Speaking of Science: Shutdown and science

The government shutdown has wreaked havoc on scientific progress, as The Post reported last week. Because the shutdown has lasted into the new year, the Smithsonian museums and the...

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A sign on the door of The National Museum of the American Indian states that the museum is closed as the partial shutdown of the U.S. government goes into the 12th day, on Jan. 2, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) The government shutdown has wreaked havoc on scientific progress, as The Post reported last week. Because the shutdown has lasted into the new year, the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo are closed. Visitors are barred from seeing the pandas and the Hope Diamond. And Smithsonian scientists around the world must return home. They must go silent, too, which is sure to frustrate their collaborators. "You absolutely cannot use your government email," Nick Pyenson, curator of fossil marine mammals at the National Museum of Natural History, told me last week. "You are not allowed to communicate, period." Has the shutdown affected your science? A few readers chimed in via email: "The proposal review process is interrupted and the flow of research is correspondingly disrupted. I will have a lot of catching up to do once my active status is restored," said a furloughed NSF employee. One reader mentioned that more than 3,000 scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology's labs in Gaithersburg and Boulder have been furloughed, too. If you have a perspective on science and the shutdown, let me know at: ben.guarino@washpost.com. — Ben NASA's New Horizons spacecraft just visited the farthest object ever explored Scientists rang in the new year with a flyby of Ultima Thule, a far-flung space rock that may hold clues to the earliest days of our solar system. By Sarah Kaplan · Read more     ADVERTISEMENT   Extreme weather in 2018 was a raging, howling signal of climate change "Climate change is here, and it's already costing tens of billions of dollars a year," one expert said. By Joel Achenbach · Read more   NASA has a New Year's date with a distant space rock. Here's how to watch. Get ready for New Horizons' unprecedented exploration of the Kuiper belt. By Sarah Kaplan · Read more     ADVERTISEMENT   Disruptive, disappointing, chaotic: Shutdown upends scientific research A prolonged government shutdown means a rocky start for science in the new year. By Ben Guarino, Sarah Kaplan, Angela Fritz and Carolyn Y. Johnson · Read more   Incoming! A June meteor swarm could be loaded with surprises. Scientists studying the Tunguska impact of 1908 call for a special observing campaign next summer. By Joel Achenbach · Read more   Recommended for you Get The Switch newsletter The top stories on the tech industry, tech policy and tech in our lives, delivered every weekday. Sign Up

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