Lauren Halstead Willett
LightNews LightNews
banner
renwill.bsky.social
Lauren Halstead Willett
@renwill.bsky.social
5 followers 5 following 4 posts
Penn State Astro '22 University of Padua '24 amateur artist | she/her
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Lauren Halstead Willett
dangaristo.bsky.social
BREAKING: NSF has frozen all grant funding, as of yesterday. It's unclear when they will resume funding awards, or why the pause has been put in place. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Exclusive: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones
US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.
www.nature.com
May 1, 2025 at 10:58 PM
Reposted by Lauren Halstead Willett
therickwilson.bsky.social
$9 billion a year for NSF is absolute chump change. It's nothing. And yet, cutting it will devastate American science for decades.

God, we're led by a morons, empowered by idiots.
dannagal.bsky.social Dannagal Goldthwaite Young @dannagal.bsky.social · May 2
Your regular reminder that NSF grants built the internet and helped the U.S. dominate tech.
dangaristo.bsky.social Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · May 1
BREAKING: NSF has frozen all grant funding, as of yesterday. It's unclear when they will resume funding awards, or why the pause has been put in place. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
May 2, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Reposted by Lauren Halstead Willett
blekhman.bsky.social
If you think the NSF is a waste of government money, you should stop using any technology created using NSF-funded research.

Like cell phones. Or the Internet
February 4, 2025 at 10:32 PM
Reposted by Lauren Halstead Willett
astrojaz.bsky.social
another timeline cleanse from all the doom and gloom 🌌
Image of a large galaxy on the right, with two smaller companion galaxies to the left. The large galaxy is ring-shaped, with an oval outer ring, and a small, off-center oval inner ring. The rings and space between are lit with blue plumes and dots. The companion galaxies to the left, one above the other, are much smaller than the main galaxy, and about the same size as each other. The galaxy above has similar coloring and many of the same features as the large ring galaxy, but more of a disturbed s-shape, with no distinct rings. The galaxy below is brighter with a whiter tinge. It has a diffuse spiral shape with a white core similar to that of the ring galaxy, but with a smoother texture. The background is full of more distant, orange-red colored galaxies of various shapes and sizes. At the center of the image is a horizontal orange cloud known as Herbig-Haro 46/47 that is uneven with rounded ends, and tilted from bottom left to top right. In the middle of this cloud is a yellow-white blob with 8 reddish pink diffraction spikes piercing through it. The left lobe of the cloud is thicker. Just off the edge is a tiny red arc that curves in the opposite direction. The right lobe is thinner, and ends in a smaller orange semi-circle that has a faint purple outline. Just off the edge of this lobe is a slightly smaller orange sponge-like blob. A delicate, semi-transparent blue cloud known as a nebula drifts toward the top of the image and peters out toward the left of the frame. Toward the right and bottom, the nebula ends in a soft ridge set off in a translucent orange. The background is filled with stars and galaxies. Two foreground stars with blue diffraction spikes, seen in the bottom right corner, are especially prominent. A field of galaxies on the black background of space. In the middle is a collection of dozens of yellowish galaxies that form a foreground galaxy cluster. Among them are distorted linear features, which mostly appear to follow invisible concentric circles curving around the center of the image. The linear features are created when the light of a background galaxy is bent and magnified through an effect called gravitational lensing. A variety of brightly colored, red and blue galaxies of various shapes are scattered across the image, making it feel densely populated. Red dual opposing jets coming from young stars fill the darker top half of the image. At bottom center is a glowing pale yellow, cave-like structure, its top tilted toward two o’clock, with a bright star at its center. The dust of the cave structure becomes wispy toward eight o’clock. Above the arched top of the dust cave, 3 groupings of stars with diffraction spikes are arranged. A dark cloud sits at the top of the arch of the glowing dust cave, with one streamer curling down the right-hand side. The dark shadow of the cloud appears pinched in the center, with light emerging in a triangle shape above and below the pinch, revealing the presence of a star inside the cloud. The largest jets of red material emanate from within this dark cloud, thick and displaying structure like the rough face of a cliff, glowing brighter at the edges. At top center, a star displays another, larger pinched dark shadow, this time vertically. To the left of this star is a more wispy, indistinct region.
January 23, 2025 at 6:07 AM