You act like this is a private conversation. I'm addressing not just you but anyone that happens along to read this thread. If this were a private conversation then I'd have responded differently.

The article you linked to pointed to Harvard being accused of protecting antisemitic policies. Also in the article was a claim that the accusations of antisemitism was not connected to the research, which is kind of hard to believe. Dollars are fungible, if Harvard is in any way protecting people that discriminate based on race, sex, religion, or other protected classes, then that should be cause to pull funds regardless of where they were intended to end up in the university.

If the White House is barred from pulling funds because they are going to an institution that is breaking rules on freedom of religion then that's a really bad place to be. Maybe Harvard is innocent of antisemitic policies but there's been plenty of other acts of the Harvard administration that is concerning. Wasn't there a lawsuit Harvard lost because they restricted admissions to those with Asian ancestry? I'm quite certain that happened.

If any university can hide behind some kind of separation between research funds and admission policies then the administration is toothless to protect students from unconstitutional discrimination. There are laws against racial discrimination. Harvard broke the rules, and tried to claim there was some kind of separation between the funds and their discriminatory policies. I'm pretty sure that admission policies will impact who gets to perform this federally funded research at Harvard.

How Harvard thought they could get away with this bullshit is mind boggling. Anyone defending Harvard on this is just as boggling. Are you really going to defend Harvard for being caught practicing racism and antisemitism? How can you consider this unrelated to DEI?

Reminds me of Elon Musk facing the conflicting requirements from the Biden administration that SpaceX was to hire some percentage of immigrants/aliens or face punishment, and the requirement from the DOD/DOE/etc. that prohibits non-citizens from having access to technology concerning anything that could be remotely considered a weapon delivery system like a rocket that can reach orbit. SpaceX chose to hire only citizens and so faced fines for it. Musk was not pleased about this, and stated such publicly. I can only suspect what was going through his mind. I guess he chose to pay the fine than try to fight this in court and take on more costs with lawyers and such.

I have to wonder if Microsoft faced the same conflicting requirements and chose to employ non-citizens and hope nobody noticed that this violated the rules on international trade in arms so as to avoid those fines. I'll stress that I'm guessing on what was going on, I'm just pointing to a possible parallel in conflicting rules with SpaceX. I'm also guessing that some rule or regulation was broken, maybe not but it looks bad regardless.

This is still only about 8 months since Biden left the White House, we could still face some of the same issues of conflicting rules from the White House. How long has this gone on? Who thought this was a good idea? Maybe if this was contracted out to some "5 eyes" nation there would be some justification on foreign employees but that's still something that should cause concern.

SCOTUS upheld the rules out of the Trump administration to withhold funds where "equity" was part of the proposal. SCOTUS considers any discrimination based on race or sex as unconstitutional, including "equity" and "reverse discrimination" in any application for federal funds.

A search of the web with "equity scotus" as the search prompt got a number of results on how removing of the funds by the administration was not only legal but it would be unconstitutional to continue providing funds. This was a 5-4 decision, but still in favor of upholding the ideals of removing discrimination based on race and sex regardless. I would have liked more justices of the court signing an opinion in favor of removing unconstitutional discrimination from federal funding but it is still a win.

I can recall people getting very upset that Trump nominated a successor to "the notorious RBG" upon her death. Well, elections have consequences. Apparently so does the timing of justices leaving SCOTUS. RBG was warned about who might succeed her if her health failed when there was a POTUS in office that didn't agree with her politics. She was in poor health for some time so retiring while Obama was in the White House would have not appeared out of the ordinary, and would have served her ideals well. Well, things didn't work out for those that have a distaste for Trump's policies. That's assuming that whomever Obama would have appointed would have decided against Trump. There's no knowing for sure on how opinions land based on who made the nomination. I know Chief Justice Roberts hasn't been a reliable vote for Republican policies.

I'm sure that Trump supporters could argue this is a far simpler matter of cutting back federal spending. I have my own theories on what's going on but I'll keep them to myself for now. My larger point is that with reduced funds to universities from the federal government we have less influence on American education from politicians on what is taught. Government funds have strings attached, just like corporate funds have strings attached. I don't want education based off which political party got the most votes in November. If there's to be strings attached to university funding then I believe it's best that it be based on which ideas produce the best economic output.

