Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jen C Mars

Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · 8h

Glad to see the "Chicago rat hole" (rodent-body imprint) of January 2024 Internet fame was studied more, but just to add my $0.02: Many folks missed the tracks leading away from the body imprint, meaning the squirrel (not rat) fell & splatted in wet concrete, but then walked it off. 🧪🐿️🐾

Photo showing the outline of small rodent body as a negative (concave) impression in sidewalk concrete, with left two limbs clearly defined but missing the upper right limb (arm) and only part of the right rear limb (leg); a thin tail is implied by a pointed imprint behind the main body imprint. The photo is labeled with "Direction of rodent movement" and a red arrow pointing to the upper right of the photo, and a red circle is around a set of rodent tracks in the upper right near the body imprint, labeled as "Rodent tracks."

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Rachel Maddow @maddow.msnbc.com · 1d

“I was afraid to go over there,” he said. “I got braver the more people came out. I know my neighbors have my back, and I have their back. ... These are Americans who know what freedom is — we’re being invaded by strangers.”

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Feds deploy tear gas in another Chicago neighborhood: 'We chased federal agents out of Albany Park today'

A federal judge’s temporary restraining order requires federal agents to issue two warnings before using riot control weapons such as tear gas. Witnesses say they didn't get any warning Sunday afterno...

chicago.suntimes.com

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Jen C Mars @jencmars.bsky.social · 16h

Any TTRPG art friends looking for a quick turn around gig?

Client needs 3 humanoid character pieces (head, 1/2, full body) in a semi-realistic (think TTRPG book) fantasy art style. Full color.

Needs for next week, I’m not available.

Ideal if you have store front you can charge from (eg Etsy)

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Jen C Mars @jencmars.bsky.social · 1d

This is looking so cool! I'm also trying to figure out the top heavy head problem

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Melissa Sue Stanley 🌿✨🍄 IX Showcase, October @melissasuestanley.bsky.social · 1d

A good recipe and excellent notes on what's happening in Chicago today. 💖

Sarah Becan @sarahbecan.bsky.social · 1d

New Sauceome comic this week, because it's winter squash season!

(also, a little rumination about what's up in Chicago these days)

buttondown.com/sarahbecan/a...

Roasting Winter Squash

It’s winter squash season! I drew this using butternut squash, but this method works for pretty much any winter squash: acorn, autumn frost, delicata,...

buttondown.com

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Robert Francis @birdhistory.bsky.social · 1d

Here’s a great little story from 1885 about a semi-wild stork? heron? crane? stalking around Memphis “exactly like Oscar Wilde” subsisting entirely on house sparrows, for which it was undoubtedly considered a public servant

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Jen C Mars @jencmars.bsky.social · 1d

There's a Cooper's hawk - a bird that primarily hunts and eats other birds - hanging out in our alley, but it is going to have zero luck catching anything because the neighborhood crows discovered it and are giving it no peace. The hawk is miserable, the crows are having a good time.

Be a crow

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Jen C Mars @jencmars.bsky.social · 3d

Haha I recognize the pattern

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Laura the Spookiest of Ducks @fallenlights.net · 5d

One of my patrons requested a spider with a hat!
I remembered to take a WIP video of painting this little guy :)
www.patreon.com/posts/140842...
(There's also TWO art spaces at the branches tier if you want a little halloween drawing)
#bsnm #Halloween

Brown and teal watercolor painting of a little spider with lots of eyes and a witch's hat.

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Rachel Quinlan @rachelquinlan.bsky.social · 9d

Available today on @everydayoriginal.bsky.social

everydayoriginal.com/product/karn...

#SciArt #butterfly #traditionalart #watercolor #karnerblue

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Melissa Sue Stanley 🌿✨🍄 IX Showcase, October @melissasuestanley.bsky.social · 5d

✨🌿🍄 Meet the Shacklings 🍄🌿✨

I haven't counted exactly yet, but there are a few dozen stories of these little huts in my new book. Would you like to meet a few of them?

You can help create more weird little stories! Join the fun:
Kickstarter.com/projects/babayaga/shackling

Graphite drawing of a chicken-legged Baba Yaga hut with an eyeball over the door and a little stone stovepipe. Text below reads, "This hut was an independent Shackling. They would spend most of the afternoon alone, dozing in the squash leaves or nibbling at my cucumbers. In the evenings, though, they would come in to sit by the hearth and help me spin yarn. I'd sneak them little pieces of pickled vegetables when the others weren't looking.

