The hottest Science Policy Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways

The one science reform we can all agree on, but we're too cowardly to do

Experimental History • 59806 implied HN points • 03 Mar 26

🔬 Science Science Policy

For-profit scientific publishers extract large sums from publicly funded research by paywalling papers and charging institutions and authors to publish or read work the public already paid for.
Many ‘open access’ rules let publishers just shift costs onto authors through huge article-processing fees, so the profit-skimming continues unless for-profit publishers are cut out entirely.
This is a collective-action problem that only governments and big funders can solve; banning for-profit journals from handling grant-funded work would save money and create room for nonprofit, more honest publishing models.

Roundup #75: Checking in on the Bad Guys

Noahpinion • 16000 implied HN points • 14 Jan 26

🌍 World Politics Science Policy

Iran’s mass unrest is rooted largely in economic and resource failures — severe water shortages, power cuts, runaway inflation, and sanctions have crushed living standards and helped spark protests.
China is using export controls and other levers to block India’s rise in strategic manufacturing (especially batteries), because Beijing sees Indian industrialization as a geopolitical threat.
Russia’s wartime economy is weaker than it looks on paper — likely understated inflation, falling real incomes, lower oil revenues, and attacks on infrastructure are straining its long-term capacity.

Rescuing Science

Heterodox STEM • 241 implied HN points • 08 Mar 26

🔬 Science Science Policy

Massive federal funding has created an entrenched system of universities, agencies, publishers, and politicians that protects funding flows rather than fostering open scientific discovery.
The grant-centric culture — short funding cycles, heavy administration, and productivity metrics — drains creativity and sometimes drives researchers to play the funding game instead of doing bold science.
Fixing this means slowly reducing federal control by reforming indirect costs, making funds portable and tied to scientists, and restoring philanthropic and institutional support so research priorities return to scientists and discovery can flourish.

The Legibility Problem

Asimov Press • 496 implied HN points • 02 Mar 26

🔬 Science Science Policy

AI systems could produce scientific discoveries that humans can’t understand or fit into our existing concepts, making those breakthroughs hard or impossible for people to implement.
AI scientists and agent communities may develop their own languages and research cultures and can speed up paradigm shifts, risking that human researchers are left behind or become archaeological interpreters of AI work.
We must build infrastructure and tools—translation layers, storage, and explication systems—that make AI-generated findings legible and actionable for human institutions rather than just slowing progress.

Chartbook 426 Greenland v. the price of lab monkeys.

Chartbook • 2017 implied HN points • 18 Jan 26

🌍 World Politics Science Policy

Chaotic, personality-driven politics distracts from deeper, long-term global trends and makes it harder to focus on real problems. There’s a growing split between technocratic, planned modernization and idiosyncratic, destabilizing governance.
The price of lab monkeys is a practical proxy for biotech activity—rising prices show a boom in testing, especially in China. Because it takes about four years to raise monkeys for trials, supply lags create big, cyclical swings in price.
Pandemic shocks, policy shifts, and supply-chain disruptions have made monkey supplies unreliable and put key research—from vaccines to neuroscience—at risk. These problems are part of a wider set of interconnected crises that tie politics, geopolitics, and science together.

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Awesome Weekend Reading

The Honest Broker Newsletter • 942 implied HN points • 06 Feb 26

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Science Policy

THB Insider is back with a new roundup that curates a wide range of recent policy and research items.
Policymakers on both sides of the aisle publicly cited the newsletter’s coverage of a major Nature retraction, showing it has real influence in policy discussions.
Full access is gated behind a subscription, though a free post is offered to let readers continue reading.

Shutting Down NCAR Is Vindictive Governance

The Honest Broker Newsletter • 3591 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Science Policy

Shutting down NCAR appears politically motivated and vindictive, not based on a clear national need. It would harm U.S. scientific capacity and undermine research that supports public safety and the economy.
NCAR is a large, federally funded research center that provides broad atmospheric science, community models, and high-performance computing used worldwide, and it is not simply a hub of ‘climate alarmism.’ Its work spans weather, climate, space physics, and observational technology essential to many sectors.
NCAR has real issues like mission creep and competition with universities that deserve reform, but modernizing and narrowing its mission is far smarter than dismantling the center. Terminating the center would cause unnecessary, long-lasting damage to the scientific enterprise.

