Shutdown chills

Another US government shutdown is threatening to put research on ice

After the right-to-the-wire machinations over the US debt ceiling in June, researchers might have hoped they could get on with their work for a while without the threat of massive disruption from political manoeuvring.

Well, they were wrong: a full-scale government shutdown is now looking very likely, as the current agreement on federal research spending is due to expire on 30 September.