Author | Lightnews

simon1235.bsky.social @simon1235.bsky.social · 1d

Went to the Monet in Venice exihibit at the Brooklyn Museum 👍 yesterday so I did a search for reflections among my pics and turned up this. October 2021.
#photography #landscape #HudsonRiver #Sunset #Manhattan #NewJersey #Reflections #FtWashingtonPark

The sun setting over the Hudson River . The sky is cloudy with patches of pale blue. Near the horizon behind the clouds the sky glows pale orange, this is reflected in the river.

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simon1235.bsky.social @simon1235.bsky.social · 1d

You’ve gone around the British Isles (did I miss the west coast of Ireland?) and are now in Portugal, are you planning on going through the Mediterranean or down Africa? Hell of a sail 😊

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Richard Kadrey @richardkadrey.bsky.social · 1d

Brit TV is the best

A parody of UK crime shows. For example, Northern England: "Investigates crimes amongst dilapidated council estates." South: "DI Tufty Lovely-Fluff has a quirky hobby and drives a vintage car."

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Isabella Eckerle @eckerleisabella.bsky.social · 2d

That would have been big news a few years ago, unfortunately the great science that gives important understanding in coronaviruses is now back to the small circle of scientists. Anyway: A fully functional furin cleavage site in a bat betacorarnavirus! Congrats to the authors!

Kosuke Takada @kosuke-takada.bsky.social · 4d

We’ve identified a highly divergent betacoronavirus from South American bat that encodes a functional furin cleavage site.
Another fascinating reminder of how diverse coronavirus evolution is in wildlife reservoirs.
#Virology #VirusEvolution #Bats #Coronavirus

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

A divergent betacoronavirus with a functional furin cleavage site in South American bats

Bats are natural reservoirs for a wide range of RNA viruses. Members of the genus Betacoronavirus, including Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome...

www.biorxiv.org

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Phil Edwards @philedwards.bsky.social · 1d

[Checks commitments for rest of day]

Bilbo with the ring, saying "Why shouldn't I engage in a Who thread?"

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Auschwitz Memorial @auschwitzmemorial.bsky.social · 1d

30 October 1939 | A Dutch Jewish girl, Selma Henriette Lievendag, was born in Hengelo.

In October 1942, she was deported to #Auschwitz. After the selection, she was murdered in a gas chamber together with her older brother Johan.

Vintage black and white photo of two young children, the boy with short hair in a checkered shirt and the girl with tousled hair in a light-colored top, smiling gently at the camera.

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Richard Young @richardyoung.bsky.social · 2d

Lovely history of the decline in UK shipbuilding; like the car industry, it fell foul of chummy marketing, too-relaxed management, and over-zealous unions. TIL all those things had been *advantages* at one point. HT @charlesarthur.bsky.social's Overspill www.construction-physics.com/p/how-the-uk...

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ianVisits @ianvisits.co.uk · 2d

Man who worships a magic man in a cloud is upset that a lady prefers to worship magic stones in the ground.

www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/northum...

Crystal shop owner left 'intimidated' after beliefs questioned by local vicar

The Diocese of Newcastle has confirmed it is speaking to both parties after the incident

www.chroniclelive.co.uk

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Matthew Cobb @matthewcobb.bsky.social · 2d

The osage orange is a sign of an extinct large herbivore. Nothing eats it now, but its distribution shows that the fruit must have been eaten by some mammal, which then poo-ed out the seeds. That mammal has gone, but the osage orange lives on...

Artologica aka Michele Banks @artologica.net · 2d

Osage orange snake: $0. Much better.

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Zach Hensel @zachhensel.bsky.social · 2d

🧵Remember the preprint claiming SARS-CoV-2 has a "synthetic fingerprint"?

It said a restriction map was "extremely unlikely to have arisen by random evolution.”

I took its claims seriously.

The "synthetic fingerprint" hypothesis collapses. My new preprint explains why.

arxiv.org/abs/2510.23833

22-Oct 2022 headline from The Economist
A new paper claims SARS-CoV-2 bears signs of genetic engineering
But it has yet to be peer reviewed. And others strongly disagree

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simon1235.bsky.social @simon1235.bsky.social · 6d

I needed to be reminded.

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David Henig @davidheniguk.bsky.social · 6d

Yay. Priceless. The right column at the right time. And a gleefully English two fingers to the haters.

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John #4 @john-4.bsky.social · 7d

Have you read this?

www.mit.edu/people/dpoli...

They're Made out of Meat

www.mit.edu

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Jennifer Ouellette @jenlucpiquant.bsky.social · 7d

The first people to set foot in Australia were fossil hunters arstechnica.com/science/2025...

