Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Ximena Garcia Arceo @quexarce.bsky.social · 28m

No more press pieces lauding ML/AI companies allowed until one of them turns the Outlook email app into something approaching useful and usable

Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Laura Lopez @ohdearz.bsky.social · 2h

OSU spent many thousands of $$ on booth registrations for SACNAS earlier this year. Now they said they would rather take the financial loss than let us recruit at this meeting of >6000 scientists.

Laura Lopez @ohdearz.bsky.social · 2h

Here is the email from the provost reversing the decision & saying we can attend if presenting research. However, we still cannot recruit or attend without research benefit. Also many students did have registration cancelled (or missed registration deadlines) when OSU was prohibiting attendance.

SACNAS NDiSTEM conference update
Hi All,

Please see the email below from the provost with new guidance related to the SACNAS conference.

Best regards,
Todd

From: Provost Ravi V. Bellamkonda <ADMIN-Provost@osu.edu>
Date: Thursday, October 2, 2025 at 5:00 PM
To: Provost Ravi V. Bellamkonda <ADMIN-Provost@osu.edu>
Cc: Garcia, Anne <garcia.680@osu.edu>
Subject: SACNAS NDiSTEM conference update

Hi everyone,

Our office has been working with the Office of Legal Affairs regarding participation in the upcoming SACNAS NDiSTEM conference in light of the outreach the university received last week from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Based on our conversations, the Office of Academic Affairs is recommending the following as it relates to participation in this year’s SACNAS conference:

If an Ohio State faculty member or student is scheduled to present research or participate in sessions that advance their research at the SACNAS conference, then the faculty member or student can attend and use university funds to do so.

If an Ohio State faculty member or student is NOT scheduled to present research or participate in sessions that advance their research (e.g., the purpose of attending is solely for recruitment) at the SACNAS conference but wishes to participate in the conference, they may still attend but must use personal resources to do so.

For participation as a research presenter or in sessions that advance their research, we are requesting that a designee within each college or unit (e.g., the Associate Dean of Research) affirms that the participation is in fact to present or advance research as part of the approval process for university funding.

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Olivia Goldman PhD @oliviagoldman.net · 14h

Consider donating to a hardworking non-profit that seeks to keep doors open into STEM higher ed and academia 🎓💜
www.cientificolatino.com/donate

Cientifico Latino, Inc. @cientificolatino.com · 21h

Last year, we helped 100 students save $31K in grad school app fees, giving students from underserved communities the freedom to apply widely.

This year we lost 16 partners = $8.2K setback = 110 fewer dreams.

🎓 You can change that.
💸 Donate to open 110 new doors.

givebutter.com/supportCL

Flyer for a Donation Call where there was a lost of 16 grad school app fee waiver partners this year, totaling $8,250 in waived fees for aspiring scientists gone, that is 110 applications that may never be submitted.

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Ximena Garcia Arceo @quexarce.bsky.social · 22h

An abysmal development for Hayes Valley residents who don't believe AI will save humanity (me) sfstandard.com/2023/01/13/w...

What is ‘Cerebral Valley?’ San Francisco’s Nerdiest New Neighborhood

Inside the hacker house hype, where founders live in 20-person homes and eat, sleep and breathe AI

sfstandard.com

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Coleen Murphy @ctmurphy1.bsky.social · 4d

Begging scientists (and media posts about science) to stop using ChatGPT-generated images

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Anne Carpenter @drannecarpenter.bsky.social · 3d

15 years in the making, we confirmed that mitochondria - the powerhouse of the cell - have an unusual localization in patients who experience psychosis (including schizophrenia and bipolar disorders). You’ll never guess what kind of patient cells we used to make this discovery… 🧵

mitochondria from bipolar patients are closer to the nucleus in these images; control patients' are spread out further

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Ximena Garcia Arceo @quexarce.bsky.social · 4d

Will the second-year postdocs who weren't considered for the Hanna Gray fellowship this year (after working on and submitting their complete applications) be eligible this coming year even though it has been over 24 months since receiving their PhD?

