Source: KAZ Vorpal / CC BY-SA 2.0The partial shutdown of the United States government is affecting science, according to reports.

Now entering its third week, the shutdown has resulted in the closure of several federal agencies including NASA, the National Park Service, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and sections of the Smithsonian Institute.

Most of the scientists employed by those agencies are furloughed without pay and prohibited from working at home as well as from checking their government email accounts. Likewise, a travel ban is also in effect, preventing scientists and other federal employees from attending conferences and other events.

Closing those agencies, according to reports, affects the ongoing work of tens of thousands of scientists, some of whom have been interrupted amid research projects and data collection efforts.

The impact is also felt by university researchers and private contractors who work with federal scientists or who rely on shuttered government agencies for funding, data and facilities.

Ecologist Jeff Atkins, who has spent the last eight years collecting water samples from streams in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park to study the long-term impacts of acid rain, has been denied access to those streams because the park is closed.

According to Atkins, his research is just a fraction of what he calls one of the park system’s longest continuous data sets with roughly 40 years of uninterrupted data.

“This is the biggest [sampling] gap we’ve had...Now, there is always going to be this hole,” said Atkins.

Astrophysicist Jane Rigby of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, highlighted her concerns about the furlough, writing on Twitter: “Can’t work. Can’t travel for work...Can’t use work laptop,” she wrote. “Can I think about the universe? Unclear.”