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What’s Ahead
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| An illustration of plasma wakefield acceleration, in which particles moving through a hot ionized gas create a plasma wake that conveys energy to trailing particles. (Image credit – Greg Stewart / SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory) |
Upgraded Accelerator Testing Facility Opening at SLAC
On Monday, SLAC National Accelerator Lab is announcing the opening of its upgraded Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests (FACET-II). FACET-II is a plasma wakefield accelerator capable of boosting electrons to energies of up to 10 gigaelectron volts over much shorter distances than can be done with traditional techniques employing magnetic fields. Running for about six months every year, the facility will enable a community of roughly 250 researchers to experiment with technologies that could prospectively reduce the length of accelerator systems by a factor of between 100 and 1,000. The first experiments on FACET-II are expected to begin in February. The original FACET operated from 2012 to 2016 but was shut down to accommodate work on SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source II facility, which is also starting to come online. The upgrade, which cost about $20 million, involved installing a higher-luminosity electron source, new electron bunch compressor systems for producing more intense beams, and new control systems and tools to analyze beam properties.
Planetary Science Decadal to Hear Sponsor Expectations, Venus Vision
The steering committee of the Decadal Survey on Planetary Science and Astrobiology is meeting virtually on Friday to hear presentations on the federal government’s expectations for the study, which will inform mission priorities for NASA and the National Science Foundation. Among those speaking are NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and NSF Astronomy Division Deputy Director James Neff, as well as staff from the House and Senate committees that oversee the agencies. Separately, the decadal survey’s Venus panel is meeting on Tuesday and will hear a presentation from Wesleyan University planetary geologist Martha Gilmore on a concept for a flagship mission to the planet. The discovery announced last month that Venus’ atmosphere apparently harbors the chemical phosphine has raised the possibility that life exists there, which has increased attention to the planet as a potential destination for new science missions.
Lunar Stakeholders to Probe Exploration Technology Gaps
On Wednesday and Thursday, the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and Arizona State University are co-hosting the second meeting of the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium, a group assembled earlier this year to explore technologies needed to establish a sustained presence on the Moon. NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine will deliver a keynote address and announce the latest awardees in the agency’s “Tipping Point” program, which funds demonstrations of technologies that are poised to transition into commercial space applications. Other sessions will consider gaps in the technology architecture that is needed to advance past the NASA Artemis program’s initial goal of a crewed landing toward more expansive scientific, commercial, and exploration activities on the lunar surface.
AAAS Policy Forum to Focus on COVID and Racial Injustice
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is holding its annual Forum on Science and Technology Policy, which begins Tuesday, as a free two day virtual event this year. The forum is covering “major current challenges affecting science, policy, and society, as well as their intersectionality,” with a focus on the COVID-19 pandemic, its impact on the research community, and the “ongoing worldwide demonstrations against racial injustice and police violence.” The first day will explore how the U.S. R&D innovation system can learn from the pandemic and the pandemic’s impacts on students, researchers, and universities. The second day will focus on discussions of “systemic racism in science,” with closing remarks from University of Maryland, Baltimore County President Freeman Hrabowski.
Academy of Medicine Spotlighting COVID and Climate Threats
The National Academy of Medicine’s annual meeting, which begins on Saturday, will focus on the dual crises of COVID-19 and climate change. Technology executive turned philanthropist Bill Gates will deliver a keynote address on Monday titled “Crises, Fast and Slow.” Gates has been an outspoken critic of the U.S. pandemic response, and recently argued that climate change will likely have an even more devastating impact in the coming decades, akin to “having a COVID-sized pandemic every ten years.” National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Director Anthony Fauci will also deliver remarks on the state of the coronavirus pandemic. In addition, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will headline a session on policy responses to complex global crises. In steering Europe’s coronavirus response, von der Leyen has also sought to address climate change, committing to allocate about a third of Europe’s €750 billion recovery package to the European Green Deal. She also recently announced plans to establish an agency modeled on the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Saturday’s program includes a variety of panel discussions that will be open to the public for the first time this year.
