Science/Techno Babble Random, Random

[ponchi101]

By AT THIS MOMENT, I meant this year, the next, and the next. The rocket keeps exploding, disintegrating, spinning out of control. So, reliability is something that you can only state when you have several successes in a row. Two or three successful launches may not be enough.
Why are you concerned about the design?

[Suliso]

Why are you concerned about the design?

For the same reason you'd not want to put an astronaut on it. It's not as reliable as I expected and there could be some fundamental design flaws.

[ponchi101]

Knowing Musk. IF there is a basic design flaw, which, if I am reading you correctly, would mean almost re-design from scratch, do you think that this is possible? The financial losses would be immense, and it is hard to see the project going forward without some big changes at the top.

[Suliso]

It would be a huge setback for sure. SpaceX is highly profitable (Falcon 9), but all the magic would be gone if this project can't meet its promise.

[Suliso]

Two well known professors in my field have moved from Michigan (Ann Arbor) to British Columbia. Perhaps already related to funding cuts in USA. Ten years ago it would have been a rather unusual career move.

[dryrunguy]

Two well known professors in my field have moved from Michigan (Ann Arbor) to British Columbia. Perhaps already related to funding cuts in USA. Ten years ago it would have been a rather unusual career move.

There have been a lot of reputable articles published in recent months about the burgeoning global talent grab underway. This is an unprecedented opportunity to lap up U.S. scientific talent, and it's happening in a very thoughtful and coordinated way.

And it makes perfect sense. We thoroughly deserve it. Every bit of it.

[ti-amie]

Trump Travel Restrictions Bar Residents Needed at U.S. Hospitals
Limits on travel and visa appointments have delayed or prevented foreign doctors from entering the country for jobs set to begin in weeks.


A hallway of Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, which employs international medical graduates to help treat patients. Credit...Nicole Craine for The New York Times

By Roni Caryn Rabin

June 18, 2025
Updated 6:42 p.m. ET

Travel and visa restrictions imposed by the Trump administration threaten patient care at hundreds of hospitals that depend on medical residents recruited from overseas.

Foreign medical residents often serve as the frontline caregivers at busy safety-net hospitals in low-income communities. Normally the residents begin work on July 1. Orientation programs for some of them already started this week.

Now some of those hospitals are racing to prevent staffing shortages.

“If international medical graduates can’t start their medical residencies on time on July 1, the ramifications are so far-reaching that it is really unconscionable,” said Kimberly Pierce Burke, executive director of the Alliance of Independent Academic Medical Centers.

Senior residents leave hospitals in June and go on to start their careers, she noted. Hospitals rely on new residents to replenish their ranks. “If they don’t come on July 1, that leaves a hole in the patient care team,” Ms. Burke said. “Who’s going to pick up the slack?”

On May 27, the Trump administration suspended new interview appointments for foreign nationals applying for J-1 visas. The visas, for participants in cultural or educational exchange programs, are used by most medical residents arriving from overseas.

On Wednesday, the State Department lifted the pause on visa appointments, according to an official who spoke anonymously to discuss an internal policy change. It was not immediately clear how many, or how quickly, physicians could be granted their visas.

The process now includes “enhanced social media vetting,” intended to ferret out potential security risks, the official said.

The administration also has banned or restricted travel to the United States from 19 countries. The restrictions may be extended to an additional 36 countries, including many African nations, if they do not comply with U.S. demands regarding overstayed visas and security concerns.

(...)

Foreign doctors from countries covered by the bans and other restrictions could request a “national interest exception,” according to the State Department. It was not immediately clear how that process would unfold.

The American medical system relies heavily on physicians from other countries. One in five U.S. physicians was born and educated overseas, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

New doctors from other countries account for one in six medical residents and specializing fellows at U.S. teaching hospitals. In 2024, the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates sponsored more than 15,500 doctors from over 150 countries to fill residency or fellowship training spots at 770 hospitals.

Residents are new medical school graduates who complete their training by working for several years under the supervision of more experienced doctors, gaining experience and acquiring the skills needed for various specialties. They work up to 80 hours a week on average, earning relatively low salaries.

Residents are the foot soldiers of hospitals, critical to their operations, said Dr. Douglas DeLong, a semiretired physician in upstate New York who has worked in academic training programs.

“If you’re a patient in a hospital, the resident is the first doctor you see in the morning,” Dr. DeLong said.

Many foreign medical residents stay and build their careers in the United States. Most go into primary care fields like internal medicine, family medicine and pediatrics, areas of shortage that American medical graduates tend to avoid.

Many of the 6,653 noncitizen doctors accepted for residency positions in the United States this year this year had already secured visa appointments before May 27. Those from banned countries who are already in the country are able to remain.

But an estimated 1,000 medical residents were not able to obtain visas allowing them to work in the United States. The vacancies will have disparate effects on hospitals, depending how heavily reliant they are on foreign medical talent.