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

EMBO @embo.org · 7d

Learn all things #cytoskeleton #research in an interdisciplinary environment at EMBO Workshop "Structure and Function of the Cytoskeleton" in Paris, FR, 7–10 April 2026.

Deadline: 20 December 2025

https://meetings.embo.org/event/26-cytoskeleton
#EMBOCytoskeletalFunction #EMBOevents #conference 🧪

Structure and Function of the Cytoskeleton

The cytoskeleton, a dynamic and intricate network of protein filaments, is found within the cytoplasm of all cells, from bacteria and archaea to complex eukaryotes. This essential cellular component …

meetings.embo.org

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Wallace Marshall @wallaceucsf.bsky.social · 7d

Are you in/near the SF Bay Area? Do you like Science? What about Festivals? Then you might want to check out the Bay Area Science Festival Oct 25. I’ll be there showing how single cells can learn!

www.bayareasciencefestival.org

Home - Bay Area Science Festival

Bring the whole family to experience 100+ jaw-dropping demonstrations, hands-on experiments, astounding games, behind the scenes lab tours, film screenings

www.bayareasciencefestival.org

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Janelia Research Campus @hhmijanelia.bsky.social · 10d

Become a Theory Fellow @hhmijanelia.bsky.social

🧪 Work alongside experimentalists to test and refine theories
🎯 Receive mentorship from leading computational scientists
🔁 Contribute to Janelia’s cross-disciplinary research environment

Apply by Nov. 3 @ https://janelia.link/theoryfellowprogram

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Daniel Colón-Ramos @dacolon.bsky.social · 23d

Vaccination and health mural by Diego Rivera, 1932, painted to highlight how science helped fight disease (Detroit Institute of Art)

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Shrew @shrewshrew.bsky.social · 28d

Don't make me tap the sign

Large language models are slot machines that pay out in confidence, not information

If the information is bad (it often is) no one cares

But if the confidence was bad no one would use it 🤔

Luckily for the compulsive use companies want to promote, it's always confident

🌈Dr. Franken Frizzle 🎃 @swilua.bsky.social · 28d

you don’t understand bro, if we didn’t lie, no one would buy our product 😩

Consider the implications if ChatGPT started saying "I don't know" to even 30% of queries
- a conservative estimate based on the paper's analysis of factual uncertainty in training data. Users accustomed to receiving confident answers to virtually any question would likely abandon such systems rapidly.

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Adrian Daub @adriandaub.bsky.social · 28d

Oh hey, it’s Hard Pass by WTF and Nope with a foreword by That Fucking Guy

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, HOPE,
AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT
GENESIS
HENRY A. KISSINGER
CRAIG MUNDIE
ERIC SCHMIDT
FOREWORD BY NIALL FERGUSON

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Tawni Marshall @tawnimarshall.bsky.social · Sep 13

"engagement can help bridge disagreements"

Turning Point Youtube video:

Charlie Kirk Decimates Radical "Transsexual Activist"

Turning Point Youtube video:

Charlie Kirk Smashes Radical Pro-Trans Student

Turning Point Youtube video:

Charlie Kirk Destroys Liberal Trans-Loving Student

Turning Point Youtube video:

Charlie Kirk Destroys Pro-Trans Pierced-Face Leftist

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo @multicellgenome.bsky.social · Sep 9

What you're looking at is a brand new protist species! 🤯🔬
Isn't it beautiful?
This image is just a glimpse of what's to come. We can't wait to share our full findings soon, in partnership with Guifré @beaplab.bsky.social @luisjagago.bsky.social. Stay tuned! #NewSpecies #protistsonSky #diversity

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Bruce Taylor @brucedstaylor.bsky.social · Sep 8

I broke some shells of Galeripora artocrea, to look at their algal hostages...and accidentally created Pac-Man amoebae. #amoebae #peatlands #ProtistsOnSky

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Omar Quintero-Carmona, PhD @omqu.bsky.social · Sep 9

The @alleninstitute.org is organizing an "Open Science & Authentic Research in Undergraduate Education" workshop on the Friday before the Cellbio25 meeting in Philadelphia. Check out this link for more information and to apply.

alleninstitute.org/events/open-...

