Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jess Butler

Stuart Hoddinott @stuarthoddinott.bsky.social · 1d

Crazy stat of the day: the NHS now publishes the cost of delayed discharge from hospital. They estimate that it was ~£220m in September

If that's a typical month, it means ~£2.6bn per year

For comparison, the govt spent £2.8bn on the entire courts and tribunal system in 2024/25

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Reposted by Jess Butler

George Davey Smith @mendelrandom.bsky.social · Sep 12

"Triangulation: moving from correlations to causation", Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine Distinguished Lecture 2025, Thursday, October 16th, 5pm, in person or online
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/school-of-...

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Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 2d

“Despite women making up 51% of the global population, only about 19% of biographies on English language Wikipedia are about women. And that’s not just women scientists. That’s women in all professional areas. That’s anyone that the Internet has deemed notable.”

Wade getting shit done 💪

Karen Masters @karenlmasters.bsky.social · 3d

Jess Wade is amazing, and it's my absolute honour to be one of the more than 2000 women in STEM whose wikipedia page she started: mymodernmet.com/jessica-wade... 🧪🔭👩‍🔬

Meet the Physicist Who Wrote Over 2,000 Wikipedia Biographies for Women in STEM

After noticing a lack of entries on Wikipedia for incredible women throughout history, this incredible woman decided to take matters into her own hands.

mymodernmet.com

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Nora Reed (they/them ze/hir) @nora.zone · 4d

cry havoc and let slip the frogs of war

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Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 4d

"Is a body established in law?

Who appoints its leadership?

Is a body directly accountable to parliament?

Who sets its priorities?

Who controls its funding?

Is it free to publish without ministerial say-so?"

Great thread 👇

Prof Christina Pagel @chrischirp.bsky.social · 5d

🧵🚨

The UK’s independent scientific bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation - over the past 5 months I've been working with @martinmckee.bsky.social to map out their vulnerabilities and it's not good news.

Today our report is published!
www.ucl.ac.uk/policy-lab/n...

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UK’s arm’s length public bodies are highly vulnerable to politicisation

Seven in ten Britons say it is important for top scientific institutions to be independent in exclusive new polling.

www.ucl.ac.uk

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Sarah Nelson @blueyedgenes.bsky.social · 6d

Just a reminder that if you are a scientist wondering how you can communicate the value of federally-funded scientific research outside of your bubble, @sciencehomecoming.bsky.social is here to help you pitch and publish in your hometown newspaper
sciencehomecoming.com

Science Homecoming

sciencehomecoming.com

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Stephan Torre @stephantorre.bsky.social · 6d

Oh, big one today.

fuckeveryphilosopherbot @fuckeveryphilosopherbot.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 6d

Fuck Socrates (470–399 BC)

#philosophy

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 10d

A 3,500 year-old Egyptian glass cosmetic jar with two little duck heads!

Glass was a relatively new material at that time, so this jar would have been a precious possession.

From Merit’s beauty case, found inside Theban tomb (TT8) of Merit and her husband Kha in 1906. 📷 Museo Egizio

#Archaeology

Museo Egizio Turin photo showing a small, dark-blue, core-formed, round glass jar which tapers in at the shoulders below the neck. It has yellow, white, and light blue festoon decoration trailed around the main body. There is a single yellow trail just below the neck of the jar. There is a dark-blue circular glass lid, the top of which is adorned with two dark-blue duck heads with yellow bills, a yellow trailed stripe on the top of each duck’s head, and indents for their eyes. The jar is displayed on a perspex (?) stand against a grey background. Glass jar dimensions: 7.6 cm x 9.6 cm.

Core-forming is one of the earliest glassmaking techniques. Glassmakers shaped the body of the vessel around a core, wound colored trails around it. They then let the vessel cool and removed the core.

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Reposted by Jess Butler

The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 12d

In his essay “Proust's Pinks”, Christopher Prendergast celebrates the author's use of the colour pink in À la recherche du temps perdu: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/prousts-pinks

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Julian Reif @julianreif.bsky.social · 13d

“In 2025, American diagnostic radiology residency programs offered a record 1,208 positions across all radiology specialties… In 2025, radiology was the second-highest-paid medical specialty in the country, with an average income of $520,000, over 48 percent higher than the average salary in 2015”

Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 13d

In 2016 Hinton predicted that AI would replace all radiologists in five years. Ten years later, why hasn't it happened? This post is a great explainer.

www.understandingai.org/p/ai-isnt-re...

