Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Sean Mullen, Ph.D. @drseanmullen.bsky.social · 1d

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

“We may be witnessing the emergence of a population-level acquired immune deficiency — not sexually transmitted, but airborne.”

That line isn’t from a tweet. It’s from a peer-reviewed paper in AJPM Focus (2025).

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Jonathan Berk 🏠 @berkie1.bsky.social · May 2

"In 2020, [Portland, OR] approved building [middle housing] on lots zoned for single family homes... A new report from the City says, it's working. 1,400 new units built in just a few years and each one is $300,000 less expensive than a typical single family home." @nbcnews.com

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Leadership Portland @leadportlandme.bsky.social · 1d

Just a reminder... applications for the Class of 2026 are due October 20. Applications can be found online leadership-portland.org/apply/ - We are happy to answer any questions you might have!

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Maine Center for Economic Policy @mecep.bsky.social · 1d

Maine’s history with the Wabanaki Nations is not ancient history. It’s a living injustice that continues to shape our economy and politics. The path forward is clear: return land, repair trust, and reform laws that have kept the Wabanaki from full self-determination. www.mecep.org/maines-econo...

Sovereignty Starts Here: Land, Economy, and Tribal Rights in Maine

Maine has profited from centuries of Wabanaki land loss. Supporting land return and sovereignty reforms is both a moral responsibility and a smart economic investment.

www.mecep.org

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Chise @sailorrooscout.bsky.social · 2d

Well now, would you look at that?

A massive study of NEARLY 300,000 people in the United States found that receiving an updated 2024-2025 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine REDUCED people’s risk of severe disease AND death in ALL age groups, REGARDLESS of immunity from prior infection or vaccination.

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 5d

Such a poor decision that will have negative repercussions for the venue

New Hampshire Public Radio @nhpr.org · 5d

The Music Hall in Portsmouth has canceled a fundraiser for a Seacoast-based abortion provider, just six days before it was scheduled to occur, citing security concerns over a planned protest.

www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2025...

Portsmouth Music Hall cancels abortion provider’s fundraiser, citing security concerns

Women’s groups say the theatre didn’t want to engage with a controversial issue and have called the move a “political decision that is clearly anti-abortion.”

www.nhpr.org

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Sharon Lerner @fastlerner.bsky.social · 6d

This story is about the report that hasn't been published - but it's also about IRIS, the part of EPA that wrote it and has been assessing the toxicity of chemicals for decades.

Of 55 scientists who worked on recent IRIS report, only 8 remain in their posts.

www.propublica.org/article/epa-...

Scientists Completed a Toxicity Report on This Forever Chemical. The EPA Hasn’t Released It.

Agency scientists found that PFNA could cause developmental, liver and reproductive harms. Their final report was ready in mid-April, according to an internal document reviewed by ProPublica, but the ...

www.propublica.org

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 6d

It's going to freeze tonight in Maine. ICE was two blocks from my home today in the West End of Portland. Christmas displays are in local stores already. Fruit flies are still stupid.

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 8d

Nope

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 10d

You are a sly momma!

Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 11d

kelseyociardha.substack.com/p/telling-my...?

Telling My Kids They Won’t Live Forever

With a little help from picture books

kelseyociardha.substack.com

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Amy Fried @asfried.bsky.social · 22d

Censorship has come to Maine #mepolitics open.substack.com/pub/barharbo...

Signs Referencing Climate Change Along with Web Pages Removed from Acadia National Park

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by The Witham Family Hotels Charitable Fund.

open.substack.com

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 27d

I’m not local there but people that I was with are and planned to.

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 27d

It’s really awful. The pollution was so very visible and spread for miles in the still air. Much more obvious than when in port in Portland

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · 28d

@portcruisecontrol.bsky.social in Bar Harbor this morning Norwegian Getaway with a plume of smoke that trailed for miles while anchored. Photographed from a distance which made it more stunning. Not always noticeable on breezy days. This boat will be in Portland later this month

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Mark Kastenmeier @markkastenmeier.bsky.social · 29d

blog.nature.org/2019/10/29/f...

Fear the Squirrel: How Wildlife Causes Major Power Outages

Squirrels may pose a bigger threat to the power grid than cyber-attack.

blog.nature.org

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Steven T. Dennis @steventdennis.bsky.social · Sep 13

This Chesapeake treasure is ours for $450K. The lighthouse at the mouth of the Potomac comes with 4BRs, hurricane-rated windows, and more than a little romance. Crab pots convey! #FridayNightZillow www.zillow.com/homedetails/...?

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · Sep 12

Some baby mussels hanging in a tide pool with periwinkles, barnacles and seaweed #maine

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Colin Woodard @colinwoodard.bsky.social · Sep 12

Regarding COVID vaccinations and deaths, there are big regional disparities in both.

(Both as per 2/23/23, when the CDC stopped updating official data.)

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Morgan J Freeman @mjfree.bsky.social · Sep 9

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · Sep 9

Question 1, on the November ballot, would set up a barrage of new restrictions on absentee ballots. This would considerably negatively affect older voters and people with disabilities.

Bolts @boltsmag.org · Sep 9

“We’re not even a voting rights advocacy organization, but we’ve had to become one,” says the director of the Maine Council on Aging. She is fighting a ballot measure that would restrict ballot access, greatly affecting older voters, this fall.

A Ballot Measure Targets Mail Voting in Maine

Question 1, on the November ballot, would set up a barrage of new restrictions on absentee ballots. This would considerably affect older voters and people with disabilities.

boltsmag.org

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Reposted by Carol Walker Aten

Your Local Epidemiologist @ylepidemiologist.bsky.social · Sep 8

1/ Fall 2025 #vaccines are here: flu, RSV, and Covid-19. Keeping track of them isn’t always easy—especially with Covid-19 guidance in flux—but clarity is the antidote to confusion. But you know what? Clarity is the antidote to confusion and that’s what I’m providing today. 👇

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · Sep 7

wow, I only have heard of 3 of these...

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · Sep 7

Great conversation about vaccine misinformation www.statnews.com/2025/09/06/c...

I inserted myself into a conversation at a bar about Covid and vaccines. Here’s what happened

What happened when a public health scientist overheard four men sharing misinformation about Covid — and decided to talk to them about it.

www.statnews.com

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Carol Walker Aten @cw810.bsky.social · Sep 6

Are you anxious about AI? You should be. An important read.

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
1/n

Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.

Figure 1. A cartoon set theoretic view on various terms (see Table 1) used when discussing the superset AI
(black outline, hatched background): LLMs are in orange; ANNs are in magenta; generative models are
in blue; and finally, chatbots are in green. Where these intersect, the colours reflect that, e.g. generative adversarial network (GAN) and Boltzmann machine (BM) models are in the purple subset because they are
both generative and ANNs. In the case of proprietary closed source models, e.g. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and
Apple’s Siri, we cannot verify their implementation and so academics can only make educated guesses (cf.
Dingemanse 2025). Undefined terms used above: BERT (Devlin et al. 2019); AlexNet (Krizhevsky et al.
2017); A.L.I.C.E. (Wallace 2009); ELIZA (Weizenbaum 1966); Jabberwacky (Twist 2003); linear discriminant analysis (LDA); quadratic discriminant analysis (QDA).

Table 1. Below some of the typical terminological disarray is untangled. Importantly, none of these terms
are orthogonal nor do they exclusively pick out the types of products we may wish to critique or proscribe.

Protecting the Ecosystem of Human Knowledge: Five Principles

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