Netia McCray recalls how excited she was to join the federal advisory committee on long COVID in 2025. She had been diagnosed in the early days of the pandemic — and symptoms such as fatigue, heart palpitations and shortness of breath had become a frustrating but inescapable part of life.
By joining this group of doctors, researchers and other experts advising on the disease, McCray, 36, had hoped to channel her years of experience as a long-COVID patient into "something that could benefit so many individuals like myself and my community," she says. The work, she felt, could make her part of the solution for a debilitating condition that impacts millions of Americans.
But McCray had only been on the committee for a few months when she received an email notice that the group was terminated, "effective immediately."
McCray's advisory group is one of more than 100 science-focused federal committees that have been terminated under the second Trump administration, according to a news analysis in the journal Nature. As of March of this year, more than a quarter of the country's healthcare-related committees have been shut down, according to the advocacy group Public Citizen.
Science Glance
The universe is a strange place — filled with exploding stars, ancient galaxies, and unseen worlds. Now, astronomers are about to get a brand new tool to explore it.
Pine trees near Lake Tahoe are being poisoned in what authorities believe are a series of interconnected incidents in the popular tourist community on border of Nevada and California.
Jackie – the beloved bald eagle at California’s Big Bear Lake whose livestream was followed by millions of viewers as she birthed and raised chicks – died on Monday due to a mysterious illness. She was 14.
A piece of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is expected to slam into the moon on Wednesday, according to scientists.
The last time I saw Laura Grego was in a tent in a baking field on the Welsh borders in May. The conversation on stage ranged from the dangers of space debris to how the law of the sea might pertain to outer space; from our sense of the sacred to our interplanetary futures. At one point Grego, a physicist, said intently, “People have to be aware of what is happening in space. Public knowledge has to catch up.” Three weeks later, SpaceX launched on the stock exchange, temporarily making Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.





