Leaving the IPCC and UNFCCC is Bad for the United States

The Honest Broker Newsletter • 1521 implied HN points • 08 Jan 26

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Science Policy

Leaving the UNFCCC may not change binding U.S. obligations, but it surrenders American influence; that loss of influence could let other countries adopt trade, technology, or supply-chain rules that hurt U.S. workers and the economy.
The U.S. helped create the IPCC to ensure international climate assessments stayed balanced; staying engaged helps protect the IPCC’s scientific integrity and prevents the body from being weaponized against U.S. interests.
Multilateral institutions — including scientific ones — are important sources of U.S. soft power and tie directly to economic and security issues like trade and critical minerals, so the U.S. should work to improve and lead them rather than withdraw.

The Truth About Aliens Is Hiding in Plain Sight

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 227 implied HN points • 23 Feb 26

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Science Policy

The government is being pushed to release its files on aliens, which will likely spark more public questions than clear answers.
High-profile figures have made eye-catching comments about aliens, but officials say there’s no verified evidence of extraterrestrial contact.
Many people think life elsewhere in the universe is probable, but that doesn’t mean aliens have visited Earth across vast space distances.

BOOK EXCERPT: "Redfield’s Warning: What I Learned (But Couldn’t Tell You) Might Save Your Life"

The DisInformation Chronicle • 325 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26

🏥 Health Politics Science Policy

SARS‑CoV‑2 was likely engineered to infect humans and probably escaped unintentionally from a Wuhan virology lab during gain‑of‑function research.
Gain‑of‑function experiments and publishing their methods are inherently risky because labs have a history of containment failures and such work can enable misuse.
Stronger oversight, stricter limits on risky pathogen research, and greater transparency about funding and lab safety are needed to prevent future lab‑caused pandemics.

The greatest trick Ralph Baric ever played was convincing the world he didn't exist

Unreported Truths • 55 implied HN points • 12 Mar 26

🏥 Health Politics Science Policy

A leading coronavirus researcher conducted gain-of-function experiments creating chimeric viruses that were made more capable of infecting human cells.
That researcher and his collaborators have largely avoided public scrutiny, and their unpublished lab work has been kept hidden or protected by institutions.
There are strong allegations that the pandemic may be linked to laboratory research and that scientists and agencies downplayed or covered up a possible lab origin.

REPOST: Science is a strong-link problem

Experimental History • 17893 implied HN points • 04 Feb 25

🔬 Science Science Policy

There are two types of problems: weak-link problems, where the overall quality depends on the weakest part, and strong-link problems, where the best part matters most. Understanding this helps us solve issues better.
Science is often treated like a weak-link problem, focusing on stopping bad research rather than promoting great ideas. This approach can hold back progress in scientific discovery.
To improve science, we should shift our mindset to supporting strong ideas and innovative research. This means caring less about keeping out the bad and more about encouraging the good.

Venture Capital Has Lessons for Government and Philanthropy

The Good Science Project • 126 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26

🔬 Science Science Policy

Government and philanthropic science funding is often bogged down by heavy bureaucracy, rigid reporting, and incentives that favor safe, incremental work over bold, risky ideas.
Venture capital shows useful practices—betting on people not fixed five-year plans, moving fast, tolerating failure, providing networks, and giving investors some personal stake—that could make research funding more effective.
VC isn’t a perfect model because it chases big financial returns and concentrates capital, so reforms should blend VC strengths with public roles like long-term, large-scale, and noncommercial research while creating more diverse, accountable funding institutions.

