The article by Sharmila Kuthunur highlights a subtle change that might have gone unnoticed but underscores how easily history can be rewritten—especially when it’s written in code rather than in stone.

The recent alteration of Vera Rubin’s biography in the Rubin Observatory’s website serves as a stark reminder of the broader need to capture and preserve oral histories before they can be rewritten or erased. Oral histories provide an unfiltered record of lived experiences. When governments or institutions attempt to reshape narratives for political purposes, these firsthand accounts become even more valuable as a safeguard against revisionism. By transcribing and archiving oral histories, we ensure that diverse voices and untold stories remain protected, accessible, and truthful for future generations.

Astronomers are expressing disappointment and alarm as the federally-funded Rubin Observatory altered the biography of renowned astronomer Vera Rubin, for whom the facility is named, on its website. The amended version curtails her legacy of championing women in science and removes all mentions of the observatory’s efforts to reduce barriers for women and other historically underrepresented groups in the field.

“No executive order, no political edict is going to undermine or end our efforts to make the scientific workforce look more like our people,” astronomer John Barentine told Space.com. “If anything, it is giving us more encouragement to continue to do this work, because it is the morally, philosophically and politically right thing to do.”

The edits, first reported by ProPublica on Jan. 30, came as federal agencies across the government scramble to revamp their websites in order to comply with a U.S. executive order issued by President Donald Trump, which ends funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and removes all mentions of them from public-facing websites.

On Jan. 27, a portion of Rubin’s bio titled “She advocated for women in science” was removed entirely before being republished later that day in a diluted form, ProPublica reported. As of publication of this story Tuesday (Feb. 11), the altered bio still excludes a paragraph that originally read: “Science is still a male-dominated field, but Rubin Observatory is working to increase participation from women and other people who have historically been excluded from science. Rubin Observatory welcomes everyone who wants to contribute to science, and takes steps to lower or eliminate barriers that exclude those with less privilege.”

One sentence in the final paragraph, which originally read, “Vera Rubin offers an excellent example of what can happen when more minds participate in science,” was changed to replace “more” with “many,” altering the meaning from emphasizing the need for diverse perspectives to simply highlighting a high number of people.

“This is the story of what happened in her life,” Yvette Cendes, a radio astronomer at the University of Oregon, told Space.com. “She was a huge champion for women in science in particular because she faced things that were discriminatory for women — diminishing those stories is pretty disturbing, frankly.”

Other pages on the observatory’s website, including the jobs and staff bio pages, have also been modified to erase mentions of diversity and inclusion efforts. The Observatory, its funder, the National Science Foundation, and the White House did not respond to Space.com’s request for comment on Feb. 3.

Rubin earned worldwide recognition for changing the way we think of the universe by showing that galaxies are mostly composed of dark matter, the mysterious, invisible substance that makes up much of the cosmos. Her research provided crucial evidence for dark matter’s existence through observations of stars in our neighboring galaxy Andromeda, where she found that stars moved at the same rate regardless of their position — an indication of “missing” mass, which she proposed could be explained by dark matter. Her findings shifted scientific consensus toward accepting dark matter as a fundamental component of the universe, opening new realms in astronomy and physics.

Beyond her scientific achievements, Rubin also paved the way for women in science. Perhaps most notably, in 1964, she battled to gain access to observe at the famed Palomar Observatory in California, becoming the first woman officially allowed to use its telescopes. Colleagues recall that when Rubin noticed the only restroom at the observatory was labeled “MEN,” she cut out a tiny paper skirt and taped it to the image of a man on the door. “She turned around and said, ‘Now you have a ladies’ room’ and then she got to work — that was Vera Rubin,” reads a 2021 statement from former Carnegie Science President Eric Isaacs.

Throughout her career, she championed women in the field. As one example, “she frequently would see the list of speakers [at a conference],” former colleague Neta Bahcall of Princeton University told Astronomy.com, “and if there were very few or no women speakers, she would contact [the organizers] and tell them they have a problem and need to fix it.”

