discoveries from the Marathousa 1 site in Greece’s central Peloponnese which date back 430,000 years. 

Published today (Monday, 26 January) in the journal PNAS, the finds consist of two objects crafted and used by humans, one made of alder wood and the other of willow or poplar. The objects represent the oldest hand-held wooden tools ever found, pushing back evidence of this type of tool use by at least 40,000 years. 

Other finds of stone tools and the remains of an elephant and other animals indicate that the site, once on the shore of a lake, was used for butchering animals. The site was used by early humans around 430,000 years ago during the Middle Pleistocene – the period from around 774,000 to 129,000 years ago.

Suggest reader mode for this site, but the article is decent.

Research study

Our team wanted to understand how the ancient city interacted with the Nile and how that relationship developed through time as climate and the local environment shifted. Our recent study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looked at how the Nile channel and floodplain and Jebel Barkal evolved over centuries.

[…]

The cores our team drilled show that the city grew during a time of abundant rains and productive, predictable Nile flooding that provided fertile soil for agriculture. It doesn’t look like local climate change is the reason Jebel Barkal eventually went into decline. Our results show, first of all, that there had been an ancient Nile channel close to Jebel Barkal, but more like 10,000 years ago – millennia before the people of Kush built their city here. By the time the site was first occupied around 2000 B.C.E., that channel had long since filled in. So we still don’t know for sure how the people of Jebel Barkal got their water, but it’s clear that the Nile wasn’t running right next to the city.

Our scientific results lend new weight to an inscription of the ancient Kushite king Taharqo, who ruled over both Nubia and Egypt from about 690-664 BCE. It records a gentle and particularly abundant flood in the sixth year of his reign.

“When the time for the rising of the Inundation came, it continued rising greatly each day and it passed many days rising at the rate of one cubit every day.

"It penetrated the hills of South-land, it overtopped the mounds of North-land, and the land was (again) Primeval Waters, an inert (expanse), without land being distinguishable from river.

"Every man of Nubia was inundated with an abundance of everything, Egypt was in beautiful festival, and they thanked the god Amun for His Majesty.” This research has been particularly satisfying for me because it helps build a richer picture of life in ancient Sudan, comparable in depth and detail to what we know about other ancient civilizations.

The findings, published in the journal Antiquity, challenge the modern assumption that rising inequality is an unavoidable side effect of economic growth. Mohenjo-daro, the researchers say, stands as proof that a society can be technologically advanced and highly productive while also ensuring its prosperity is shared by the many, rather than the few.

Dr. Green said, "Mohenjo-daro is often cited as being famous for what it doesn't have, such as the absence of palaces for kings, gold-filled tombs, and no statues of rulers. But what it does have is so important.”

“In the period when inequality appears to be lowest, productivity appears to rise. It challenges the idea that prosperity requires us to concentrate decision-making powers in the hands of the few.”

"It is quite an interesting lesson for modern societies, as the Indus civilization demonstrates clearly that an urban society can be highly productive and inventive at scale, while also ensuring that resources and power are shared equitably. In fact, doing so may even have been essential to sustaining prosperity over the centuries."

People moved back into the British Isles around 15,200 years ago after the last major ice sheet began retreating, according to new research. That timeline is nearly 500 years earlier than earlier estimates suggested.

The return of humans appears to have happened alongside a sharp increase in summer temperatures (open access) in southern Britain. At the time, Britain was still connected to mainland Europe, allowing people and animals to move across the landscape more easily.

Agriculture reached the coast of southern Denmark around 4000 BCE, but these prehistoric Scandinavians continued to fish and hunt too, according to a study published in PLOS One by Daniel Groß from the Museum Lolland-Falster, Denmark, Sofie Folsach Hellerøe from Aarhus University, Denmark, and colleagues.

Study (open access)

Abstract

This study investigates the long-term impacts of human subsistence strategies on the fauna and ecosystem of Syltholm Fjord, Denmark, from the Late Mesolithic to the Bronze Age (c. 4500–800 cal BCE). Drawing on data from 17 archaeological excavations, we examine how long-term stationary wooden fishing structures in a lagoon-like environment and terrestrial resource exploitation influenced species composition, biodiversity, and human subsistence strategies at coastal settlements on a relatively small island (c. 1200 km2). Faunal analyses reveal that while dominant fish species remained consistent across periods, terrestrial fauna exhibited shifts, particularly around 3000 cal BCE, with an increased reliance on wild game coinciding with a decline in the use of fish weirs. Diversity indices indicate a significant reduction in species richness from the Early Neolithic to the Bronze Age, suggesting a more homogeneous ecosystem potentially reflecting intensified anthropogenic influence and perhaps increased social complexity. Salinity and sediment reconstructions, together with prey choice models (PCM), highlight the persistence of aquatic resources in the diet and suggest that human foraging strategies continued to optimize energetic returns without substantially altering fishing practices. Our findings challenge the notion of an abrupt Neolithic dietary transition toward domesticates’ dominance, illustrating instead a mosaic subsistence pattern that integrates wild aquatic and terrestrial resources over millennia. The diachronic stability of the faunal composition, coupled with reduced but persistent biodiversity, implies a long-term anthropogenic shaping of the landscape, possibly linked to communal management and later hierarchical structures. This case study underscores the importance of integrating archaeological, ecological, and theoretical perspectives to understand local trajectories of human-environment interaction and social change in prehistoric southern Scandinavia.