Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Carlos Moffat

@carlosmoffat.com

570 followers 380 following 75 posts

Associate Professor of oceanography at the University of Delaware. Interested in icy places. Views my own. Old posts are deleted regularly.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · Aug 29

🌊With the Fall semester upon us, it's time to start thinking about recruiting/applying to grad school for 2026.

If you are a marine scientist looking for a graduate student, I've created a form where you can add your name and other info:

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Please share widely! (1/2)

Oceanography MS/PhD Positions for Fall 2026

This is an effort to collect the **contact information of potential advisors** for MS/PhD students in Oceanography. Please note that if you answer **you are agreeing to have your contact information...

docs.google.com

1 20 20

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 5h

This proposal is good.

🏰meg⚔️ @Birthright Audiobook! @impavid.us · 3d

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand

I'll go first: Six page commercial lease.

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Dr. Judith Hubbard @judithgeology.bsky.social · 8h

October 10th was marked by two M7+ earthquakes on the same day - 14,000 km apart! How unusual is that? We crunch some numbers.

Also: what’s going on in the Drake Passage? 2025 has seen three mid-M7 earthquakes there, after decades of relative seismic silence. What can the limited data tell us?

⚒️ 🧪

Another mid-M7 earthquake in the Drake Passage

The third large earthquake to strike between South America and Antarctica this year

earthquakeinsights.substack.com

1 8 32

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 8h

All software updates in 2025.

Alex Kain @tdcpresents.bsky.social · 1d

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 11h

People can definitely be convinced that working across disciplines is great.

This might not be apparent when you're interviewing, but often the ones doing the hiring don't have a unified vision of who they want to hire, and those internal factions are in flux.

(agree it's a tough market).

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

AAUP @aaup.org · 4d

“If we aren't free to pursue research and teaching based on wherever the knowledge leads us, we are not truly working in the service of the public.”

— Rana Jaleel, associate professor at UC Davis & Chair of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom & Tenure

How Academic Freedom in Universities Generates the Greatest Value for Society

Academic freedom is at the foundation of one of the most powerful and fundamental ideas about universities. Learn about how academic freedom has contributed to broad benefits in society and UC Davis f...

lettersandsciencemag.ucdavis.edu

58 110

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 1d

The dual sell from AI companies to Universities is, to students, that they can pass their courses without having to think, and to professors, that they can unload the teaching to LLMs.

What could go wrong.

Gavin Schmidt @climateofgavin.bsky.social · 1d

actually, fixing your employer's spreadsheets because the AI they got to fill them in has a 43% error rate.

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 1d

We seem to be answering the unlikely question: can a government be objectively pro-disease? with a "hell, yes!"

Lena Sun @lenasun.bsky.social · 1d

The CDC official who was leading the measles response and was RIFd has more than 28 yrs experience as the senior USG official leading outbreaks on Ebola, Marburg virus, and mpox. 2/4

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Stephen Turner @stephenturner.us · 3d

Lost Science is a new NYT series of accounts from scientists who have lost their jobs or funding. You can send your story to the Times here www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/c...

8 74 110

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) @scar-antarctic.bsky.social · 1d

This month we’re featuring Dr Sian Henley, a marine scientist studying how climate change reshapes polar oceans and ecosystems, and how science can guide global action on ocean and climate change. #WomenInScience #IDWGS2025

3 6

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Deborah Pearlstein @debpearlstein.bsky.social · 2d

"M.I.T. became the first university to reject an agreement that would trade support for the Trump administration’s higher education agenda in exchange for favorable treatment." Bravo.

M.I.T. Rejects a White House Offer for Special Funding Treatment

www.nytimes.com

8 20

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Bob Kopp @bobkopp.net · 2d

Rutgers TPUSA says they don't condone harassment of anyone who opposes them, but I hear from colleagues that people who signed the petition calling for them to be banned are receiving email threats to publicize their home addresses if they don't remove their name and apologize.

