Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · 1d

Rare white whale sighted in New Zealand:
www.stuff.co.nz/nz-news/3608...

Rare white humpback whale spotted off coast of Kaikōura

Could it be the world-famous Migaloo who hasn’t been spotted in five years?

www.stuff.co.nz

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · 4d

One of my undergraduate mentors the biologist Hamish Spencer has retired:
www.otago.ac.nz/news/newsroo...?

Zoology academic retires following career exploring natural evolution

Emeritus Professor Hamish Spencer recalls that, even when he was a child collecting shells from his local Bay of Plenty beaches, he was fascinated by the diversity of animals and how they relate to ea...

www.otago.ac.nz

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · 8d

I really love this new song from the artist Plain Henley:
open.spotify.com/track/67Tb5m...

Summer's Out

open.spotify.com

Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · 26d

Moa creek was just down the road from where I grew up
www.facebook.com/reel/7731375...

993 reactions · 178 shares | The wingless bird that ruled the roost. Episode 13. Remembering Moa 🥚 #moa #frankfilm #storiesfromthesouth | Frank Film

The wingless bird that ruled the roost. Episode 13. Remembering Moa 🥚 #moa #frankfilm #storiesfromthesouth.

www.facebook.com

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Reposted by Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿

Chris Rowan @allochthonous.bsky.social · Sep 13

🧪 Cool subtext to this cool story on the “little red dots’ - possibly primordial black holes! - dotting the early Universe is that the hopes for the James Webb telescope have been realised. It is pulling back the curtain on puzzling and unexpected things that will help us understand how we got here.

A Single, ‘Naked’ Black Hole Rewrites the History of the Universe | Quanta Magazine

The James Webb Space Telescope has found a lonely black hole in the early universe that’s as heavy as 50 million suns. A major discovery, the object confounds theories of the young cosmos.

www.quantamagazine.org

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · Sep 12

Hoboken train station is being renovated

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · Sep 7

The start of the 2025-26 academic year at Stevens Institute of Technology

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Reposted by Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿

Magdalena Skipper @magdalenaskipper.bsky.social · Aug 20

A technology that played a key part in saving millions of lives during the pandemic should be celebrated. Yet in the US, research into mRNA vaccines is being cut. While sadly not unexpected, it’s irresponsible as we argue in our editorial this week 🧪

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Cancelling mRNA studies is the highest irresponsibility

The rest of the world is not following the US government’s dangerous path, and will stick with the technology that helped the world out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

www.nature.com

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · Aug 21

Right, and there are institutional reasons for that -- getting promoted, published, tenured etc. -- but I guess my question is whether historians of science should also try to be more read by today's scientists.

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · Aug 21

Why are most books written by historians of science not read by scientists? Is it they focus too much on social context and not enough on the details of past science? #sts #hps #historyofscience #sociologyofscience 🧪

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Reposted by Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿

Dr. Penelope K Hardy @pkhardy.bsky.social · Aug 19

New on H-Sci-Med-Tech:

Check out Amalia Sweet‬ (‪@harvard.edu‬‬‬)’s review of @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social (Stevens Institute of Technology)’s book _Cancer Virus Hunters: A History of Tumor Virology_, pub 2022 @hopkinspress.bsky.social‬

#HSTM

Review available @hnetreviews.bsky.social

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · Aug 14

In the history of cancer research, "horns" growing from rabbits' heads were important in showing cancer could be virally caused. See Chapter 1 of Cancer Virus Hunters.
apnews.com/article/rabb...