EXCLUSIVE: Leaked Details of Trump’s Plan to Control Dangerous Virus Research

The DisInformation Chronicle • 415 implied HN points • 22 Dec 25

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Science Policy

The administration is building a risk-based policy to limit and track gain-of-function pathogen research, and researchers or their institutions can be barred from federal programs if they fail to follow the rules.
The plan sets up multiple checks — funding agencies, institutions, scientists, and a new Independent Review Board led by OSTP — and submitting proposals to the board would provide a safe harbor.
The rollout has been delayed and sparked controversy across agencies and the media, and key enforcement details, especially penalties for federal employees, remain unclear.

American biomedical science in 2026

Can We Still Govern? • 190 implied HN points • 27 Jan 26

🔬 Science Science Policy

NIH is being run more from the White House than by Congress and independent scientists, which undermines stable, long-term peer review and research planning.
Chronic underfunding and falling grant success rates have overloaded researchers and damaged the biomedical workforce; the fix is steady public funding or fewer applicants, not relying on billionaire philanthropy.
Scientists must stop staying silent and organize publicly and politically to defend scientific independence, free speech, and trustworthy journalism.

Effects of Delays and Chaos in Science Funding

Heterodox STEM • 64 implied HN points • 15 Feb 26

🔬 Science Science Policy

Sudden federal funding cuts, freezes, and delays have created chaos and uncertainty for medical research, forcing project pauses and at least some layoffs and undermining the ability to plan long-term.
Policy shifts like multi-year grants, caps on indirect costs, and heightened political scrutiny (including around DEI) will change how research dollars are allocated and could leave many investigators—especially early-career and international trainees—without support.
Trust in the funding system has been damaged, so rebuilding stable support will require clearer public communication and political action, since there is no alternative funder on NIH's scale to sustain basic biomedical research.

The Biological Argument against LNT

Gordian Knot News • 183 implied HN points • 21 Jan 26

🔬 Science Science Policy

DNA is fragile and gets damaged thousands of times per cell every day, but cells have powerful, diverse repair systems that undo most of that damage, so you can’t assume radiation damage is simply cumulative and unrepairable.
The LNT model stays dominant by leaning on noisy exposure data and rhetorical traps that shift the argument away from biology, allowing critics to be boxed into defending vague "safe dose" ideas instead of disproving the model; clear counterexamples (like the radium dial painter cases) contradict LNT.
To replace LNT we must focus on the biology, use strong, high-dose or distinct-exposure counterexamples, avoid vague safety rhetoric, and adopt a well-defined, computable harm model that accounts for DNA repair.

💰🧪 Funding outside the box: A Quick Q&A with … philanthropy expert Stuart Buck

Faster, Please! • 456 implied HN points • 11 Dec 25

🔬 Science Science Policy

Government research funders are risk-averse because they must show accountability to taxpayers and avoid political backlash, so many high-risk, curiosity-driven projects that can produce big breakthroughs go unfunded.
Wealthy philanthropists can back unconventional, high-risk research because they aren’t tied to voter accountability, but most still give to safe, prestigious institutions unless they’re actively incentivized or advised to take bolder bets.
Growing institutional diversity and nudging more creative philanthropy would raise the chances of major discoveries, but private donations alone can’t fully replace large-scale federal R&D funding cuts.

A Reality-Based View of Government Funding of Science

The Good Science Project • 55 implied HN points • 18 Feb 26

🔬 Science Science Policy

There is a tension between official grant rules and everyday practice: policies can require prior approval for scope changes, but in practice researchers often shift aims as discoveries arise and report those changes in annual progress reports.
Peer review at large agencies tends to favor safer, well-supported proposals, yet agencies also run small high-risk, high-reward programs that have worked; the debate is how much of the overall portfolio should be devoted to those bolder bets.
Private funders behave differently from government: venture capital favors short- to medium-term, marketable projects and foundations have narrow scopes and limited funds, so long, uncertain basic research often still relies on government support.

Donald Trump vs. Academia: A War on Science or a Loss of Trust?

