Conferences and studies among casualties as shutdown continues

Long-term studies, conferences and collaborations are all becoming collateral damage in the United States government shutdown, which has continued into a third week.

“Can’t work. Can’t travel for work. Can’t attend sci conferences (even as a private citizen.) Can’t use work laptop. Can’t write [recommendation] letters,” researcher Jane Rigby tweeted about the shutdown.

Rigby, an astrophysicist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, is one of the 96 per cent of NASA staff—about 16,700 employees, according to the Senate Committee on Appropriations—who have been told to stop working during the shutdown because their absence does not immediately threaten life or property.