Free Republic

It’s not quite burning-scientists-at-the-stake bad, but it’s close — or at least feels that way. President Donald Trump’s administration is openly waging war against universities, closing independent science review panels, funding fewer grants, and shutting down or raising concerns about the closure of important centers of government research (even though in some cases, they’re probably not supposed to). The evidence is now clear that the modern American structure of science can no longer survive as an apolitical entity that enjoys consistent, bipartisan support. Science is now suffering a generational catastrophe, not just in terms of funding, but in terms of...

In a new clip from the upcoming movie "UFO," releasing digitally and on DVD Sept. 4, characters discuss how aliens could use physical constants to navigate across space. ...Gillian Anderson.... stars as a mathematics professor, ... Alex Sharp as a college student investigating UFO sightings near U.S. airports with his girlfriend ..., as an FBI agent ... pursues them. The film's science advisor...was Space.com columnist Paul Sutter. The fine structure constant relates to the strength of the electromagnetic force between elementary particles. Research has at times suggested that this constant might vary across the universe — so space travelers could...