Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted

CNN @cnn.com · 5h

The forecast for the powerful and deadly storm that battered small communities in western Alaska over the weekend was likely made worse by a lack of weather data triggered by the Trump administration’s cuts.

Lack of weather data due to Trump’s budget cuts impacted forecast for deadly Alaska storm | CNN

The forecast for the powerful and deadly storm that battered small communities in western Alaska over the weekend was likely made worse by a lack of weather data triggered by the Trump administration’...

www.cnn.com

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keholsinger.bsky.social @keholsinger.bsky.social · 9h

NPR's veteran Pentagon reporter warns new media policy stifles journalism www.npr.org/2025/10/14/g...

Opinion: Why I'm handing in my Pentagon press pass

Tom Bowman has held his Pentagon press pass for 28 years. He says the Pentagon's new media policy makes it impossible to be a journalist, which means finding out what's really going on behind the…

www.npr.org

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Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 1d

👇🏻

Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · Sep 27

Terms You Should Understand Before You Wield Them

• comma splice
• run-on sentence
• passive voice

[copyediting note of the day]

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Dr. Arun Sethuraman @arunsethuraman.bsky.social · 14h

Or if Jeff’s too corny for ya, come work with me in more messy plant genomes! ;) JK - I’d run to work with either of us.

Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra @jrossibarra.bsky.social · 22h

Sweet pdoc fellowship! Would be really excited to work with someone interested in applying ancestral recombination graphs to messy, real-world data in plant genomes. Happy to chat if you might be interested!

Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Plant Biology

Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Plant Biology on Simons Foundation

www.simonsfoundation.org

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Kate Clancy @kateclancy.bsky.social · 14h

I am being asked to tell my department which pieces of lab equipment should be supported with backup power because they expect rolling blackouts and brownouts in 2026 due to increased energy demands from AI. In case you're wondering how my day is going.

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Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra @jrossibarra.bsky.social · 22h

Sweet pdoc fellowship! Would be really excited to work with someone interested in applying ancestral recombination graphs to messy, real-world data in plant genomes. Happy to chat if you might be interested!

Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Plant Biology

Simons Postdoctoral Fellowships in Plant Biology on Simons Foundation

www.simonsfoundation.org

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Pam Ronald @pcronald.bsky.social · 23h

Remarkable recovery of the Klamath River salmon. Many thanks to the agencies, Tribes, and NGOs who came together to remove dams and monitor the recovery of the Klamath River salmon. And kudos, too, to the indigenous youth who paddled source to sea on the newly freed river

Colorful kayaks in a circle on the water

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PlantEvolution 🌱🌾 @plantevolution.bsky.social · 18h

Great PhD opportunity for cutting edge research in a supportive, well resourced lab!

Moi Expósito-Alonso (MOILAB) @mexpositoalonso.bsky.social · 1d

Apply for our PhD program on Evolution Ecology Organismal Biology (Integrative! Biology)

Dec 1 2025 deadline

Check out the Flyer below for more information on our #MOILAB!

Link to Flyer
docs.google.com/document/d/1...

@ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social
@hhmi.org

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NPR @npr.org · 1d

A Statement from NPR’s Editor in Chief on the Pentagon’s Press Policy.
Read More: www.npr.org/2025/10/13/g...

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The Institute for Bird Populations @instbirdpop.bsky.social · 1d

🪶 In the Ojibwe language, the word for chickadee is gijigijigaaneshiinh. To hear it pronounced (it sounds really cool) visit ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/m...

Photo of a Black-capped Chickadee by Chad Hordewel. A speech bubble from the bird's mouth says "Hi, I'm gijigijigaaneshiinh"

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Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 1d

👇🏻👇🏻

Benjamin Dreyer @bcdreyer.social · 10d

There are any number of legitimate reasons to use the passive voice, including not knowing who did the action you’re describing, or the whom is more interesting/germane than the who.

Exonerating the Gestapo is not one of those legitimate reasons.

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Daniel Bolnick @danielbolnick.bsky.social · 1d

An article about a former lab tech in my lab, Kim Ballare, in the new NYTimes "Lost Science" series about impacts of federal cuts. Thanks to @carlzimmer.com for doing this!
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/s...

She Studied How Logging Affects Pollinators

www.nytimes.com

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CeeJay Johnson-Yellow Hawk @adriftalchemist.bsky.social · 1d

Just want the rest of the country to know that the Alaska National Guard is being deployed and utilized for ALL THE RIGHT REASONS today!

They’re aiding with search/rescue and disaster relief to several Alaska Native villages hit with a climate change induced natural disaster

They’re saving lives

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Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co · 1d

Catfishing Bot has a poor understanding of jokes.

Esther @esther002.bsky.social • 3m
Protesting for a cause is one thing — dealing with reimbursements and paperwork is another entirely. Shows that even grassroots movements aren't immune to administrative frustrations.
• Kieran Healy @kjhealy.co . 6h
It's great to be paid for protesting and everything but let me tell you the whole antifa reimbursement process is just terrible

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Steve Herman @newsguy.bsky.social · 1d

WaPo joins NYT, CNN, The Atlantic, Guardian and others, according to @ScottNover, in announcing it won't sign the Pentagon's controversial new press policy.