“But what if she hadn’t been that fierce? What if she hadn’t been the personality that we have all come to know — the unstoppable warrior?” Isaacs said in the Carnegie Science statement. “And here’s the question that really haunts me, which is how many Vera Rubins have we lost to these kinds of obstacles?”

As similar barriers are threatening to resurface due to the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to erase initiatives aimed at improving diversity in science, the astronomy community seems to be remaining steadfast in its refusal to reverse decades of progress.

“Astronomy is not going to let Vera’s contributions be forgotten,” said Barentine. Various groups are actively working to use tools to archive content that has already been removed, as well as content that could potentially be erased from federal websites.

“The idea that they can somehow obliterate these sources is dead wrong — scientists in general and astronomers in particular are not going to take these threats lying down,” he said. “But we have a long road ahead and I expect there’ll be times when that road will be very difficult to walk.”

He declined to disclose the specifics of these efforts, but noted that “the forces aligned against this should be aware that it’s happening, and they won’t be able to stop it.”

Even at NASA, offices associated with DEI initiatives were shut down during Trump’s first few days in office. A recently instated, high-profile program called Here to Observe (H2O), which paired undergraduate students from underrepresented groups with scientists running NASA missions, was recently grounded. The media outlet 404, an independent journalist-founded news website, reported that NASA employees were told to “drop everything” and “scrub mentions” of a list of words from public-facing sites, including “Indigenous People,” “Equity,” “Accessibility,” “Environmental Justice” as well as “Anything specifically targeting women (women in leadership, etc.).” NASA has since removed “inclusion” as one of its core values.

The flurry of changes triggered by the directive has led to the erasure of articles featuring NASA astronomers from underrepresented communities that the agency published in years past, like this one. Now, these pages sometimes display launch schedules of past SpaceX launches instead of the original prose. The original titles appear to remain. Agency employees have also been instructed to remove their pronouns from all work communications and instead follow a pre-designed signature block adopted by the agency, NPR reported.

Astrobiologist Michaela Musilova, who served as the Director of the HI-SEAS space research station in Hawaii, told Space.com that her efforts to encourage more women, people of color and LGBTQ+ scientists to join her simulated missions to the moon and Mars resulted in more applicants from these communities.

“Representation matters — some of them told me that they only applied because they saw that others like them were successful in this sector too,” she said. During those simulated missions, “the more diverse a crew was, the more successful a mission ended up being — the team got along better, was able to problem solve more efficiently and they were also more productive with their research projects.”

The impacts of the ongoing changes, which have prompted many talented and experienced people to leave the space agency, “will likely be long-term and they could cause many interesting projects to not get pursued or finished,” she said.

On May 17, 1996 — nearly 50 years after her own graduation in 1948 — Rubin addressed the graduating class at the University of California, Berkeley, saying: “I hope that you will fight injustice and discrimination in all its guises. I hope you will value diversity among your friends, among your colleagues, and, unlike some of your regents, among the student body population.”

“I hope that when you are in charge, you will do better than my generation has.”

Grammarphobia

By Pat and Stewart on February 10, 2025

Q: The act of clinking glasses and saying “cheers” is becoming known as “cheersing.” Well, there wasn’t already a word for this, so I guess we needed one. What do you think of this neo-verb?

A: The use of “cheers” as a verb meaning to say “cheers” in a toast, often while clinking glasses, has been around for at least two decades. Standard dictionaries haven’t recognized it yet, but two collaborative online dictionaries have entries:

Wiktionary defines it as “to say ‘cheers’ as a toast (to someone)” and has this example: “We cheersed and started drinking” (from Unheard Love: Experience the Illusion of Love, 2018, a novel by Kavya Mahadik).