Really? You've never heard of ROTC? GI Bill? I assume you've taken some classes at a university. None of your classmates attended while in a military uniform? You didn't see posters or something on campus advertising how military service can pay off student loans? On top of that are a number of state government run programs for funding a college education. I can recall scholarships to pay for people willing to be school teachers in Alaska. I recall similar programs for teachers in states like Illinois and Michigan.

Oh, and I do live in the USA. Didn't I mention in another comment that I live in the Midwest USA? I don't want to be more specific than that, it's lead to people calling me at home and sending me letters in the mail. That got me spooked about indicating where I live.

It's because my dad talked about how his time in the Army National Guard meant he got a paycheck, an education, clothes, food, medical care, and set him up for success as a dairy farmer. Many of my uncles served too as there was compulsory service at the time, and they shared similar stories of their service leading to a good life. One uncle had his cancer treatments paid for by the federal government because he served in the military, treatment that he could not afford otherwise. I remembered those stories and so enlisted myself when the time felt right.

The military has been a federal jobs program for a long time, since at least World War Two. Military service meant money for college, training in a number of valued skills, as well as clothes, food, shelter, and so forth for a few years so people could save up money for starting a business or for buying a car to drive to work.

Don't forget that I pointed to other government funded programs to pay for college beyond military service. Those funds come with strings just as much as corporate money, I'm not forgetting that. Once the government gets back what they paid for then people are free to take that education and on-the-job training to find work elsewhere. It's not a bad deal, unless you have a political ideology on the government attaching strings to education. As if there's no strings if the government funds education by other means, they just work harder to hide the strings is all.

That's only true if somehow this pushes out all funding from those motivated by something other than profit.

If you want to use malaria as an example then a quick search of the web will show all kinds of private funds for funding this. I see universities funding this themselves, no doubt from skimming off government and corporate funds but it's still funds that could have gone to some profit seeking effort than for seeking concerned scientists and physicians. I see programs from state funded programs, the idea of government funds for research doesn't begin and end with the federal government. Oh, I see Bill and Melinda Gates is providing funds to treat and prevent malaria. There's more but I can't list them all.

Just how much funding do we need from the federal government? I see people concerned about strings attached to privately funded research but doesn't government funds also come with strings? I'd rather the government fund nothing than fund things that don't concern me in the slightest or things that are counter to my concerns. Just to be clear, I'm not opposed to funds for research into treating malaria. I'd express examples of what I'd be opposed to but I fear that would only attract attention I'd rather not have. Use your imagination based on what are some contentious topics lately. Because funds for these contentious matters shift with every election I'd just prefer the government stay out of it than see voting based on research funds, people can fund whatever themselves through donations to foundations like the Gates Foundation. Vote with your wallets as well as your ballot.

I doubt it. A lot of corporations have been getting a "free ride" because the government was providing funds for universities, meaning they got the educated workforce while the taxpayer funded it. If Hyundai wants engineers to develop the next generation of electric vehicle technology then they will have to pay for it than rely on funds from the Department of Energy, Commerce, or Education to pay for it. If Hyundai wants "green" hydrogen then they can fund it than expect the taxpayer to carry that burden.

I doubt the corporations that rely on new university graduates to make money to just let the universities die because the federal government pulled back on funds. Maybe they will go to other countries for an educated workforce but there's benefits to seeking American workers beyond just government subsidized education. At a minimum staying in the USA means a larger population to draw from without the bother of convincing people to immigrate, and all the costs that come with that. It was trivial for me to move to Texas for work, if I had to travel a similar distance most anywhere else in the world I'd have had to drive across two international borders.

I don't follow. You are concerned that "he who pays the piper picks the tune" with corporate funds to universities? You expect funds from the government don't come with strings "to control facts" attached? I need some clarity here.

The federal government has very deep pockets to fund some political ideology, so deep that it is effectively infinite. Not actually infinite, but so deep that political ideology can bankrupt any privately funded effort to expose flaws in the ideology. Corporate funds are limited. If some corporation holds a view that can be proven false by some competing corporation then at some point basic economics and physics wins out, some new truth is exposed, and the corporation with some bad ideas goes bankrupt or learns how the universe works and stays in business.