AI isn't replacing radiologists

Radiology combines digital images, clear benchmarks, and repeatable tasks. But demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high.

www.understandingai.org

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Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 15d

To be way too earnest for on here, I genuinely think nerds being careful is political activism these days and it cheers me up

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Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 15d

U!S!A! ❤️

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Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 15d

I feel like my beloved stats & methods social media is back and thriving 👑 💘@dingdingpeng.the100.ci @statsepi.bsky.social @rmcelreath.bsky.social @andrew.heiss.phd @masalmon.eu
@statsepi.bsky.social

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 15d

This covers some important sources of bias that arise from naive control strategies. Of value even if you don't care about the life-satisfaction ~ age association.

Tamkinat Rauf @tsrauf.bsky.social · 15d

Life satisfaction mostly declines with age. Previous findings (esp. the famous U-shaped age-SWB trajectory) were artifacts of misspecified models. doi.org/10.1093/esr/...

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Georgina Sturge @georginasturge.bsky.social · 19d

Want to know how digital ID works, what it would involve, why we don't have it already, and why the last time we tried to have an identity register it went tits up very fast?

It's the perfect time to get hold of a copy of Sum of Us (e- and audio-books also available)!

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Ben Goldacre @bengoldacre.bsky.social · 19d

COME TO OUR CONFERENCE!

Lots of people work on medicines data: researchers; but also "medicines optimisation" teams, using data to directly improve NHS care; and teams who build data tools. These clans rarely meet... Until now! Join us, Dec 10th, in Oxford.

www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/events/2025-...

2025 Bennett Institute Medicines Symposium | Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science

The two-day 2025 Bennett Institute Medicines Symposium will take place at Jesus College in Oxford on 10–11 December 2025.

www.bennett.ox.ac.uk

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Martin Smith @martinrsmith.bsky.social · 20d

“Sustainable research excellence depends on the people who make it happen. Environments that support career development, recognise diverse contributions, and foster inclusion don’t just feel better to work in – they produce better research”

Wonkhe @wonkhe.bsky.social · 20d

NEW on Wonkhe: Yolana Pringle and Ben Tatler make the case that the REF pause should be the moment to build on the most substantial sector-wide collaboration ever undertaken on research environments buff.ly/B53PxLd

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Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 20d

£39-47k

"Under the direction of the University’s new Office for Open Research and Scholarship, you will contribute to key open research projects on the University’s Research Culture Action Plan, including activities around open research reward and recognition"

cc.sheffield.ac.uk/rpi/research...

Open Research, University of Sheffield @openresshef.bsky.social · 20d

🔊 Vacancy: Open Research Manager, University of Sheffield Library (full-time, open-ended). The role will involve supporting projects across Sheffield and nationally with the @ukrepro.bsky.social to accelerate open research practices. Closing date 22 October: jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk/job/Open-Res...

Open Research Manager

jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk

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Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 20d

This is one of my favourite graphs about science

Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · 20d

Randomized controlled trials are a key tool to study cause and effect. Why do they matter and how do they work?

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Geoff Belknap @curatorgeoff.bsky.social · 21d

Job Klaxon!

Science Museum is looking for a Curator of Chemistry.

Job Details
Salary - £41,177.63
Full Time
London
Deadline - 29/09/2025
ce0111li.webitrent.com/ce0111li_web...

Powered by MHR

ce0111li.webitrent.com

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 23d

Yet again, machine learning — even gussied up via the transformer architecture — encodes and reinforces societal biases.

This study reveals that LLM-based peer review relies heavily on author institution in its decisions.

arxiv.org/abs/2509.15122

Prestige over merit: An adapted audit of LLM bias in peer review

Large language models (LLMs) are playing an increasingly integral, though largely informal, role in scholarly peer review. Yet it remains unclear whether LLMs reproduce the biases observed in human de...

arxiv.org

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Philipp Klein @jpkhl.bsky.social · 24d

Quite possibly one of the best presentations on how to conduct research. It is by Peter WG Tennant from the University of Leeds, UK and focusses on modern causal inference methods.

More on it here: youtube.com/playlist?lis...

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Mo Moulton @momoulton.bsky.social · Sep 15

Some big news: the University of Birmingham is launching a new MA in Gender & Sexuality. It's interdisciplinary, with a focus on combining theory & practice. It's going to be amazing. I'm convening it: message or email with questions. www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/postgr... @unibirmingham.bsky.social

Gender and Sexuality MA - University of Birmingham

Course information for prospective postgraduate students on our MA History taught masters degree programme at the University of Birmingham.

www.birmingham.ac.uk

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Jan R. Boehnke @jrboehnke.bsky.social · Sep 11

New #RegisteredReport out:
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

Trial led by colleagues from @manchester.ac.uk evaluated the impact of a universal, school-based social-emotional learning intervention on internalizing symptoms and psychosocial outcomes

#MentalHealth #Schools
@neilhumphrey.bsky.social

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · Sep 6

Academic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:

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