Open Science & Authentic Research in Undergraduate Education

Join the Open Science & Authentic Research in Undergraduate Education Workshop in Philadelphia, PA on December 5, 2025.

alleninstitute.org

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Carly Goodman @carlygoodman.bsky.social · Sep 6

If we can just degrade the status of a targeted group a little bit more, I’m sure we can back away from the cliff edge of fascism

Michael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · Sep 6

I'm kind of shocked that anyone is still proposing technocratic solutions to the "debate" over immigration. Even if this were a good idea (and it is not), Republican elites and media will never tell their base about it. You can't policy your way out of a propaganda problem!

But we could also go much further. One idea might be to tax immigrants themselves at higher rates and restrict federal benefits until immigrants have met some threshold of tax payments or achieved permanent residency.6 This is not a prospect that brings me joy. But I do think that these are necessary preconditions to warming the public to the idea that the economic math of immigration works out in our favor.

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Neil Shubin @neilshubin.bsky.social · Sep 4

Excited to be giving 4 lectures in Paris in October at the Collège de France. Free and open to the public!

Denis Duboule @denisduboule.bsky.social · Sep 3

‘Our Ancestors the Fish’, a course by Prof. @neilshubin.bsky.social, Univ of Chicago, invited Prof @college-de-france.fr. in Paris @psl-univ.bsky.social. Four conferences, free access, open to everyone, with Tiktaalik as a guest star. Friends, colleagues and fossils in Paris and around, please RT🥁

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Alt NIH Bluesky 🧪 @altnih4science.bsky.social · Sep 2

Jay Bhattacharya was nominated by Trump to spread lies to help the right’s political project.

Because that’s what Bhattacharya did for four years after 2020. Authoritarians and their lackeys need lies.

Truth is:
**Bhattacharya and RFK** politicized science, then and now.

Bhattacharya, MD, PhD
@NIHDirector_Jay At least two of the authors of this piece were in charge of the @CDCgov during the era when it embraced politicized school closures and covid vaccine mandates. For them to criticize Sec. @RobertKennedyJr for his
efforts to restore gold standard science to the CDC harms public health.
The New Work Times
GULSE ESSAY
We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering
Every American's Health

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Ben Larson @blarson.bsky.social · Aug 26

What could be more exciting than watching Euplotes scurry around under the microscope? How about adding some raptorial predation by supergiant cannibal cells?

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Video by Vittorio Boscaro.

1/n

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Wallace Marshall @wallaceucsf.bsky.social · Aug 19

Cells can form patterns within themselves just like embryos do. How? Connie Yan's new preprint shows how the anterior-posterior cytoskeleton pattern in Stentor is dictated by regionalized scaffolding proteins

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Wallace Marshall @wallaceucsf.bsky.social · Aug 18

Yogi Jaeger kicking off the Venice Summer School in Emergence and Evolution

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Reposted by Ximena Garcia Arceo

Mission Local @missionlocal.org · Aug 15

An indigenous woman in San Francisco immigration court today spoke neither English nor Spanish. She seemed not to understand the proceedings, & even DHS agreed to postpone her hearing.

It didn't matter. ICE agents arrested her in the hallway anyway.

missionlocal.org/2025/08/sf-i...

ICE makes unusual arrest of indigenous woman in S.F. immigration court

She did not appear to understand the proceedings, and her case was delayed for two months. ICE arrested her in San Francisco anyway.

missionlocal.org

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