Heterodox STEM • 355 implied HN points • 16 Dec 25

🚌 Education Science Policy

Public trust in science depends more on shared values and perceived neutrality than on education, and when topics become politicized people often assume scientists are biased and stop trusting them.
Academia has become ideologically one-sided and built large administrative structures like diversity, equity, and inclusion programs that many see as promoting activism over open inquiry and silencing dissent.
Some scientists are pushing back by speaking out, cutting ties with politicized institutions or publishers, and calling for reform or new institutions because they fear silence will erode the integrity of science.

When Scientific Observations Become Political Narrative

Heterodox STEM • 163 implied HN points • 18 Jan 26

🌐 International Science Policy

Satellite imagery can reliably show what changed on the ground, but it cannot by itself determine intent, legal responsibility, or definitive causes, so reporting should not treat those contested judgments as facts.
Understanding agricultural damage requires full context—past events, armed groups using civilian areas, border controls, and prior infrastructure loss all complicate any simple attribution of blame.
Scientific outlets must separate observation from interpretation and advocacy to keep credibility, and they should correct or clarify pieces that present disputed narratives as settled truth.

🚀 After we get to Mars, then what?

Faster, Please! • 365 implied HN points • 16 Dec 25

🔬 Science Science Policy

Looking for life on Mars should be the top priority, with everything else coming second.
Human settlement off-planet is about more than nationalist rivalry, mining, or narrow science; it’s about taking permanent root beyond Earth.
Many space supporters frame off-world settlement as part of a pro-growth, progress-oriented vision that values expansion, technology, and long-term abundance.

Resisting the Politicization of Science

Heterodox STEM • 199 implied HN points • 14 Dec 25

🔬 Science Science Policy

Science must stay independent from politics and ideology, with research, publication, and recognition judged by scientific merit rather than identity or political alignment.
Threats to scientific independence come from multiple directions—both activist pressures within academia and political or governmental interference can undermine research integrity.
Researchers and institutions should defend norms like rigorous peer review, open inquiry, unbiased evaluation, and autonomy in funding and education to preserve science’s reliability and universality.

The Economy of Knowing

The Good Science Project • 167 implied HN points • 23 Dec 25

🔬 Science Science Policy

Metascience needs a clear micro vs. macro distinction: micro focuses on individual scientists’ beliefs, trust, and behaviors, while macro covers institutions, funding, and governance.
Reforms often fail when they operate at only one level because individuals respond to incentives in predictable ways, producing unintended outcomes like gaming rules or self‑censoring risky work.
Fixing science requires a full‑stack approach that designs policies to change both institutional incentives and the everyday experience of researchers, accounting for the feedback loops between the two.

Understanding and Modeling NIH Research Grant Success Rates and the Impact of “Multiyear Funding”

The Good Science Project • 52 implied HN points • 30 Jan 26

🏥 Health Politics Science Policy

NIH grant success rates follow predictably from inflation-adjusted appropriations, the number of applications, and the pool of already-committed outyear funds, and a model that includes those factors matches historical success rates well.
Funding more years up front (multiyear funding) ties up larger shares of each year’s appropriation and therefore reduces how many new and competing grants can be awarded; the recent increase in multiyear funding could mean roughly 1,000 (≈10%) fewer new/competing grants in FY2026 unless appropriations are increased.
The push for much greater multiyear funding fits with broader proposals to reshape NIH funding (for example, block grants to states) and has coincided with major leadership turnover, raising concerns the changes may be driven by policy aims rather than scientific priorities.

Remember When Experts Said ‘Science Isn’t Political? They Were Lying

Unmasked • 33 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26

🏥 Health Politics Science Policy

The slogan "science isn't political" was misleading, because political considerations ended up shaping scientific decisions.
Major health institutions, especially the NIH, pushed to mix politics into science and public-health policy.
The COVID response is presented as an example where governments abandoned evidence-based decision-making and relied on politicized expert advice to justify measures like lockdowns.

