The US government shutdown has lasted as long as 3.5 Apollo missions
US government employees protest the ongoing federal shutdown.Credit: Scott Eisen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
The US government shutdown has interrupted studies of everything from distant galaxies to minuscule microbes since it began on 22 December. Thousands of federal researchers have been ordered to stay home, long-running experiments have been interrupted and academic scientists have been deprived of crucial funding.
Here are four ways of measuring the shutdown’s effects on science.
Source: NASA, Subglacial Antarctic Lakes Scientific Access project, University of Indiana
Source: US Department of Labor
Source: Benjamin Corb, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Source: Data.gov, Internet Archive
Additional reporting by Sara Reardon and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega.