Rabbits with 'horns' in Colorado are being called 'Frankenstein bunnies.' Here's why

Some cottontail rabbits in Fort Collins, Colorado, have been drawing attention because they have wart-like growths on their faces that look like horns.

apnews.com

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · Aug 1

www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

Every Scientific Empire Comes to an End

America’s run as the premier techno-superpower may be over.

www.theatlantic.com

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · Jul 28

Amazing frequency of lightning strikes in this July storm in South Dakota

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Reposted by Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿

Kenneth Becker @geophotographer.org · Jul 8

Archaeologists recovered 22 blocks from the Lighthouse of Alexandria, an ancient wonder. Using 3D scans, researchers aim to digitally reconstruct it, shedding light on its design and collapse. The blocks were found in the harbor off Alexandria.
🧪📜
#AncientEgypt
#Archaeology
#DigitalReconstruction

Massive blocks from the Lighthouse of Alexandria, an ancient wonder, hauled up from the Mediterranean

French and Egyptian researchers are making a "digital twin" of the Lighthouse of Alexandria in Egypt after lifting its ancient submerged blocks out of the Mediterranean Sea.

www.livescience.com

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · Jun 25

Meeting and talking with Roger Penrose in 1993 was one of the highlights of my undergraduate experience. Here is an excellent review of a recent biography:https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n11/steven-shapin/through-the-trapdoor

Steven Shapin · Through the Trapdoor: Roger Penrose’s Puzzles

Stephen Hawking may have been a genius, but ‘Roger Penrose’s insights seem to stem from some superhuman life-form...

www.lrb.co.uk

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · Jun 24

Johns Hopkins University Press is having a book sale including on Cancer Virus Hunters. "From now until July 10th, use code H4JUL25 for 40% off all books and free shipping on $75+ orders." @JHUPress
www.press.jhu.edu/books

Books

From now until July 10th, use code H4JUL25 for 40% off all books and free shipping on $75+ orders. From summer reads like "Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness" to titles on American history, presidents, and more, Hopkins Press has something for every reader.

www.press.jhu.edu

Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · Jun 13

Looking for a good book on the philosophy of quantum mechanics?
www.amphilsoc.org/news/aps-awa...

APS Awards 2025 Patrick Suppes Prize in Philosophy of Science, largest book prize in Philosophy, to Dr. Alyssa Ney | American Philosophical Society

The American Philosophical Society has awarded the 2025 Patrick Suppes Prize in Philosophy to Dr. Alyssa Ney for her book The World in the Wave Function: A Metaphysics for Quantum Physics (Oxford Univ...

www.amphilsoc.org

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · Jun 12

youtu.be/aP3iZ28OA8U

Spring 2025 End-of-Semester Address from President Nariman Farvardin

YouTube video by Stevens Institute of Technology

youtu.be

Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · Jun 9

Stevens Institute of Technology Commencement 2025: Prof Gregory Morgan as faculty marshall and Prof Carlos Alomar, music professor #stevens @FollowStevens @StevensNewsroom

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Reposted by Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿

Ted Pavlic (he/him/his) @tedpavlic.bsky.social · Jun 8

Reminder: Nobel-prize winning PCR (1983), used in basically all genetic tech today, was only possible because of extremophile bacterium discovered in 1964 in Yellowstone funded by a small ~$80k NSF grant with no obvious application at the time. #science 🧪
www.richmondscientific.com/how-a-discov...

How a discovery in Yellowstone National Park led to the development of PCR - Richmond Scientific

A discovery in Yellowstone National Park led to the development of PCR, the gold-standard COVID-19 tests used to fight the global pandemic.

www.richmondscientific.com

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · May 30

China is catching the US on R&D spending

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · May 22

The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has died
dailynous.com/2025/05/22/a...

Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025) - Daily Nous

Alasdair MacIntyre, professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame and Duke University, well-known for his work in moral and political philosophy, has died. Professor MacIntyre wrote...

dailynous.com

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Reposted by Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿

Magdalena Skipper @magdalenaskipper.bsky.social · Apr 8

154 million lives and counting: 5 charts reveal the power of vaccines - a timely news explainer/reminder by @heidiledford.bsky.social

@nature.com
🧪 #MedSky

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

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Gregory Morgan 🇺🇸🇳🇿 @drgregorymorgan.bsky.social · May 13

The philospher of science and Einstein scholar John Stachel has died at the age of 97
www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBu4...

Boston Colloquium for Philosophy of Science

YouTube video by Boston University

www.youtube.com

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