Update on Metascience-Related Language in the NIH Budget

The Good Science Project • 59 implied HN points • 24 Jan 26

🏥 Health Politics Science Policy

Lawmakers barred NIH and other agencies from changing how negotiated indirect cost rates are calculated or pursuing rulemaking to alter the 2017 approach, while asking agencies to discuss transparency improvements and consider models like FAIR.
The bill encourages expanding person-focused grants (like R35/MIRA) and boosting support for early-career researchers, but it rejected a House proposal for $100M in replication funding and only asks NIH to encourage and brief the committee on replication efforts.
Committees directed NIH to tackle high article-processing charges, promote alternatives to animal research, allow international subawards for clinical trials, and reduce administrative burden, while saying any major NIH restructuring must follow statutory notice rules.

German Public Television Reports on the Wuhan Cover Up

The DisInformation Chronicle • 705 implied HN points • 07 Jul 25

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Science Policy

German scientists suggest that the COVID-19 virus may have been engineered in a lab, challenging the idea it came from nature.
Some scientists faced backlash for trying to raise concerns about the virus's origins, leading to fears that scientific integrity is at risk.
Documents reveal past proposals to create similar viruses, raising questions about the responsibility of researchers in handling dangerous pathogens.

Keeping Up

The Honest Broker Newsletter • 1668 implied HN points • 05 Feb 25

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Science Policy

There is ongoing discussion about U.S. energy policy, with various viewpoints providing insights into how it could be improved. An analysis from Colorado highlights broader implications that can be relevant to other states too.
The debate surrounding the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) continues, focusing on whether the president can dissolve or change it through executive order. This raises important questions about the agency's role and effectiveness.
Concerns about protectionism and trade wars are being critically evaluated, showing that both major political parties are engaged in this issue. Recent tariff proposals also raise questions about their economic and fiscal impacts.

Innovations in Scientific Institutions

The Good Science Project • 100 implied HN points • 13 Dec 25

🔬 Science Science Policy

Governments are starting to fund independent, team-level labs with large, flexible grants so scientific teams can pursue ambitious work without constant grant-writing.
Public-private partnerships like the UK–DeepMind deal are building automated, high-throughput labs to speed materials discovery and tackle big practical problems.
There’s a push to create new applied R&D organizations to increase institutional diversity, and these programs must set clear tolerance for failure so teams can take real risks.

GAO Report #2 on High Risk GOF Research

Who is Robert Malone • 9 implied HN points • 21 Feb 26

🏥 Health Politics Science Policy

Gain-of-function studies have improved scientific understanding of how pathogens infect and spread, but experts do not agree they clearly led to vaccine or therapeutic breakthroughs.
This research poses real biosafety and biosecurity risks because enhanced pathogens could cause widespread harm if accidentally or deliberately released.
HHS has internal risk-review procedures and can decline funding, but it does not consistently share review outcomes or mitigation steps publicly; GAO recommends greater transparency and HHS responded noncommittally.

The Credibility Crux of COVID Origins

A Biologist's Guide to Life • 29 implied HN points • 01 Jan 26

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Science Policy

A credibility crisis around COVID origins arose because powerful institutions and some academics suppressed or discredited evidence pointing to a lab origin, poisoning public trust and academic debate.
Forensic bioattribution is hard and underdeveloped, so governments must fund new methods, data sources, and standards to reliably determine whether a virus came from a lab.
A new, insulated national security science institution is needed to recruit top scientists, avoid foreign influence, integrate intelligence and scientific rigor, and restore credible investigation into high‑consequence biological events.

A Toast to Vaccine Beer

Viruses Must Die • 35 implied HN points • 21 Dec 25

🔬 Science Science Policy

Vaccines can be delivered through everyday foods like yeast or beer, which could make immunization simpler, cheaper, and more widely accessible.
The current drug approval system’s heavy safety theater and monopoly incentives have increased public distrust and helped anti-vaccine sentiment gain influence.
Treating vaccine-foods as consumer products with independent third-party testing and public reviews could rebuild trust, encourage competition, and provide transparent information on safety and effectiveness.