Like many hospitals in underserved communities, Brookdale relies heavily on international medical graduates who are not U.S. citizens to staff the medical and pediatrics floors and outpatient clinics.

“It’s a wait-and-watch situation,” Dr. Christos Paras, who oversees the residency program, said in an interview. “We just don’t know what the impact will be.”

“We have residents from literally all over the world,” he added. “I am not exaggerating — every continent.”

Brookdale’s internal medicine residency program relies on foreign medical graduates to staff about 90 percent of its 55 positions. So far, two noncitizens have been blocked from entering the country, said Dr. Conrad Fischer, director of the program.

“If I am missing two or three people, I can go out and get the spots filled,” Dr. Fischer added. “But next year, we’re not talking about missing two or three — we’re talking about missing thousands.”

If the travel restrictions are maintained, “it would gut the program,” he said.

Some residency programs may hire second-string applicants to fill vacancies, Dr. Paras said, an option available only to hospitals that hire residents directly.

Those that go through the national residency match program must seek waivers from their obligations to the matched residents in order to replace them.

Hospitals and clinics in rural areas of the country already struggle to recruit graduates of U.S. medical schools to their residency programs. They rely heavily on international graduates.

New foreign doctors are not taking residency positions away from American medical school graduates. Just the opposite: This year, there were about 40,000 residency positions offered through the national match system, but only 28,000 graduates of U.S. medical schools. Foreign residents fill a crucial labor shortage.

Hospitals are not allowed to overwork residents and may lose their accreditation as medical teaching institutions if they do. An insufficient number of residents could also cost them Medicare funds tied to graduate medical education.

The noncitizen international medical graduates who make it to U.S. training programs are “well-trained, well-qualified and motivated,” Dr. DeLong said.

“This is the new generation of physicians for Americans,” he added. “These are the physicians who will take care of us as we age. They are the future of medicine.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/heal ... ticleShare

[ti-amie]

Interesting comment and response. I did not realize this was happening.

D
NY
5m ago
Why don't we expand the medical schools? Physicians in the US earns many times more than Canadian/German doctors even after adjusting cost of living. US benefits from having all these foreign trained doctors here, our taxpayers did not pay for their 8 years of education; but what happens to those doctors' motherland? Don't they have obligation to serve them instead of chasing the riches in the US? I am sure the patients in their countries need to 10X more than we need them. Expand medical schools and problems solved.

Xoxarle
Raleigh
Just now
@D The AMA has successfully fought off attempts to expand medical school places in order to keep the supply of doctors low and the leverage high.

[Owendonovan]

Interesting comment and response. I did not realize this was happening.

D
NY
5m ago
Why don't we expand the medical schools? Physicians in the US earns many times more than Canadian/German doctors even after adjusting cost of living. US benefits from having all these foreign trained doctors here, our taxpayers did not pay for their 8 years of education; but what happens to those doctors' motherland? Don't they have obligation to serve them instead of chasing the riches in the US? I am sure the patients in their countries need to 10X more than we need them. Expand medical schools and problems solved.

Xoxarle
Raleigh
Just now
@D The AMA has successfully fought off attempts to expand medical school places in order to keep the supply of doctors low and the leverage high.

Does everyone have to be gross?

[Owendonovan]

Ooops there goes another....

SpaceX Starship Rocket Explodes Before Test
The Starship experienced a “major anomaly” before starting its 10th flight test. Elon Musk’s giant moon and Mars rocket has a mixed record of success.
A SpaceX Starship rocket exploded in a huge fireball on a test stand late Wednesday during preparations for its next launch at the Elon Musk-led company’s base in South Texas.

Starship experienced a “major anomaly” before starting a test at around 11 p.m. local time, SpaceX said on social media.

All personnel were safe and there were no hazards to the residents of nearby communities, SpaceX, a commercial space launch company, said. It warned people to not approach the area while it was conducting safety operations in conjunction with local officials at the test site and the surrounding area.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which issues commercial space licenses, did not immediately respond to a request for comment made outside business hours.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/us/s ... texas.html

[ponchi101]

Maybe it is time to sell those SpaceX stock.
Maaaaaaaybe.
Elon, the super engineer, can't seem to figure this one out.

Any other company would have gone under by now.

[ti-amie]

Maybe it is time to sell those SpaceX stock.
Maaaaaaaybe.
Elon, the super engineer, can't seem to figure this one out.

Any other company would have gone under by now.

The taxpayers of the US are footing the bill for his science fair projects. That was our money that just went BOOM!

[Suliso]

[Suliso]

If the currently proposed US budget is approved as is with 40% funding cut to NIH and 57% to NSF your days as the most generous science funder (in absolute numbers) are over. The remaining NSF budget would be slightly below of German science foundation budget for a country almost 4x more populous. Don't even mention China...

[Suliso]

Also have you heard that NSF (1800 people) are being kicked out of their own building? No notice obviously and no one knows where to.