Welcome to the NEW Golden Age

**Kiki Sanford** (0:00)
This is TWIS. This Week in Science, episode number 1070, recorded on Wednesday, August 5th, 2026 Welcome to the new Golden Age. Hey, everyone, I'm Dr. Kiki, and tonight on the show, we will fill your heads with ants, bubbles, and space tiles. But first, thanks to our amazing Patreon sponsors for their generous support of TWIS. You can become a part of the Patreon community at patreon.com/thisweek in Science. Disclaimer, disclaimer, disclaimer.
I was never the one known to disclaim. Definitely to explain. Maybe rarely complain. But who am I but a pale comparison of the voice of reason that began this mission, a replacement bargain found in a basement.
Will those opinionated words return? We ask with no small sense of trepidation.
Only the shadow knows. And it's not telling, but we have much more for you here on This Week in Science. Coming up next.

**Blair Bazdarich** (1:54)
Good science to you, Kiki.

**Kiki Sanford** (1:57)
And a good science to you too, Blair. And everyone out there, welcome to another episode of This Week in Science. We are back again to joy, to joy, to joy in, no, to enjoy the fruit of the sciences. You ready?

**Blair Bazdarich** (2:14)
I'm ready to revel.

**Kiki Sanford** (2:16)
That's a brawl.
Rev your engines, let's revel. And let's have a good show. Let's enjoy everybody.
We have things to discuss. It's been a week. And I have stories this week about, oh yeah, I'm gonna bring some science policy to you related to what's happening on the Hill and this golden age of science we're in. I've also got a story that's developing related to gene modification. I've got some space tiles for Blair and dodo brains, people telling awkward robots to go away. Well, not really that, but go away, awkward robots, and also then a bedtime story for kids.

**Blair Bazdarich** (3:07)
Oh, that's so much.

**Kiki Sanford** (3:12)
They're not all long stories, though. What do you have, Blair?

**Blair Bazdarich** (3:16)
Oh, my goodness. I have a monkey machine, I have bubbles, and I advance.

**Kiki Sanford** (3:22)
I like that list. It's a good list. It's a list of three. Did you get it from AI?

**Blair Bazdarich** (3:27)
No. No.
Although my first story is about AI. No spoilers.

**Kiki Sanford** (3:33)
Good. We should be talking about that. Okay.
We got to talk about this stuff here. Real people talking about real issues for society and science. And yeah, nothing artificial about us here.
All right. Before we jump into the show, everyone, I do want to remind you that we broadcast weekly, 8 p.m. Pacific Time-ish on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch. I see John Hogan saying that they're watching on Facebook also. We've got John Hogan also on Facebook, telling people watching on YouTube. Well done there.

**Blair Bazdarich** (4:12)
Thanks, John.

**Kiki Sanford** (4:13)
Cross-post-arama. I love it.

**Blair Bazdarich** (4:17)
Bring everybody with you.

**Kiki Sanford** (4:19)
Yeah. So we record weekly-ish, and we do our best to be here bringing you the science news and curious discussion of it every week. You can watch us live. You can also find us as a podcast wherever you love to find podcasts. We're pretty much on all of the places that are out there where podcasts are found. So look for This Week in Science, TWIS Science on the social networks, and our website is twis.org.
Without any further ado, let's jump into the science.

**Blair Bazdarich** (4:55)
You ready?

**Kiki Sanford** (4:56)
Yay! Okay.
This last year or so, you know I like to eat the toad first. So we're going to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of science policy that's happening right now. And I actually have... I'm going to start with the first story that is a little bit of a sigh of relief. It doesn't mean things are solved. It doesn't mean anything's fixed. But I've been talking on the show for a while now about the need for people to have written in about the OMB rules that would impact grants and funding related to science. The reality is that it's not just science, it's pretty much any federal grants or funding that is... that's given. And so this has been a huge conversation. They ended up getting thousands, tens of thousands of letters in related to the people asking that the new regulations that had been proposed by Russell Vought, that they not be initiated. And currently, the idea is that they would be initiated as of October 1st, and that would be the beginning of these new rules that pertain to whether or not a grant can just be taken away because suddenly a president decides that it doesn't align with their priorities.