We are failing to learn the lessons of COVID

A Biologist's Guide to Life • 34 implied HN points • 24 Dec 25

🏥 Health Politics Science Policy

We failed to learn from COVID because people on all sides refused to honestly examine their own mistakes, leaving us polarized and less prepared for the next pandemic.
Both liberal scientists and conservative critics share blame: liberals often shut down dissent and controlled narratives, while conservatives reacted by grabbing power and excluding others, so neither side showed the humility and inclusion needed for good science policy.
The real fix is rebuilding legitimacy and coalitions across divides — give people a voice, protect dissenting views, and use scientific and institutional power with humility so we can handle the next pandemic better.

Alter.systems AI is Refreshingly Different

Who is Robert Malone • 21 implied HN points • 28 Dec 25

🏥 Health Politics Science Policy

Robert Malone is described as an early pioneer of mRNA vaccine technology who later became a vocal critic of how those vaccines were developed and deployed.
His public warnings led to censorship and controversy, but he embraced the role of a dissenter, grew a large independent following, and gained positions like a CDC vaccine panel seat and an adjunct professorship.
The piece praises Alter.systems as a new chat AI that claims to avoid institutional bias and censorship, recommending it as a freer alternative to mainstream models.

A Good Science Manifesto

The Good Science Project • 26 implied HN points • 11 Dec 25

🔬 Science Science Policy

Science funding should prioritize producing reliable, useful knowledge and reward being right, supporting both risky exploratory work and goal-oriented projects.
Funders must cut heavy administrative burdens and require open sharing of data and methods so others can verify and build on results quickly.
The funding system should be more flexible and diverse: experiment with new funding models, provide stable support for infrastructure and staff scientists, and distribute support more evenly across career stages.

Genesis, Quatrovision, War/Peace & Disclosure

Dr. Pippa's Pen & Podcast • 29 implied HN points • 26 Nov 25

🕹 Technology Science Policy

Genesis aims to open national labs and mix classified research with outside scientists, supercomputers, and AI to rapidly create huge breakthroughs—potentially including game-changing energy technologies.
A long-standing "invisible wall" has kept many discoveries secret through NDAs, clearances, and control of publishing; once locked-away scientists meet external researchers, suppressed ideas will surface and become hard to control.
Officials appear to be slowly releasing taxpayer-funded breakthroughs to test public reaction and boost the economy, a shift that could quickly rewrite textbooks and scientific norms.

Accelerating American Scientific Enterprise

A Biologist's Guide to Life • 18 implied HN points • 13 Dec 25

🔬 Science Science Policy

Make grants faster, smaller, and easier by using short, sanity-check proposals and quick, staged payments so good ideas get funded fast and funders can adapt based on real results.
End the traditional journal bottleneck and create a public platform for immediate researcher-led publication, using that system's metrics for hiring and funding to remove delays, costs, and points of sabotage.
Reform intellectual property so scientists keep the majority of their inventions and share royalties with institutions, align business-developer pay with commercialization success, and tighten biotech patent rules with verifiable proof separating natural from engineered innovations.

Interview with Tony Fauci

Science Forever • 139 implied HN points • 27 Feb 23

🏥 Health Politics Science Policy

Misinformation and vaccine hesitancy are exacerbated by the huge impact of social media, making it challenging to counter with correct information.
Challenges exist in countering misinformation when highly credentialed individuals spread inaccurate information, creating difficulty in preserving the integrity of scientific communication.
Communicating the evolving nature of science and the iterative self-correcting process can aid in improving science literacy and public understanding.

Bureaucratic Lapse, Not Bioterror: The Overblown Fungus Smuggling Case

Pekingnology • 56 implied HN points • 26 Jul 25

🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Science Policy

Two researchers were charged for smuggling a common plant fungus into the U.S., but this was more a paperwork issue than a serious threat. They were just trying to expedite their research without the right permits.
The fungus they brought, Fusarium graminearum, is already known in the U.S. and doesn't pose an unusual danger. Experts say it's not a new bioweapon, and farmers have ways to manage it.
The government's response exaggerated the situation, linking it to national security fears instead of just treating it as a customs violation. This reaction reflects ongoing tensions between the U.S. and China rather than a real danger.