Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · 17h

Fungi growing in a cracked rowan tree

A cluster of white mushrooms with light brown tips to their caps growing in a roughly oval-shaped depression in a tree which dark grey-brown bark

JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · 2d

My main irritation with the humanities literature is the tendency to talk like they're launching an intellectual revolution while writing stuff which is so obtuse and jargon-heavy that only people who basically already agree with them can understand what they're saying

JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · 2d

My main irritation with the biological literature is the tendency to talk about 'human impacts' and 'human effects' as though humans are one single unitary and homogeneous thing

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · 5d

One of my favourite photos from the summer - large marsh grasshopper (Stethophyma grossum) on cross-leaved heath (Erica tetralix)

A large bright green grasshopper with red undersides to the hindlegs photographed from the side while it is perched facing upwards on a blade of grass and a purple-and-green stalk of heather. The heather is topped with a small pink flower

JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · 10d

Entering the postdoc world has vastly increased my sympathy for those curates in old novels who are desperately seeking a vacant parish where they can become a vicar and earn a living

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · 18d

Perhaps AI needs some kind of scholarly haha, so its view isn't ruined by unpicturesque subjective humans?

JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · 18d

Flooded bridge after heavy rain

A landscape centring on a flooded bridge over a shallow lake. The edges of the bridge are visible, but the middle is completely submerged. An old birch tree leans left towards the left-hand edge of the frame, while the background is the brown-green of bog, and the top of the picture shows a mass of grey clouds over a clearer horizon

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · 20d

Bog bush-cricket (Metrioptera brachyptera) - sat in some bog myrtle (Myrica gale), appropriately enough

A mid-sized cricket with dark sides and a green back to the head, thorax and wings, facing left away from the camera and perched in a bush with long but rounded green leaves

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · 24d

Dark bush-cricket, Pholidoptera griseoaptera. Always nice to get a photo of this one, the adults have such a lovely chesnut colour but also tend to hide in brambles where you can't see them and chirp at you

A chesnut brown cricket with darker middle of the pronotum 'saddle' and short wings perched on a grass stem facing right

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · 25d

Take a break from doomscrolling, relax and immerse yourself in exploring the Wildwoods...
(I have a new single out)
youtu.be/PeN4k-THfPs

Wildwoods (MV)

YouTube video by JD Roberts

youtu.be

JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · 27d

Wood cricket, Nemobius sylvestris. Tiny little animals, but they make the most amazing sound!

A small dark brown cricket perched on a brown leaf above bright green moss facing left away from the camera

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · 29d

Lesser stag beetle, Dorcus parallelipipedus. I think this species gets a bit overshadowed by its larger relative, but it's still a very impressive beastie!

A large black beetle with antler-like mandibles and a broad head facing left towards the camera

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · Sep 15

Very proud to have been part of this awesome project - 11 experimental electronic musicians came together to make an acoustic album, now out for you to listen to!
aemc2.bandcamp.com/album/undres...

Undressed, by AEMC2

11 track album

aemc2.bandcamp.com

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · Sep 14

Johnny was a patriot
He bedecked the town
With Union Jacks on ev'ry street
All flying upside down

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · Sep 13

Heath grasshopper, Corthippus vagans. Brown and nondescript, but charming nonetheless, with a sandy colour to match the sandy heaths it lives on, as well as stripy legs and an orange abdomen which contrast rather nicely with the green gorse and purple heather

A brown grasshopper with short wings and and orange abdomen facing left away from the camera perched on spike green gorse

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · Sep 12

Woodland grasshopper, Omocestes rufipes - in black and red!

A dark brown, almost blakc, grasshopper with red hindlegs and a red abdomen perched on a light brown grass stem facing left

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Reposted by JD Roberts

Trevlad @trevlad.bsky.social · Sep 12

Trevor’s Virtual Cassette Library 112

///landed.embraced.deaf. Welcome, traveler. You’ve just tuned into Trevor’s Virtual Cassette Library, Episode 112. This one’s titled Landed Embraced Deaf—your metaphysical coordinates: ///landed.embraced.deaf.This is a 90-minute sonic transmission. Built for…

Trevor’s Virtual Cassette Library 112

///landed.embraced.deaf. Welcome, traveler. You’ve just tuned into Trevor’s Virtual Cassette Library, Episode 112. This one’s titled Landed Embraced Deaf—your metaphysical coordinates: ///landed.embraced.deaf.This is a 90-minute sonic transmission. Built for walking meditations, mental wanderings, and quiet communion with the universe. No commentary. No interruptions. Just pure signal.At the halfway mark, expect a metaphysical flip. A shift in the current. Let it carry you.

trevor.se

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · Sep 11

Sat in the woods with a little synth and an amp. Nice to keep things simple! youtu.be/GudaORtvmCk

Monotron jam in the New Forest

YouTube video by JD Roberts

youtu.be

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · Sep 11

Large marsh grasshopper, Stethophyma grossum. They live in sphagnum bogs, so I got very wet feet photographing them

A bright green grasshopper sat on a blade of grass

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Reposted by JD Roberts

Jana Bacevic @unsocialtheory.bsky.social · Aug 31

Heya. I got a bit bored by people asking me how to navigate away from the cycles of exhaustion and exploitation that the academia seems exceptionally well inclined to produce. So I decided to run a workshop on it. An antiwork-antishop, in effect. Sign up below.

janabacevic.net/against-acad...

Against academic monocultures: a(n anti-)workshop series

On refinding/rewilding the academic ‘self’ Have you lost your way in the academia? Academic culture can make us feel tired, depleted and exhausted. It is a culture that privileges production (indee…

janabacevic.net

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · Aug 30

Common green grasshopper, Omocestes viridulus. Poor thing has lost an antenna somewhere along the way, but is still a very handsome shade of green on the thorax which contrasts very nicely with those dark sides to the wings

A bright green grasshopper sat on a bramble leaf facing left

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · Aug 28

What's doubly annoying is you can do good history using quantitative methods, but when you do it gets overlooked in favour of bad science with flashy answers

We did some really nice (if I say so myself) epi analysis of historical data with proper context here, for example: doi.org/10.1017/ext....

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · Aug 25

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed reading - and yeah, absolutely, it's so wonderful we have these places!

JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · Aug 24

Ah yeah, the 'your company' - it is really weird how some of the advertising algorithms seem to have decided I'm a small business owner

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JD Roberts @jdroberts.bsky.social · Aug 24

I keep getting ads which have the basic message of "are you extremely terrible at your job? Don't worry, our AI tool can do your thinking for you!"
Which definitely says something about how the tech firms view their customers

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