'Science for the people': researchers challenge Trump outside US conference

Scientists rally in Boston amid alarm over president's views and fears for the future of the EPA, as ecologist likens current struggle to Galileo's

Hundreds of scientists rallied in Boston on Sunday to protest what they call the "direct attack" of Donald Trump and Republicans on research, scientific institutions and facts themselves, as a community reckons, and argues, with a new era of American politics.

Gathering in Boston's Copley Square, outside the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), several scientists gave speeches to a crowd holding signs shaped like beakers and reading "Stand up for science". The speeches reflected a sea change in the culture of many labs and universities, where many researchers long maintained that good scientific work could speak for itself.