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Feeling the Shutdown Ripples

As the partial government shutdown in the US continues, ScienceInsider reports that its effects on science are beginning to be felt.

The partial shutdown began December 22 when lawmakers and President Donald Trump were unable to come to an agreement over funding the government, with the impasse focusing on $5.7 billion in funding Trump requested for a wall on the southern border of the US. As some federal agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health, have been funded through other bills, only a portion of the government has shuttered.

Still, ScienceInsider reports that researchers across the country have been affected. Scientists at affected agencies like National Science Foundation, the Department of Agriculture, and NASA have been furloughed, as have researchers funded by those agencies.

Even researchers not employed by the government are affected, it notes. For instance, ScienceInsider says that Virginia Commonwealth University's Jeff Atkins has been unable to collect water samples from Shenandoah National Park for analysis and the University of California, San Francisco's Rita Hamad, who relies on data from the Census Bureau for her health policy research, tells it she won't be able to publish her analyses in a timely fashion.

The Washington Post reports that Trump and Republican and Democratic congressional leaders are to meet this afternoon for additional talks, though it says there is "no end in sight."