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Hundreds be part of Stand Up for Science rallies throughout the US


Stand Up for Science rally in Washington Sq. Park in New York Metropolis on 7 March

James Dinneen

Hundreds of individuals in cities throughout the US protested the Trump administration’s cuts to scientific funding on 7 March.

In New York Metropolis, greater than a thousand individuals gathered in Washington Sq. Park, chanting, “Fund science not battle!” Folks carried indicators in help of science and deploring the cuts, together with one which learn: “Science makes America nice.”

The protest was certainly one of at the least 30 “Stand Up for Science” rallies in cities throughout the US, with greater than 150 occasions anticipated worldwide. Researchers additionally walked out of laboratories as a part of the protest.

Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, the administration has cancelled or frozen billions of {dollars} of federal funding for scientific and medical analysis. Lots of the cuts have centered on analysis associated to range, fairness and inclusion (DEI), in addition to analysis on local weather change and gender. The administration has additionally fired 1000’s of federal workers at US scientific businesses, together with on the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Nationwide Institutes of Well being and the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.

“Science is one thing that must be treasured. I feel everybody must be right here. I might reasonably be in my lab working with my cells, however I feel now we have to convey consciousness to those issues,” says Ana Vivinetteo, a neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medication who attended the New York protest. She was carrying an indication that learn: “So dangerous, even introverts are right here.”

Demonstrators maintain indicators throughout a Stand Up for Science rally on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC on 7 March

Tierney L Cross / Bloomberg through Getty Pictures

“Science is being attacked and funding is being slashed in a approach that’s going to affect our nation’s well-being now and for a lot of many years,” says Maia, a postdoctoral researcher in cardiology at Columbia College in New York, who solely gave her first identify for worry of reprisal. She says she and her colleagues have misplaced funding for his or her analysis.

The most important rally happened in Washington DC, the place 1000’s of individuals attended. Audio system there included Invoice Nye the Science Man; Francis Collins, former director of the Nationwide Institutes of Well being (NIH); and several other members of Congress. Greater than 1500 individuals attended the New York occasion, the place distinguished researchers additionally spoke, together with Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, chief scientist at Meta AI Yann LeCun and Harold Varmus, a former NIH director and Nobel prizewinner.

Researchers from all around the world attended the New York protest. “America was very distinctive for science. We actually imagine that science made America nice. Now we’re very disillusioned as a result of every thing goes to be destroyed,” says a French most cancers biologist, who requested to stay nameless.

New Scientist additionally spoke with scientists from Argentina, Israel, Canada and Australia on the rally. A number of of them had been involved they could have to depart the US to proceed their work. “I’m heartbroken. I believed I might make this my dwelling and do my science right here,” says Vivinetteo, who’s from Argentina.

Dennis Robbins, a science educator at Hunter Faculty in New York, was carrying an indication that learn: “Now I’m a mad scientist.” He says he carried the identical signal within the first “March for Science” protest in 2017. “It’s beautiful that we nonetheless must rally for science, that somebody has to talk up for its meaningfulness in a democracy,” he says.

Nice crowd on the March for science in Philly! Hottest signal ‘I left lab for this’. Protest is simply beginning so come be part of us! #marchforscience #science #philly

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— Melissa Shusterman (@melshust.bsky.social) March 7, 2025 at 11:04 AM

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