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So the Ripples Go

As the partial government shutdown in the US drags on — it is now in its 34th day — its effects are being even more widely felt, even in the sciences.

The New York Times reports the prolonged shutdown could sway civil servants away from public service, especially scientists, engineers, and others who could command a higher salary in the private sector. "They're relying on the pure good intentions of the higher skilled work force," Matt Linton, who worked for NASA's Ames Research Center until just after the 2013 shutdown, tells the Times. "And that's what they drain down the most quickly in these stupid shutdowns."

Meanwhile, ScienceInsider says that even science agencies that have funding are feeling the effects of the shutdown. The National Institutes of Health was funded through a separate bill, but ScienceInsider notes that it is running into issues complying with a new rule that it publish upcoming proposal review meetings in the Federal Register — but the agency that publishes the Register is closed. This, it adds, could lead to delays in panel meetings, though NIH is trying to get a blanket approval for the meetings.

And the Huffington Post reports that the National Science Foundation, which is shuttered, has been unable to give out grant money since the shutdown began, including career and small business awards.

"The impact on science is a slow strangling of the American scientific enterprise," Benjamin Corb, public affairs director of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, tells the Huffington Post.