Urban Dictionary (in a 2011 entry) says it’s a “clickety clank clack of glasses in union, most commonly to refer to beer mugs raised in celebration.” Example: “He spilt nearly half of his Budweiser when he cheersed his glass with Pat’s.”

The earliest example we’ve found is from Mosh Pit (2004), by the Canadian novelist Kristyn Dunnion: “Choosy Soozy was drinking shots at the bar with her friends. I cheersed her with my fist because I didn’t have a beer yet, and she yelled, ‘Hey, thanks for coming to the show!’ ”

Interestingly, saying “cheers” as “a toast or salutation before drinking” is relatively recent, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The interjection first appeared in the early 20th century.

The OED’s earliest citation is from a newspaper in Perth, Australia: “The brief toast of ‘Cheers, dears!’ ” (Sunday Times, Sept. 14, 1930). However, the dictionary cautions that “the earliest use so far traced comes from Australia but it is uncertain whether it originated there.”

As for the etymology, the OED says the interjection apparently originated as the plural of the noun “cheer,” which meant one’s countenance, face, or emotional state when it appeared in the late 12th or early 13th centuries.

The first two senses are now obsolete, but the third—the emotional state—is still seen in the somewhat musty expression “be of good cheer,” which Oxford dates back to Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (circa 1385):

“Loue hath beset þe wel be of good chere” (“Love hath beset thee well, be of good cheer”).

In the 15th century, the noun “cheer” took on the sense of “food and drink provided for a guest or (now chiefly) enjoyed on a festive occasion,” the OED says.

The dictionary’s first example is from Le Morte Darthur (circa 1470), Sir Thomas Malory’s Middle English prose version of the Anglo-Norman Arthurian tales. In this passage, the desolate Palamedes, who’s hopelessly in love with Isolde, doesn’t feel up to dinner:

“So they wente vnto mete, but sir Palomydes myght nat ete, and there was alle the chire that myght be had” (“So they went to dinner, but Sir Palamedes could not eat, despite all the cheer [food and drink] that might be had”).

In the early 18th century, the OED says, the noun “cheer” came to mean “a shout of acclamation, encouragement, or jubilation; esp. (in singular and plural) the loud, collective shouts and other expressions of acclamation of a company or crowd.”

The first Oxford citation is from The Barbacue Feast: or, the Three Pigs of Peckham, Broil’d Under an Apple-Tree (1707), by the British satirist Edward Ward: “A huge Whistle-booby Boatswain … commanded three Chears from the Company.”

The dictionary notes that the term could refer at this time to specific shouts of “hear hear,” “hurrah,” “huzza,” and so on. However, none of the examples cited include shouts of “cheer” or “cheers.”

In the early 20th century, the interjection “cheers” began being “used as an expression of encouragement, approval, or enthusiasm,” Oxford says. The first citation, which we’ve expanded, is from a letter written on May 30, 1915, by W. Robert Foran, a British Army officer, big game hunter, and writer:

“We go out in a couple of weeks to the front. Cheers! Love to all my old friends in the Club. Send me THE SCOOP. Best wishes from Вob” (from the June 19, 1915, issue of The Scoop, a daily published by the Press Club of Chicago from 1911-17).

And as we mentioned above, the earliest OED citation for the use of the interjection “cheers” as a toast or salutation before drinking appeared in Australia in 1930.

In the dictionary’s next example for this sense of the word, two old friends exchange drinking salutations:

“ ‘Cheers!’ said the one, and ‘Here’s mud in your eye!’ the other” (from The Clock Ticks On, a 1933 mystery by the British author and journalist Valentine Williams).

In the late 20th century, the interjection “cheers” took on the sense of “thanks” in British English. The first OED example is from the British journalist Phillip Howard in The Times, London, Aug. 4, 1976:

“By a remarkable transition from the pub to the sober world at large outside cheers has become the colloquial synonym in British English for ‘thanks.’ ”

Finally, here’s an example from Kingsley Amis’s novel Jake’s Thing (1978). In this passage, Jake is relieved that a news agent doesn’t smirk when he sees a racy magazine among those Jake has selected:

“As it turned out he had been hard on this man, who politely didn’t smile or leer when he saw Jake’s selection, named a cash sum once and said Cheers five times, the first time when he noticed the approach of his customer, again when he handed the magazines, again when he took money, again when he gave change and the last time when bidden good-bye.”