If people want the federal government to pay for their education then there's still options. Join ROTC, enlist and get the GI Bill, or some other military service program to pay for a university degree. A quick search of the internet tells me the US military needs people that know computers, languages, communications, law enforcement, and health care, all of which are specialties that can lead to a gainful employment after the end of the service contract. Serve three years (if I'm reading this right) and you get your BS degree paid for by the taxpayer on top of the military specialty training. Oh, and the military needs explosive ordinance disposal people too. That's a high stress job so recruitment and retention is low, but that also means a large bonus on top of getting your education.

As if corporate funds don't promote public benefit.

Hyundai was mentioned as sinking funds into Georgia Tech. This was in part to fund electric vehicles and hydrogen as a "green" fuel. Are you opposed to electric vehicles? I like electric vehicles. Not exactly a fan of hydrogen as a fuel as I believe that a dead end, but maybe they find something we don't know that can change things.

When people think of "public good" then a common example is medicine. Okay, let's consider the benefits of advancing medical care. One example that comes to mind is the number of American soldiers coming back from battles that are missing hands or other body parts. Maybe they lost their hearing. Perhaps they had an eye injury. The government funds this medical care through the VA. The VA could not keep up and so solicited private contractors to help with prostheses, hearing aid, eyeglasses and eye surgeries. The soldiers loved this because now they could take VA funds to private companies that got in the business of competing for this money with improved prostheses. With this competition among private companies for funds we now see improved prostheses for those with congenital conditions that lead to missing limbs, aids for loss of hearing, and eyeglasses and surgeries for eyesight issues.

Then consider a medication that was intended to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension. From this came sildenafil. Those paying attention will recognize this as the generic name for Viagra. Pfizer certainly made a lot of money on selling Viagra to Hugh Hefner, and other old men that could afford to pay for sex with younger women. It also meant a lot of infants had their lives saved with this drug. A quick search of the web tells me pulmonary arterial hypertension was considered "universally fatal" but now we see 59% survival rates after 7 years of treatment.

I'm not believing that private funds for education is undermining science and the public good. I'm seeing a need for government funds because otherwise we might not have lives saved and lives improved since it just costs too much to the individual otherwise. With collective funds with taxes and government spending we see children living a life they might not have otherwise, but with that we also need some private funds from wealthy old men willing to pay women to have sex with them.

The money for research in electric cars from Hyundai means cleaner air. Money for treating medical issues for old people with money to spend can turn to treating poor children with some "universally fatal" disease.

I support corporate "undermining" of research and science.

How would money put into a university not advance the cause of education?

I'll take a stab at how it might work. I grew up in the Midwest USA and that means a lot of farmers. Farmers like to watch college sports. A company producing seed corn, combine harvesters, pesticides, herbicides, or whatever a farmer might buy to make a living, will want those eyeballs. So the company puts a bunch of money into the university to get a good football team, a good basketball team, a nice stadium, TV broadcasts, and so much else for eyeballs. That's not helping education exactly, it's turning the sportball teams into a means to advertise and make sales.

But there's more to that. To make products that farmers want to buy they need intelligent and educated employees to develop these products. They need engineers, biochemists, veterinarians, entomologists, meteorologists, and animal scientists (that take classes on meat like Rick Perry did), and so on. If these companies put some money into biology labs, or whatever, then they can get on the good side of the administration, get their ads run along the sportball TV broadcasts, and they have a pool of university graduates to draw from that took classes on meat to recruit for developing livestock feed or whatever.

If a company is dumping money into a sportball stadium for some university so they get the eyeballs of farmers, truck drivers, beer drinkers, meat eaters, or whomever is in their market and like to watch sportball, then that's money saved to spend elsewhere on lecturers and classrooms. It means students on the sportball team subsidizing the pay for the lecturers that teach Geology 1001 - "Rocks for jocks", Animal Science 1020 - "Meat", or whatever so these lecturers can also teach the advanced courses for those not on the sportball team.

What's the alternative? The idea of universities started with three means of funds. One was some religious organization, and for anyone in what could be considered a "Western" society that meant the Catholic Church. They'd fund educations not just for preachers but also for physicians, nurses, farmers, architects and so much else to satisfy their idea on the "works of mercy" such as feeding the hungry, visit the sick, shelter the homeless, etc.

Another means of funding an education was to join the military, then the government would pay for your education to become a military officer, perhaps this also applied to some civilian jobs like civil engineers, lawyers, accountants, and so on. Then, and now, there's often an obligation to work for the government for a time, after which the person can take their education and experience with them to work where they choose.