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Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 6d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Megan O’Connor 🍁 @meganoconnorart.ca · 6d

“The Petty King” is finished. Coloured pencil on hot pressed paper. The bird is a goldcrest, whose Latin name is regulus regulus :) #birds #birdart

Coloured pencil drawing of the stone statue of a dog with a crown-shaped collar and an uplifted paw. A small brown and yellow bird with an orange crest is perched on the paw.

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Gen C @trigonotarbida.bsky.social · 6d

Northern Flinders Ranges rocks #graphite #graphitedrawing

graphite drawing of rocks on a mountain with storm clouds in the background

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Aussie Moths @wa-moths.bsky.social · 6d

Superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) mothers sing a special tune to their eggs, teaching them a secret ‘password’ call before they hatch and which the wren parents then use to detect intruder cuckoo nestlings 🪺🪶
#ausbirds #birds #wildoz

Maja Mielke @maja-mielke.bsky.social · 6d

New Beaks & Bones newsletter published! 🥳

Why do fairywrens sing to their eggs? 🪶🧪
beaksandbones.substack.com/p/singing-to...

Why fairywrens sing to their eggs

Superb fairywren moms teach their unhatched babies a vocal password to distinguish them from cuckoo intruders.

beaksandbones.substack.com

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Keith Ammann 🔜 Gamehole Con @themonstersknow.com · 7d

If you're in Chicago, you can catch me in person this week reading from MAKING ENEMIES:

Friday, Oct. 10, 7 PM at the Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln Ave.
Sunday, Oct. 12, 3:30 PM at Chicagoland Games, 5550 N. Broadway

Hope you see you there!

A hardbound copy of Making Enemies rests on a wooden dining table. On the cover, a huge, pearlescent arthropod bursts out of a subterranean crevice and drives one of its large barbed claws through a dwarf fighter's abdomen, while another dwarf cowers in fear. The book is surrounded by blue and red polyhedral dice.

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Jen C Mars @jencmars.bsky.social · 6d

Carolina mantis, found on the tire of a parked car and relocated to our backyard where I hope she finds snacks and maybe leaves us the gift of more mantises

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D. Allan Drummond @dadrummond.art · 6d

Loving the burst of pseudoscorpion posts! Gave this grabby guy some bristles and a bit more attitude 😈 (remember in reality they’re like sesame seeds with attitude) #arachtober

A gray resin sculpture of a pseudoscorpion, sitting in my open hand against a white background.

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Jen C Mars @jencmars.bsky.social · 6d

The 7 y/o named her Ophelia after the mantis in Spider magazine

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Jen C Mars @jencmars.bsky.social · 6d

Carolina mantis, found on the tire of a parked car and relocated to our backyard where I hope she finds snacks and maybe leaves us the gift of more mantises

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Reposted by Jen C Mars

Jen C Mars @jencmars.bsky.social · 7d

Happy book birthday to the perfect spooky season MONSTER book!

Here's one of my favorite seasonally appropriate contributions

Black and white line art illustration of what appears to be a massive evil jack o' lantern with spider legs and vine tentacles stuffing a person inside of it's opened top and generally having a good time

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Jen C Mars @jencmars.bsky.social · 7d

Happy book birthday to the perfect spooky season MONSTER book!

Here's one of my favorite seasonally appropriate contributions

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Tom Kilian @tomkilianart.bsky.social · 8d

My album cover art for The Toad Folk II by Tales Under The Oak

If you want to give it a listen, you can find the album on bandcamp at talesundertheoak.bandcamp.com/album/the-toad-folk-ii

Album cover art for "The Toad Folk II," by Tales Under The Oak. Depicts a lantern-lit procession of toads in medieval dress towards a cave full of mystical turquois light.

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Jen C Mars @jencmars.bsky.social · 8d

I'll get some nice pictures before I release her into our yard, but what a delightful creature and honestly it's been a rough morning after a rough few weeks with more ahead so this was a little ray of sunshine

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Jen C Mars @jencmars.bsky.social · 8d

I found this mantis on a car tire in a parking lot and brought it home because aww, but upon closer inspection I think this is a female Carolina mantis which I haven’t seen in my area before

Photo of a green mantis standing on the plastic baggy I was trying to get her into against a background of dirty parking lot

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