NSF Geosciences Advisory Panel Reviewing Key Studies
The advisory committee for the National Science Foundation’s Geosciences Directorate is meeting this week to discuss a set of recent and forthcoming studies, including its draft “21st Century GEO” report, which will succeed a 2014 report that identified research priorities for the directorate. The committee will also hear an update on the NSF-sponsored National Academies study on Earth system science, which launched in August, a separate Academies study on biological collections, and an external review of the directorate’s atmospheric sciences portfolio. The Earth system science study is currently accepting community input through the end of December. The committee will also discuss the pandemic’s impact on academia and meet with NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan.
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In Case You Missed It
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| After adding “inclusion” as its fifth core value this summer, NASA affixed the word to a display at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (Image credit – Ben Smegelsky / NASA) |
Research Groups Seek Rollback of Diversity Training Restrictions
A Sept. 22 executive order restricting certain kinds of diversity and inclusion training has created confusion for universities and federal contractors, spurring some institutions to suspend training programs and postpone planned events. Federal agencies have also been instructed to suspend all diversity training programs pending a review of compliance with the order. Dozens of higher education associations sent a letter to President Trump last week requesting he withdraw the order, saying it has a “chilling effect” on campus efforts to ensure non-discriminatory workplaces and requires an “unprecedented expansive review of internal training materials at both public and private entities.” Separately, 50 scientific societies, including AIP, sent a letter to the White House last week denouncing the order, arguing it wrongfully insinuates that certain trainings are inherently anti-American and “sends a message of division, intolerance, and subjectivity that is damaging to our R&D community.”
Two More Top Scientific Journals Condemn Trump
On Oct. 8, the New England Journal of Medicine published an editorial blasting the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic and, while not mentioning President Trump specifically, appealed to voters to cast out current federal government leaders. Calling them “dangerously incompetent,” the editorial argues those leaders have “undercut trust in science and in government, causing damage that will certainly outlast them.” The top-tier medical journal has not previously made such an exhortation to voters in its 208 year history. On Oct. 5, the United Kingdom-based journal Nature published a news feature surveying ways the Trump administration has “damaged science,” touching on issues such as the pandemic response, climate change, environmental regulation, and immigration policy. Citing policy experts, the article also reports that the administration has, across agencies, “undermined scientific integrity by suppressing or distorting evidence to support political decisions.” The journal has not taken an editorial position on the election, but its editors also announced last week that they plan to increase coverage of global politics and publish more political science research, partly due to “signs” that politicians around the world are “pushing back against the principle of protecting scholarly autonomy, or academic freedom.” The two journals are the latest prestigious science publications to cast Trump as corrosive to science and science-informed policy. In recent weeks, the editor-in-chief of Science has excoriated Trump for “lying” about the pandemic, while Scientific American made its first-ever presidential endorsement, backing Democratic candidate Joe Biden. (Update: Nature has since endorsed Biden.)
Former NOAA Leaders Call on Agency to Rescind New Appointments
On Oct. 2, former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration heads Conrad Lautenbacher and Jane Lubchenco wrote to the agency on behalf of an ocean policy advocacy group, expressing alarm over the recent appointments of climatologist David Legates and meteorologist Ryan Maue to high-level positions there. The appointments have attracted criticism because Legates and Maue have often dismissed mainstream views about the severity of anthropogenic climate change, and E&E News has reported the Trump administration expects its new appointees to influence the agency’s work on climate and the next interagency National Climate Assessment. Lautenbacher and Lubchenco led NOAA during the administrations of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, respectively, and while Lubchenco has often protested Trump administration actions, Lautenbacher has been more reserved. Justifying their intervention, the two wrote, “We cannot be silent on this — we are concerned that the freedom of NOAA scientists to communicate honestly and openly about the impacts of climate change, the future of honest and accurate weather forecasting, objective fisheries management, disaster response, and much more will be further curtailed if these appointments go forward.”
H-1B Requirements Tightened by Trump Administration
The Departments of Labor and Homeland Security issued rules last week that together increase the wages employers must offer workers seeking H-1B visas and require the applicant’s degree to more closely match their job category, among other changes. Both departments cite the increased unemployment caused by COVID-19 as justification for the rules taking effect immediately without a public notice and comment period. The H-1B visa program is used by many technology companies and universities to hire workers in STEM fields, but it has come under criticism in recent years that is largely focused on alleged abuses of the program by certain information technology companies. President Trump has already suspended issuance of H-1B visas through the end of the year, though a federal judge partially blocked the policy on Oct. 1.