The last means of funds was to find a patron, some private individual that believed someone had promise working for them in the future and so sent them to some university to learn from experts. This could be an educations in a lot of fields. Maybe the patron wanted dancers, musicians, and stage actors to put on a good show. Maybe they wanted engineers and architects to build a fortress or palace. Maybe they needed someone to study meat so they'd raise cattle to make tasty steaks. This is much the same on how education is funded today. Those that pay for the education will expect a return. They paid the piper, they pick the tune.

So, "pick your poison" on who funds the university. If it's a church then expect the people to be spreading their faith with "works of mercy", or with wine, because apparently the best wine is made by monks. If it's a government then it's the government getting people that build bridges, and build armies. If its private funds, such as a corporation, then they expect people to pay that back with something they can sell, like meat.

I like the idea of corporations funding education. It means people trained in making things I like to buy. Like meat. I think I'm hungry, so perhaps I'll pick up my Apple iPad, open up the Pizza Hut app, order a Meat Lover's pizza, some Cinnabon cinnamon rolls, and a bottle of Pepsi. DoorDash will bring it right quick. Corporate funds might not advance education but they advance food to my door. That's good enough for me.

WTF? This should be the right link.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fspectrum.ieee.org%2Fengi...

Another idea for solar power to moon bases.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fspacenews.com%2F209742-2...

From your second link:

The third link is about BPA in plastic food containers, not microplastics. Would the plastics still contain BPA after being weathered in the environment by wind, water, sand, and so much else? If so then can there be all that much to cause any detrimental impacts if the particles carrying the BPA are so small that they are on the scale of a red blood cell or whatever?

The fourth link is also not about microplastics.

I can "internet" just fine. When seeking out information on microplastics there's a lot of "concern" but not real evidence. This is something that has been studied for... how long? A decade by now? There's still nothing definitively connecting microplastics to some bad effects?

I'm confused on how there's all this "concern" on tiny particles entering our bodies, especially when in our own houses, and yet there's experiments on adding tiny particles to houseplants. I'm thinking that the concerns are a bit overblown if people thought it a good idea to be injecting tiny artificial bits into plants with the intent to sell this as a decoration. If this were to treat some disease then I could see more justification in taking the risks of introducing tiny particles into the air we breath in our houses. Was there a mention of medicinal applications of this technology that I missed?

It's not two different groups of people. New Atlas reported on these tiny glowing bits injected into houseplants while a month ago they reported on the concerns of breathing in tiny bits that we bring into our houses.

New Atlas, injecting glowing nanaoparticles into house plants is fun!
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas.com%2Fbiology%2Fg...

New Atlas, breathing in thousands of tiny particles that exist in your home could be killing you!
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas.com%2Fenvironme...

If breathing in tiny bits of foreign material is bad for our lungs then maybe we should not be bringing more of them into our house. What happens should the plant die and dry out because someone left it unattended for too long? Now there's tiny little bits of some irritant in the house as the plant breaks up, all because someone thought a $5 glowing plant would be kind of fun.

Part of the claim is that the plastics release chemicals in the body, which make them distinct from the glowing bits being injected into houseplants. Part of this is purely mechanical, the tiny bits get stuck in the lungs and irritates the tissues. Is this safe? Shouldn't there be a mention of their recent article on the concerns of breathing in tiny bits of artificial materials? If the tiny bits of plastic are releasing compounds into our blood then should not the law on conservation of matter mean the plastic bits eventually dissolve away? If these plastic bits are so small that they can be suspended in air then just how much of these dangerous compounds can they carry?

It's as if the people reporting the news don't care about being consistent, they just want people to click on links so they can collect that sweet advert revenue.

Isn't that the point of something to be considered a "biocompatible" material?

Sounds like making a distinction without a difference. If it doesn't break down in the body then to the body it's just a tiny piece of an inert solid.

But if the plastics stick around for hundreds of years, apparently also while inside human bodies, then that sounds like an inert fine dust.

