Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

I assumed Isaac Bashevis Singer's Meshugah must’ve inspired The Producers (1967) until I noticed it was first published in 1981-83

Pretty convinced this means Isaac Bashevis Singer was directly inspired by Mel Brooks #booksky

truly feels like learning Tolstoy was inspired by Star Trek or something

June 26, 2025 at 11:30 AM

fidgetiest.bsky.social

@fidgetiest.bsky.social

Horseshoe crabs, so very many eyes, web fic recs, & an explanation of commercial shrimp peeling machines

#horseshoecrab #shrimp #inverts #engineering (and my vaguely guilty indulgence in actually really delightful #rationalist fiction)

open.substack.com/pub/todaythi...

i got to touch a horseshoe crab's mouth

so very many eyes, web fic recs, & an explanation of commercial shrimp peeling machines

open.substack.com

May 28, 2025 at 6:21 PM

fidgetiest.bsky.social

@fidgetiest.bsky.social

I got distracted thinking about whether one oughta eat a #pumpkintoadlet this morning

open.substack.com/pub/todaythi... #frog #etymology #herps

how many calories from a pumpkin toadlet

+ some etymological & other digressions

open.substack.com

May 16, 2025 at 11:04 PM

fidgetiest.bsky.social

@fidgetiest.bsky.social

books I’d run a slow read for if I was gonna run one, + fly brain #maps, capillary-ratchet-feeding birds, bone-collecting #caterpillars, & a fun tax #loophole

also I just discovered the awesome @virtualflybrain.bsky.social

#drosophilia #phalarope #invertebrates #booksky #literature

if i were gonna run a slow read, it'd be for this

+ fly brain maps, capillary-ratchet-feeding birds, bone-collecting caterpillars, & taxes

todaythings.substack.com

May 13, 2025 at 10:34 AM

fidgetiest.bsky.social

@fidgetiest.bsky.social

screwworms, snakebite dude, and getting stigmericly borked

the victory of atom and romance

screwworms, snakebite dude, and getting stigmericly borked

todaythings.substack.com

May 5, 2025 at 11:52 AM

fidgetiest.bsky.social

@fidgetiest.bsky.social

Microwaving hamsters for their own good (thanks #tomscott), a surprise #statistician, drug gangs assisting rogue miners, vehicles vs cheeses, QWOP crossed with Codex Seraphinianus but for #linguistics, some #shortstory & art recs, + ofc #swole #invertebrates

todaythings.substack.com/p/lets-micro...

let's microwave hamsters for their own good, help rogue miners compare vehicles and cheeses, learn statistics & languages, read short stories, appreciate art, & get swole

“By a strange twist of fate, the microwave was invented to meet a need to heat hamsters humanely in 1950s laboratories.”

todaythings.substack.com

May 1, 2025 at 11:34 AM

fidgetiest.bsky.social

@fidgetiest.bsky.social

let's all disguise ourselves as stinging #caterpillars while having #Odysseus, Michalina Janoszanka, & #AnishKapoor on the brain - oh & #Dostoevsky #art!

todaythings.substack.com/p/lets-all-d...

<3 <3 <3 @danielmendelsohn.bsky.social & @publicdomainrev.bsky.social for this one #booksky #bookish

let's all disguise ourselves as stinging caterpillars

while having Odysseus, Michalina Janoszanka, & Anish Kapoor on the brain

todaythings.substack.com

March 31, 2025 at 11:10 AM

Reposted

Danna Staaf

@dannastaaf.bsky.social

I've been on the octopus beat for more than thirty years and I will never leave it because they still have the power to make me yell EXCUSE ME WHAT

Barbara J. King @bjking.bsky.social · Mar 12

"Male blue-lined octopuses inject females with venom during sex, paralysing their larger mates to avoid being eaten. Mating ended when the females regained control of their arms." #octopus #wildlife #nature 🧪

The male blue-lined octopus injects females with venom during sex to avoid being eaten, study shows

Tetrodotoxin immobilises the female – who is about two to five times bigger than the male – so mating can occur, researchers observed

www.theguardian.com

March 12, 2025 at 2:03 PM

fidgetiest.bsky.social

@fidgetiest.bsky.social

Happy fish doorbell day! Also some entertaining friendships in history todaythings.substack.com/p/happy-fish...

happy fish doorbell day! and other friendships? to aspire to

John Adams and Benjamin Franklin shared a bed one night...

todaythings.substack.com

March 3, 2025 at 9:44 PM

fidgetiest.bsky.social

@fidgetiest.bsky.social

Today I had art, war, #tolstoy, aeronauts, #swans, &c on my mind todaythings.substack.com/p/flying-whi...

flying while pregnant & painting swans after the war

"This article is about the artist. For the balloonist, see Stanley Spencer (aeronaut)."

todaythings.substack.com

February 25, 2025 at 11:34 AM

fidgetiest.bsky.social

@fidgetiest.bsky.social

#sharks, elegant technique, a translator ceding his identity to an author, air conditioner effect on finance (ps I maintain a calendar of nyc events that I find interesting nowadays) todaythings.substack.com/p/sharks-and...

sharks & elegant technique are not yet a matter of indifference

ps I maintain a calendar of NYC events that I find interesting nowadays

todaythings.substack.com

February 14, 2025 at 11:43 AM

fidgetiest.bsky.social

@fidgetiest.bsky.social

Now I really wanna read a manga about magnapinna. It’d be an epistolary romance btwn 2 marine biologists who cite each other’s papers but never met. Turns out they’ve had rare sightings (citings) of the same giant squid who swims through both their bodies of work over the years. Illustrated by CLAMP

franz @franzanth.bsky.social · Feb 11

don't you hate it when you try to type "manga" but your browser's autocomplete sends you to the wiki page for the bigfin squid, Magnapinna, the deepest living squid found as deep as 6000 meters under the sea, growing up to 8 meters long, first discovered in 1883, but the adults only first seen in—

February 11, 2025 at 4:22 PM