The first people to set foot in Australia were fossil hunters

Europeans weren’t the first people to collect fossils in Australia.

arstechnica.com

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Emily Lakdawalla, Uranus Expert @elakdawalla.bsky.social · 8d

In somewhat terrifying but hopefully positive personal news, I've decided to purchase an extremely expensive 10x10 booth in the exhibit hall at the American Geophysical Union meeting in December. I'll be selling my gemstone and wire jewelry and art. I hope you'll come find me there.

Me, standing behind my table of wares at a recent craft show. I'm standing, facing the camera, hands folded in front of me, wearing a dark gray button-down shirt. My name badge is hanging at mid-chest from a chain of beads that look like planets. In the foreground, trays of colorful bracelets. To my right, stands with necklaces. Behind me, a sign with photos of planets says "Emily's Space Craft."

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Catherine (Katie) Schretter @ceschretter.bsky.social · 8d

Excited to announce our new pre-print (www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...)!

This collaborative work (co-led by Adriane Otopalik and Gerry Rubin) examines how neuronal circuits regulate social behaviors, like courtship🫶 and aggression🥊, across sexes. #neuroscience #Drosophila #WomenInSTEM 🧪1/

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 8d

By a fun coincidence, the estimated total number of observable stars in the Universe is about a mole (1E23)

But 1 mole of water molecules is about 1 tablespoon, 18 mL.

So, there are more molecules in a tablespoon of water than all the (observable) stars in the Universe!

Happy Mole Day 2025!

c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · Oct 23

Happy Mole Day, 10/23.

Your science history fact for the day: Avogadro's constant was coined by physicist Jean Perrin (shown) who defined it as the number of molecules in 16 grams of oxygen & proposed it be named after Amedeo Avogadro, who had died 4 years previously.

Jean Perrin, photograph. He has tousled fine white hair, a well-groomed beard, and wears a suit. He has an energy of enthusiasm and motion.

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Dolan's Knicks @ndhapple.bsky.social · 9d

"How a Rent Freeze for Some Tenants Would Fuel Hikes for Others: Zohran Mamdani vows to pause rent hikes for regulated tenants. But more than half of rentals aren’t subject to those controls and getting pricier fast as landlords’ bills pile up." -- www.thecity.nyc/2025/10/21/r...

How a Rent Freeze for Some Tenants Would Fuel Hikes for Others

Zohran Mamdani vows to pause rent hikes for regulated tenants. But more than half of rentals aren’t subject to those controls and getting pricier fast as landlords’ bills pile up.

www.thecity.nyc

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Brizo75 🇵🇸 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 @brizo75.bsky.social · 11d

Or we could just use an act of parliament to bin the whole lot of them, thank them for their service, give them one palace to live out the rest of their days in gold leafed nothingness, get rid of the House of Lords because frankly its a joke, bring in PR and actually have a democracy.

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simon1235.bsky.social @simon1235.bsky.social · 11d

Depends on the bread, if it contains rye then the bread sticks to the knife and I might wash it, otherwise, unless there’re a lot of roaches around, why bother?

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Rachel Cunliffe @rmcunliffe.bsky.social · 11d

This is brilliant and you should all go read it

Bonus points for guessing which line made me spit out my tea with laughter (which possibly was not Joxley's intention)

John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 11d

🚨NEW BLOGPOST🚨

Since the government can't seem to see it, I explain how and why a simple act of Parliament can bring the Andrew affair to the end - and why they should do it.

joxleywrites.substack.com/p/parliament...

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simon1235.bsky.social @simon1235.bsky.social · 12d

Sailing boats flying spinnakers on the Hudson River.
#Photography #sailing #yachting #HudsonRiver #DyckmanMarina #FortTryon #NewJerseyPalisades #Fall #HRSC

A group of sailing boats with large colourful parachute like sails spied through a gap in some trees. In the background are the tree covered cliffs of the New Jersey palisades.

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Greg Jefferis @jefferis.bsky.social · 16d

Excited to share our new #biorxivpreprint:
“Sexual dimorphism in the complete connectome of the Drosophila male central nervous system” www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

We describe the #connectomics reconstruction and analysis of an entire adult #maleCNS #drosophila central nervous system. 1/10

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MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology @mrclmb.bsky.social · 16d

#ICYMI, @jefferis.bsky.social’s group recently published the first complete connectome of an entire male Drosophila central nervous system with @hhmijanelia.bsky.social and other collaborators.
Read more about the work here: www.janelia.org/project-team...
#LMBintheNews 🧪🪰

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Mark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 17d

The Dinosaur Superhighway.

In the footsteps of giants - BBC News

One of the longest sets of dinosaur footprints in the world has been discovered in a limestone quarry near Bicester, in Oxfordshire, England.

www.bbc.co.uk

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