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Dr. Arun Sethuraman @arunsethuraman.bsky.social · 2d

Wahoo! Our Molecular Ecology paper on the evolutionary history of domestication in hops won ‘Best Academic Writing’ in the 2025 North American Guild of Beer Writers Awards! Congrats to all my coauthors, and do check out the paper! reportersnotebook.org/uncategorize... Paper: doi.org/10.1111/mec....

North American Guild of Beer Writers Announces 2025 Awards Winners, Honoring the Best in Beer Media

The North American Guild of Beer Writers (NAGBW) held its 11th annual awards ceremony October 12, celebrating the best in beer media. This year’s awards were generously sponsored by Athletic Brewin…

reportersnotebook.org

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keholsinger.bsky.social @keholsinger.bsky.social · 1d

This is frightening. - High-resolution ‘fingerprint’ images reveal a weakening Atlantic Ocean circulation (AMOC) www.realclimate.org/index.php/ar...

High-resolution ‘fingerprint’ images reveal a weakening Atlantic Ocean circulation (AMOC)

The #AMOC is the reason for Europe’s mild climate. Evidence that it is slowing has been piling up over the years – it now is likely at its weakest in at least a millennium, and it may even be…

www.realclimate.org

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Quarterly Review of Biology @qrb.bsky.social · 5d

The Quarterly Review of Biology turns 100! We are celebrating our anniversary with free-to-read articles from the archives, through 2026. Learn more: ow.ly/xXli50X7Z5B

The Quarterly Review of Biology: QRB 100th Anniversary

ow.ly

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keholsinger.bsky.social @keholsinger.bsky.social · 1d

“Do what you feel in your heart is right, for you’ll be criticized for it anyway.” Eleanor Roosevelt - via The Economist

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Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 2d

My quote of the day

Nancy Hopkins et al., A Study on the Status of Women Faculty in Science at MIT (1999)

They found that discrimination consists of a pattern of powerful but unrecognized assumptions and attitudes that work systematically against women faculty even in the light of obvious good will. Like many discoveries, at first it is startling and unexpected. Once you "get it", it seems almost obvious.

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Rachel Maddow @maddow.msnbc.com · 2d

“With your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing,” he said. “You can be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth...”

apnews.com/article/pope...

Pope urges news agencies to stand as bulwark against lies, manipulation and post-truths

Pope Leo XIV has encouraged international news agencies to stand firm as a bulwark against the “ancient art of lying” and manipulation.

apnews.com

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NPR @npr.org · 2d

A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.

This 4-year-old's heart is failing. A federal grant that might help him was canceled

A Cornell University researcher has been developing an artificial heart for children for more than 20 years. Now, his research is on hold and his lab is shut down.

n.pr

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tiddlydump.bsky.social @tiddlydump.bsky.social · 2d

4 word horror story for an R user:

"has a Java dependency"

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keholsinger.bsky.social @keholsinger.bsky.social · 2d

#SilentSunday Rocky Gorge Falls, Swift River New Hampshire

Water cascades over granite blocks from upper left to lower right. Granite stands to the left and right with a border of shrubs on the upper right.

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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 4d

MIT President Sally Kornbluth just issued a statement to the campus community saying NO to Trump’s authoritarian compact

“And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone.”

Dear Madam Secretary,
I write in response to your letter of October 1, inviting MIT to review a "Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education." I acknowledge the vital importance of these matters.
I appreciated the chance to meet with you earlier this year to discuss the priorities we share for American higher education.
As we discussed, the Institute's mission of service to the nation directs us to advance knowledge, educate students and bring knowledge to bear on the world's great challenges. We do that in line with a clear set of values, with excellence above all. Some practical examples:
• MIT prides itself on rewarding merit.
Students, faculty and staff succeed here based on the strength of their talent, ideas and hard work. For instance, the Institute
was the first to reinstate the SAT/ACT requirement after the pandemic. And MIT has never had legacy preferences in admissions.

• MIT opens its doors to the most talented students regardless of their family's finances. Admissions are need-blind. Incoming undergraduates whose families earn less than $200,000 a year pay no tuition. Nearly 88% of our last graduating class left MIT with no debt for their education. We make a wealth of free courses and low-cost certificates available
to any American with an internet
connection. Of the undergraduate degrees we award, 94% are in STEM fields. And in service to the nation, we cap enrollment of international undergraduates at roughly
10%.
• We value free expression, as clearly described in the MIT Statement on Freedom of Expression and Academic Freedom. We must hear facts and opinions we don't like - and engage respectfully with those with whom we disagree.

These values and other MIT practices meet or exceed many standards outlined in the document you sent. We freely choose these values because they're right, and we live by them because they support our mission - work of immense value to the prosperity, competitiveness, health and security of the United States. And of course, MIT abides by the law.
The document also includes principles with which we disagree, including those that would restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution. And fundamentally, the premise of the document is inconsistent with our core belief that scientific
funding should be based on scientific merit alone.
In our view, America's leadership in science and innovation depends on independent thinking and open competition for excellence. In that tree marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences.
Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.

As you know, MIT's record of service to the nation is long and enduring. Eight decades ago, MIT leaders helped invent a scientific partnership between America's research universities and the
U.S. government that has delivered extraordinary benefits for the American people.
We continue to believe in the power of this partnership to serve the nation.
Sincerely,
Sally Kornbluth
CC
Ms. May Mailman
Mr. Vincent Haley

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