House Intelligence Panel Suggests Steps to Spur Innovation
The House Intelligence Subcommittee on Strategic Technologies and Advanced Research released a report last week recommending ways the U.S. can maintain a leading role in developing emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology. Among its proposals, the report calls for the federal government to expand spending on basic research and couple those investments with changes to how the intelligence community “organizes, establishes relationships, and sets priorities for R&D.” The report also argues that the emphasis often placed on competition with China represents an “overly narrow view,” and stresses that the subcommittee’s recommendations “are generally not calls for the hierarchy, direction, and centralized control that characterize Chinese innovation efforts [and instead] reflect the ideas of openness, flexibility and agility that gave rise to American innovative success from Los Alamos to Silicon Valley.” The report recommends a number of moves to bolster the intelligence community workforce, including by creating a STEM fellowship program and reforming U.S. immigration policies. Subcommittee Chair Jim Himes (D-CT) is discussing the report at an event on Thursday.
National Quantum Coordination Office Unveils Website
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| The logo of the National Quantum Coordination Office features an eagle within a ket, a mathematical notation used ubiquitously in quantum physics. (Image credit – NQCO) |
Last week, the National Quantum Coordination Office rolled out its official logo and website quantum.gov, which collects strategy documents and updates about the National Quantum Initiative. The office also released a report summarizing frontier research areas in quantum information science and announced the inaugural meeting of the National Q–12 Education Partnership, an effort to introduce students to QIS concepts at earlier grade levels. The White House established the coordination office last year, as required by the National Quantum Initiative Act, to keep tabs on the government’s growing portfolio of QIS research centers and workforce development efforts. The office is led by physicist Charles Tahan, who is on detail from the National Security Agency’s Laboratory for Physical Sciences, where he is chief scientist. Tahan also serves as co-chair of the newly established National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee, which is holding its first meeting on Oct. 27.
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Events This Week Monday, October 12
Tuesday, October 13
Wednesday, October 14
Thursday, October 15
Friday, October 16
Saturday, October 17
Monday, October 19
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Opportunities National Nanotechnology Initiative Seeking Input on Future Directions
The National Nanotechnology Coordination Office is accepting input on priority research areas, agency support mechanisms, and communication methods to inform the 2021 National Nanotechnology Initiative Strategic Plan. The office is seeking particular input on how the federal government can evolve its support for nanotechnology through 2030 and what nanotechnology-enabled “moonshots” should be considered, among other questions. Comments are due Nov. 9.
Nominations Sought for Quantum Sensing Workshop
The National Academies is accepting nominations for experts to organize a workshop on the “biological applications of quantum-enabled sensing and imaging technologies” to be held in spring 2021. Volunteers are sought in the areas of quantum-enabled systems; quantum biology; biological physics; and atomic, molecular, and optical physics, among other related fields. Submissions are due Oct. 30
Input Sought for Database of Top S&T Jobs
The Day One Project, an initiative to identify policy proposals for the next presidential term, is accepting recommendations as it develops a list of the top 100 science and technology-related positions across the federal government. Submissions are due Dec. 1. For additional opportunities, please visit www.aip.org/fyi/opportunities. Know of an opportunity for scientists to engage in science policy? Email us at fyi@aip.org.
Know of an upcoming science policy event either inside or outside the Beltway? Email us at fyi@aip.org.
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Around the Web
News and views currently in circulation. Links do not imply endorsement.
White House
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Science, Society, and the Economy
- The New England Journal of Politics, part II (Wall Street Journal, editorial)
- The Lancet’s cutting edge: Should medical journals enter the political realm? (Columbia Journalism Review)
- On November 3, vote to end attacks on science (Scientific American, editorial)
- Yes, science is political (Scientific American, perspective by Alyssa Shearer, et al.)
- Calm down about political ‘mischief’ around COVID-19 vaccines, scientists say (ScienceInsider)
- ‘We don’t know what this is yet’ (Issues in Science and Technology, interview with Charles Holliday)
- Innovation in the heartland with Dr. Michael McQuade (Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI), audio)
Education and Workforce
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Weather, Climate, and Environment
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