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 3d

The Rutgers TPUSA chapter — whose characterization of a historian there as a “outspoken, well-known antifa member” led to death threats and moving his family to Europe — think *other* people are being “blatantly defamatory.”

Not them, though. They’re doing politics the right way.

Rutgers TPUSA officers slam petition to shut down chapter, ‘Blatantly defamatory’

Alexander Di Filippo accuses Turning Point USA of inciting violence against Antifa handbook author Mark Bray.

www.foxnews.com

3 41 73

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Joey Fishkin @fishkin.bsky.social · 2d

@mit.edu has done an incredibly important service to the nation by being willing to be the first school to reject the administration's "compact."

President Kornbluth focuses—and she's right—on the principle that "scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone."

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.

4 130 490

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 2d

Great news out of CA.

Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 2d

California's governor has signed SB 79, a large-scale upzoning of land near transit throughout the state's largest counties.

Joe Cohen @cohenhouse.bsky.social · 2d

WE DID IT!!!

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Philip Gourevitch @pgourevitch.bsky.social · 2d

MIT showing the way

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

M.I.T. Rejects a White House Offer for Special Funding Treatment

www.nytimes.com

15 61

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Jameel Jaffer @jameeljaffer.bsky.social · 2d

MIT's response to the Trump admin's proposed "compact" is excellent and should be a model for other universities. orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

9 210 530

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 2d

MIT says no to the Trump admin higher-ed compact clearly and emphatically. Other universities would be well served to read, remix, and respond similarly.

"In that free marketplace of ideas, the people of MIT gladly compete with the very best, without preferences."

orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

4 26 56

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 2d

The President of MIT, Sally Kornbluth, has answered the request of the Trump administration to sign the Compact with a resounding no

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.

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 free 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

2 4

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Don Moynihan @donmoyn.bsky.social · 2d

Immigrant Nobel Prize winners exiting the United States

Florian Scheuer @florianscheuer.bsky.social · 2d

I am delighted to share that Nobel laureates Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee will join our Department of Economics @econ.uzh.ch at the University of Zurich on July 1, 2026, as Lemann Foundation Professors of Economics.

🧵 1/7

49 870 3K

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Damian Carrington @dpcarrington.bsky.social · 2d

Renewables have cut fossil-fuel imports for more than 100 countries, saving hundreds of billions of dollars, report @iea.org

- including UK, Germany and Chile etc

Story by @joshgabbatiss.bsky.social
www.carbonbrief.org/iea-renewabl...

IEA: Renewables have cut fossil-fuel imports for more than 100 countries - Carbon Brief

More than 100 countries have cut their dependence on fossil-fuel imports and saved hundreds of billions of dollars by continuing to invest in renewables

www.carbonbrief.org

1 57 120

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 3d

barely made the cut 😅

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

John Fasullo @jfasullo.bsky.social · 3d

"By most metrics, 2025 has been the worst year for the American scientific enterprise in modern history". The result - we are "essentially ending America’s longstanding role as the world leader in science and innovation,” www.nytimes.com/2025/07/10/s...

Trump Seeks to Cut Basic Scientific Research by Roughly One-Third, Report Shows

www.nytimes.com

1 23 33

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 3d

David, have faith, the 2025 peace prize hasn't been announced yet!

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 3d

Happening next week!

Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) @soosocean.bsky.social · 12d

🌊❄️ Join us 14–16 Oct 2025 for the Virtual Workshop: Ocean Connectivity & Exchange Across the Antarctic Peninsula

free | 3 sessions | global time zones | talks + discussions

👉 Sponsored by SOOS WAPSA RWG
🔗 More info & program: airtable.com/appoukWG95eu...

Reposted by Carlos Moffat

Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) @scar-antarctic.bsky.social · 3d

Applications are still open for the @soosocean.bsky.social Amundsen and Bellingshausen Sector Regional Working Group leadership team.

▶️ soos.aq/opportunities

Carlos Moffat @carlosmoffat.com · 4d

What about submitting fake homework, Doug?