Death by starvation is turning out to be at least as bad as death by firing squad. Because we have no termination notice, everyone is struggling to apply for bridge funding, and no one is stepping in to save our work, because our project "still exists" even as our labs' bank accounts hit zero. /5

I wish I could say "the work, at least, will continue" with a straight face. But the people driving this project are (mostly early-career) researchers who U.S. face funding shortages across the board. In-progress work will be lost on fundamental bio, climate change, and pandemic risk assessment /4