First, some inside-baseball US funding discussion.  Apologies to my international readers, who likely don't care much about this except in the abstract. Breaking news : According to journalist Dan Garisto , as of April 25, 20206, the president has fired the entire National Science Board .  The NSB helps oversee the National Science Foundation .   From the outside, it had sure looked to me like the NSB had tried verrrrrrry hard to stay on the administration's good side.  That was fraying recently