Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 4d

Fuck yeah MIT

www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/10/b...

MIT becomes first school to reject proposed ‘compact’ with Trump administration - The Boston Globe

MIT president Sally Kornbluth said the university’s practices already “meet or exceed” the federal government’s list of demands.

www.bostonglobe.com

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 6d

Congrats @kelbadry.bsky.social !!!

Caltech @caltech.edu · 6d

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation has awarded Kareem El-Badry, assistant professor of astronomy at Caltech, with a 2025 MacArthur Fellowship, an honor that comes with a "no-strings-attached" grant of $800,000.

www.caltech.edu/about/news/k...

Kareem El-Badry Named a 2025 MacArthur Fellow

www.caltech.edu

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Reposted by Carl Rodriguez

Benjamin Pope @benjaminpope.bsky.social · 8d

it's actually not two Nobels for Josephson junctions, just one that tunnelled over a gap of 52 years

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 8d

Had a great time visiting State today!

NC State Physics @ncstatephysics.bsky.social · 8d

Join us for the colloquium this Today from 4-5pm in Riddick 325!! Dr. Carl Rodriguez (@carlrodriguez.bsky.social) from UNC Chapel Hill will discuss “Growing Big Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters”. | More info:
physics.sciences.ncsu.edu/event/physic...

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 12d

Really looking forward to when I can just upload my whole codebase to a GenAI and have it find all the bugs for me.

Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 13d

But some of them, like Will say, are just completely oblivious morons.

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 13d

100%, some of them are the "just asking questions" types that have no real political needs or beliefs because, from a position of privilege, it's all a sport.

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 13d

Re-upping my take that many swing voters aren't really moderates: they're actually a collection of highly chaotic (and sometimes deeply insane) beliefs that, when mapped onto a simple left-right spectrum, cancel each other out.

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 13d

Swing voters aren’t confused or undecided. They’re asleep

Stephen Carcieri @carcieri.bsky.social · 13d

They imagine a swing voter as a cross-pressured moderate who will be persuaded by whatever side seems most reasonable, when the reality is most swing voters aren’t paying attention to policy debates and only wake up for sensational controversies that cross over into mainstream discourse

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 15d

This is incredibly asinine, and also completely unenforcable.

Laura Lopez @ohdearz.bsky.social · 15d

Ohio State just advised all staff and students not to attend the SACNAS (Society for the advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science) annual meeting of 6000+ scientists -- which is in Columbus, OH this year! -- saying it may be exclusionary, even though it is open to all.

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Reposted by Carl Rodriguez

Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · Nov 4

Periodic reminder that, as faculty, you should never agree to do anything ever for any reason.

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 19d

our postdocs use J1 visas not H1-B

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 19d

Haha that's how people (informally) refer to complicated hydro problems in astro. Not what we work on though!

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 19d

I'm hiring 1-2 postdocs this year! If you're interested in:

GW astrophysics
(Binary) Stellar Evolution
Stellar dynamics (esp. w/ massive BHs)
Galactic dynamics (inc. stellar streams)

plz consider applying! You don't need letters initially, just a list of references.

🔭🧪

aas.org/jobregister/...

Postdoctoral Associate Positions in Theoretical/Computational Astrophysics | American Astronomical Society

The Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill invites applications for postdoctoral associates to conduct research in theoretical and computational astrophysi...

aas.org

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 21d

I love how every choice Adams makes maximizes the entropy of whatever space he's in. God I'm going to miss him.

Lux "Nightmare" Alptraum @luxalptraum.com · 21d

You guys do yourself a favor and look at what Eric Adams wore to Rosh Hashanah services at the Sephardic Lebanese Congregation

Eric Adams surrounded by members of the Sephardic Lebanese Congregation. He is wearing a blue velvet jacket that is embroidered with gold Magen David’s and other Jewish seeming patterns, including multiple menorahs. Everyone else is just in button down shirts or normal suits. He is not blending in.

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 25d

How is the tech industry ok with this?

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 25d

Of all the stupid things that this regime has done, this is right up near the top. Postdoctoral researchers come to the US on H-1B visas. This will further destroy the US science enterprise. Stupid stupid stupid.

Trump administration to add $100,000 fee for H-1B visas

The Trump administration is targeting a visa widely used by tech companies and other employers to hire foreign workers.

www.cbsnews.com

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 28d

See putting it in between "mass ratio" seems weird to me, since mass ratio is typically a stand-alone phrase. But "extreme-mass ratio inspiral" also seems weird.

Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 28d

Probably the correct answer, though I suspect some of the BH perturbation theory people have Thoughts.

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · 28d

How many/where do you put hyphens in "extreme mass ratio inspiral"? This feels like something the GW community has a lot of thoughts on.

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Reposted by Carl Rodriguez

Carl Haster @haster.bsky.social · Sep 15

Victoria Niu (grad student @pennstateuniv.bsky.social) and the rest of the gstlal team have designed a cool search targeting binary neutron star mergers, and then found one in the recently released O4a data from @ligo.org! I helped with the astrophysical inference 🙂
@unlv.edu @ncfa.bsky.social 🧪🔭

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · Sep 15

Hell yeah

DiscussingFilm @discussingfilm.net · Sep 15

‘ANDOR’ has won the Emmy for Best Writing in a Drama Series.

See the full winners list: bit.ly/EmmyWins25

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Reposted by Carl Rodriguez

lauren @lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · Sep 10

an article asking whether it's feminist to use AI? i will get right around to reading that, but first, would you join me in the cellar for a moment? i have a lovely new cask of sherry of dubious origin i'd like your opinion on

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Reposted by Carl Rodriguez

Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · Sep 5

Great paper on stellar streams led by Carnegie Postdoc Nondh Panithanpaisal. Specifically, streams formed by globular clusters pulled apart by the gravity of their host galaxies. But because they trace the full gravitational potential, they're an excellent way to measure dark matter in galaxies.

Pictures of two streams (figure 4 from linked paper)

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Reposted by Carl Rodriguez

Nomadic Warriors for Pritzker @nomads.bsky.social · Sep 5

JB Pritzker Khan's plans to invade Indiana

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · Sep 5

This is just a preview of our new pipeline. Next we hope to look at a full galaxy's worth of GCs, to make detailed predictions for LSST, Roman, and Euclid. Check out the paper here: arxiv.org/abs/2509.03599

🧪🔭

Breaking Down the $\textsf{CosmoGEMS}$: Toward Modeling and Understanding Globular Cluster Stellar Streams in a Fully Cosmological Context

Next-generation surveys are expected to uncover thousands of globular cluster (GC) stellar streams, motivating the need for a theoretical framework that produces realistic GC streams in a fully cosmol...

arxiv.org

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Carl Rodriguez @carlrodriguez.bsky.social · Sep 5

In this paper, we're look only at two clusters from our earlier Great Balls of Fire series. These clusters are on wildly different orbits and produce wildly different streams. Because the galaxy it is very messy, it produces bizzare features in the streams (which you might mistake for dark matter)

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