NASA pauses work by key space science groups amid Trump executive orders

By Tariq Malik

The space agency’s planetary science analysis groups must pause while NASA checks if they comply with Trump’s orders.

NASA has ordered key planetary science committees for Mars, moon and other exploration to pause all work due to Trump administration executive orders. (Image credit: NASA)

NASA has ordered a pause on all work by key planetary and astrophysics science committees due to recent executive orders by President Donald Trump.

In a series of memos sent from NASA headquarters late Friday (Jan. 31), the space agency directed the leaders of at least 10 planetary science assessment and analysis groups that cover a wide range of topics, from the exploration of the moon and solar system planets to “ocean worlds” like the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter. According to SpaceNews, NASA’s astrophysics assessment groups received similar memos, all of which cited a need to ensure the groups were in compliance with recent executive orders by Trump.

“As NASA continues to review and ensure compliance with presidential actions, we are requesting that you please pause all meetings and activities of Planetary Science Analysis/Assessment Groups,” read one NASA memo to the Mercury Exploration Assessment Group, which was obtained by Space.com and was nearly identical to memos sent to other planetary science committees.

The memos cited six Trump executive actions, three of them aimed at ending diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government. Two others targeting so-called “gender ideology extremism,” while another referred to “Unleashing American Energy” that roll back climate change-related executive orders by the Biden administration.

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The pause order from NASA headquarters has already led to the cancellation of at least one planetary science meeting. The Mercury exploration group, known by the acronym MExAG was scheduled to hold its first in-person meeting this week from Feb. 4 to Feb. 6, but will no longer meet.

“We are forced, therefore, to cancel MExAG 2025,” the Mercury committee’s chair Carolyn Ernst, a planetary scientist with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, wrote in a memo obtained by Space.com. “This turn of events is shocking and concerning, and is extra painful given the order comes four days before our first in-person meeting.” Some committee members had already begun travel for the meeting, Ernst added.

The nearly three-day hybrid meeting was expected to include at up 200 scientists attending either in person of virtually, one scientist Ed Rivera-Valentin shared on the social media site Bluesky. It was expected to include a number of researchers connected to the BepiColombo Mercury mission run by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and the European Space Agency. The probe just made its sixth flyby of Mercury on Jan. 8.

“The MExAG steering committee is heartbroken that our first in-person meeting was cancelled due to this,” scientist Mallory Kinczyk wrote on Bluesky.

Vicky Hamilton, a planetary geologist with the Southwest Research Institute who chairs NASA’s Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group, said in a memo to her committee that the group has stopped planning work for its own meeting scheduled for April.

“We will let everyone know as soon as we are able to resume work,” she wrote in a memo obtained by Space.com.

NASA’s assessment and analysis groups meet regularly to assess the latest discoveries and missions in their specific fields and report them back to the space agency’s internal planetary science and astrophysics divisions. While they provide key insight into space science, the groups are not formal advisory committees overseen by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, according to SpaceNews. Many of the planetary science committees are overseen by the Lunar and Planetary Institute, which itself is managed by the Universities Space Research Association.

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NASA’s pause order to its analysis groups is one of several agency changes that have followed executive orders from the Trump administration.

The agency has begun restricting funding to programs related to diversity, equity and inequality, including to a Here to Observer program that connected students from underrepresented groups with NASA planetary science missions, according to SpaceNews.

SpaceNews also reported that the agency has removed a 2023 article about the NASA astronaut class of 1978, a team that included the agency’s first Black, Asian-American and female astronauts, written by NASA’s own history office. It appears to have been removed by Jan. 29, after being accessible as late as Jan. 25, SpaceNews added. You can still find the article on the Internet Archive.