Got a citation for that? If that was a measurable feature of microplastics then why isn't that mentioned in every news article on microplastics found in brains and testicles? I've heard of plastic food containers leaching endocrine-like compounds but that's a matter of containers being heated well above body temperature in microwave ovens. A quick search of the web tells me that on average people have 5 grams of microplastics in their body, that's the weight of a nickel. And the plastic lasts for hundreds of years. So just how much of that plastic is getting turned into compounds that impact someone's hormone levels in a day? Or in a year? Remember, the concern I keep hearing is how this stuff sticks around in the body and doesn't dissolve away. If it's not dissolving, or it takes hundreds of years to dissolve, then just how much of these compounds can be released in any meaningful time frame?

Plastics are certainly organic, as in they are made of carbon containing molecules, but they are also so stable and inert that they stick around for centuries. Again, I'd be more concerned of the plastics in my food, water, and in the air I breathe if I knew they were dissolving in my blood and releasing some kind of active compounds. But they are not active, they are so inert that they stick around for centuries.

So small bits of sand that collect in the body might cause low level inflammation if they build up in the body? You mean like how old people get arthritis? How are the plastics interacting with the body if we can't predict what they will do? I thought they were acting like hormones in the body. I thought hormones were good for controlling inflammation. Do some plastics release inflammation causing hormones and others release inflammation reducing hormones? We don't know, we can't predict this apparently. If we can't predict what they will do to us then how can we trace any specific symptom to the plastics? If they hang around in the body for so long then how can they be so small, release these compounds, and still be there to wedge themselves into crannies to cause inflammation? If they stick around for so long then they can't produce much to interfere with our hormones. If they release hormones then they can't still be sticking around. Or do they violate the laws on conservation of matter?

If the problem with plastics is the wedge into places they don't belong and sit there to irritate tissue then so should any other tiny pieces of inert materials, like tiny glowing beads that are injected into houseplants for the grins and giggles.

Okay, let's study how the tiny plastic bits are distinct from the tiny metal bits. Until we can figure out the distinction then maybe we should not be producing tiny little bits of anything and injecting it into our houseplants.

Either we know what the plastics do and its bad, or we don't know what they do because we haven't seen bad effects yet. I'm seeing all kinds of news articles on microplastics and they make things sound scary but after a bit of thought I realized I learned nothing about why there's any concern on microplastics. They could do this, they could do that, they could do nothing at all. If we haven't found what they do yet then maybe I'm to conclude they do nothing. It's apparently so close to nothing that people are suggesting we inject tiny little glowing bits into houseplants just because it amuses us.

Does my rant make sense to people or are the little plastic bits impacting my mental function? Or the mental function of those reading this? Are the plastics making us paranoid? Or are the plastic bits finally building up to where it makes us smart enough to recognize the dangers for the first time since plastics were put to wide use in the 1940s? But if the plastics make us smarter then shouldn't we make more and inject that into people? This is all speculation, and news articles about this speculation are just click bait and FUD. Write some news when there's actually something new discovered.

I thought artificial particles on the scale of micrometers were bad for the environment. Now they want to produce them intentionally, and have them injected into houseplants? What happens to these particles when the plant dies? What if a pet or child eats the plants with these microplastics... I mean, nanoparticles in them?

I realize someone will want to point to how the plastics are somehow reacting with the body while these glowing nanoparticles are intentionally made to be "biocompatible" so as to not harm the plant. Well, if the microplastics are claimed to last in the environment for millions of years then just how reactive can they be? I'd be more concerned about the plastics if I knew they were breaking down in the body, but it sounds like they just kind of sit there like little bits of sand. Don't people realize that humans lived with "nanoparticles" since before humans were human? Doesn't sand and other little bits collect in the body too? What harm do those do? Apparently not much if we can intentionally inject them into plants to make them glow and not see any real harm to the plant.

I'm going on a rant here because of the hypocrisy. Either small little bits of inert materials do harm or they don't.

If this becomes a thing then I'd expect the next step to be injecting this stuff, or something like it, into pets. Then it's people injecting this into themselves. At some point there's going to have to be a realization that small little inert bits of material are bad or they aren't. My guess is they aren't because it seems clear to me that natural wear on rock, wood, and so much else produces little bits "the size of red blood cells" and they've been just blowing around in the wind for billions of years and humans have evolved to deal with that. If evolution didn't develop means to survive this then injecting plants with glowing bits that are only micrometers across should have some detrimental effects.

If I'm off my rocker here then maybe someone can point to where I went wrong.

Engineers Are Working on a Solar Microgrid to Outlast Lunar Nights
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