Space.com has reached out to NASA headquarters for comment and will update this story if one is received.

We all love a good Italian meal, but nothing kills the appetite quite like a grammar gaffe on the menu. Just ask Jodi Amendola, who recently spotted a sign advertising “home maid” sauce—delicious in theory, but questionable in execution. In her Forbes article, she dishes out a timely reminder: proofreading matters.

When you sit down for a fun dinner out at a restaurant with family and friends, the importance of proofreading is rarely top of mind.

Yet that’s where I found myself recently during a visit to a little Italian restaurant while vacationing with my family in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. While the food was great and the chef’s attention to detail was excellent, I can’t say the same for the restaurant’s signage.

A sign on the wall advertised fresh pasta with “home maid” sauce, which sounded right, but of course, wasn’t correct. Of course, the sign should have said the restaurant offers “homemade” sauce.

While the sign gave me a slight chuckle and certainly didn’t detract from my overall dining experience, it nonetheless reminded me of an important lesson we’ve all known since elementary school, yet repeatedly seem to forget: Proofread your work.

It’s not a profound lesson, but it is an important one.

We’ve all heard that “content is king,” but how you present that content matters, too. Misspellings and grammatical mistakes undermine the authority of whatever message you’re trying to get across and are indicative of hurried, shoddy work.

Like it or not: When you put something out into the world, you are being judged.

Or, as the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina states: “When you’ve worked hard to develop and present your ideas, you don’t want careless errors distracting your reader from what you have to say. It’s worth paying attention to the details that help you to make a good impression.”

Why proofread? Isn’t that what spell check is for? Consider this fictional sentence that could have possibly been said by someone, somewhere at some point in time while eating at an Italian restaurant: “Over there, they’re eating their lasagna.”

As someone familiar with the English language with writing experience, I (and, most likely, you) know that “there,” “they’re” and “their” are all spelled correctly in the previous sentence.

But guess what doesn’t know? Your spell checker (at least not always).

Although it’s become a bit of a cliché, that’s why a “human in the loop” is still essential when it comes to most applications of AI. An experienced, competent human proofreader knows to look out for these sorts of little mistakes that can sometimes trip up even veteran writers. Here are a few other tips for proofreading success.

• Start at the end, and read in reverse order: Often when proofreading, we’re looking for the type of misspellings or homonyms that AI will not catch for us, such as “made” versus “maid.” By starting with the last word of the content and then reading each word prior to it, you can divorce your thoughts from the context and meaning of the article and focus exclusively on the word you’re reading at the moment.

• Take a break: Writing and editing sometimes require different approaches and mindsets, so never start proofreading as soon as you finish writing a first draft. Take a little time to get away from the content before you come back for editing, even if it’s only 30 minutes.

• Set aside the distractions: Pick a time of day and a place where you’ll be able to devote your full attention to the text. Hopefully, it is not in front of the TV or on the treadmill. For many of us, the best time is early in the morning while relaxing with a hot cup of coffee before the inevitable stream of emails and texts starts rolling in.

• Ask a friend: It always helps to have an objective viewpoint and a fresh set of eyes. Find a colleague with both.

• Bonus: Cite primary—not secondary—sources: To maintain credibility, it is essential that writers cite the sources of statistics and little-known facts. However, it’s important to cite the original and not secondary sources. In other words, if you’re referencing a survey about executives’ attitudes toward digital health, link to the survey itself or press release announcing it, not a news article about the survey.

One final, critical caveat: When you’re using voice-to-text, these proofreading tips are even more relevant. Proofreading voice-driven texts may reduce the hilarity of your mistaken, garbled messages, but it can save your recipients a lot of confusion.

At Adept Word Management, we are very familiar with the issues unsupervised ai can cause. If you could use a laugh today, read our recent post: