Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Steven Beschloss @stevenbeschloss.bsky.social · 2h

For what? To create chaos and fear. To create conflict where there is none, then claim it’s necessary to crack down. Disgraceful thuggery.

StrictlyChristo 🇺🇦🌻❌👑 @strictlychristo.bsky.social · 16h

Two dozen masked ICE Federal Secret Police, who are kitted out like they are going to war, kidnap a local and brutalize the community.

Toward the end of the video, they throw a gas cannister that almost hits a baby. 😟

31 140 330

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Michael Ian Black @michaelianblack.bsky.social · 14h

Old enough to remember when scenes like this would have been unthinkable in America. (It was 9 months ago)

PritzkerPosting @pritzkerposting.bsky.social · 15h

Chicago: Zero Regard for Safety, ICE Escalation in Chicago Leaves Baby in Harm’s Way

53 420 1.6K

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Jessie Williamson @jlwilliamson.bsky.social · 21h

My lab is hiring a 2-yr hummingbird evolution and genomics postdoc and a 1-yr salaried research and lab tech. Both with full U. Wyoming benefits. Please spread the word! Info below. Best consideration date Nov 1, start dates early Spring 2026.

73 75

Reposted by Christopher Witt

John Fabian Witt @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social · 1d

Come join us this evening @nyhistory.bsky.social for a lost history of the 1920s -- and the paths that got us through eerily similar democratic crisis a century ago. With the great David Blight, 6:30 pm at 77th & CPW. @simonandschuster.bsky.social

2 5

Reposted by Christopher Witt

John Fabian Witt @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social · 1d

Pub day character! Charles Garland: Handsome heir to Wall Street fortune, critic of inheritance, and founder of utopian farming communes. His money incubated social movements during liberalism's lean years, even as his own life spiraled out of control. @SimonandSchuster.bsky.social #TheRadicalFund

5 10

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Jeff Groh @jeffgroh.bsky.social · 1d

Work led by Marius Roesti, "A species interaction kick-starts ecological speciation in allopatry" now published - Varying degrees of divergence associated with presence/absence of a single interacting species predicts strength of prezygotic RI in freshwater stickleback www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A species interaction kick-starts ecological speciation in allopatry | PNAS

Adaptation to different environments is thought to play a key role in speciation. However, speciation typically begins in allopatry, where reproduc...

www.pnas.org

4 10

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Jesse Mermell @jessemermell.bsky.social · 2d

He is 13. A 7th grader w/ a pending asylum case. Being held more than 500 miles from home & housed w/ adults. He called his mom crying, & reported that he’s sleeping on concrete w/ an aluminum blanket.

How is this anything other than sick & shameful? www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/12/m...

Everett 13-year-old arrested by ICE and sent to Virginia detention facility - The Boston Globe

The boy’s mother, Josiele Berto, was called to pick her son up from the Everett Police Department on Thursday, the day he was arrested.

www.bostonglobe.com

50 620 1K

Reposted by Christopher Witt

FUFA Tv @fufatv.bsky.social · 2d

Jacob Kiplimo became the first Ugandan to win a Marathon Major yesterday in the Chicago Marathon.

#FUFATvBreakfast | #HomeOfUgandanSport

1 1

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Andrew Hipp @andrewlhipp.bsky.social · 2d

A clear illustration of at least one reason why inferences from macroevolutionary (Ornstein-Uhlenbeck) adaptation models don't reliably predict microevolution.

Schluter D. 2024. Evolutionary Journal of the Linnean Society 3: kzae016.

doi.org/10.1093/evol...

Figure 3. A, a hypothetical adaptive landscape with multiple adaptive peaks (+) oriented along a corridor, some of which are occupied by species (grey ellipses). Contours represent population mean fitness as a function of population mean in two traits. The direction of maximum genetic variation within species (gmax) is indicated by an arrow. The heavy dashed line indicates the major direction of the corridor of adaptive peaks. I assume the hypothetical species occupying the landscape are broadly sympatric (otherwise adaptive peaks from different regions would need to be superimposed somehow). B, the OU stationary distribution or ‘surface’ estimated from the means of the five species in A superimposed on the same adaptive landscape. Species means are indicated by filled circles. Contours indicate probability density of the fitted bivariate Gaussian OU distribution. The grand mean is indicated by θ. The stationary distribution was estimated using the mvMORPH package (Clavel et al. 2015) in R 4.3.2 assuming a random phylogeny for the five species.

3 8

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Jordan S. Martin @jsmartin.bsky.social · 2d

New paper out now in Evolution, co-led with Dave Westneat!

Using long-term data on house sparrows, we find that quantity-quality tradeoffs near a local fitness ridge favor more or less canalized clutch size distributions in response to environmental variability.

academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

Measuring selection on reaction norms: Lack’s principle and plasticity in clutch size

We applied a novel multivariate analysis to measure linear and nonlinear selection on components of a complex reaction norm that was expected to be shaped

academic.oup.com

1 18 37

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 4d

This is insane. I feel like I’m going insane when I’m watching this. Not just the fact that it’s clearly their fault, but the way a heavily-armed squad of masked thugs immediately jumps into the street and brutalizes the woman they just hit, despite having no idea who she is.

Raider @iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social · 4d

ICE GOONS crash into car and then point weapons to kidnap man.

81 570 1.5K

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 4d

Federal employees at ANY agency, I’m curious to hear from you about RIFs and whatever else is happening these days, Signal is davelevitan.26 and you can remain anonymous.

Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 4d

NEW: Is it good if your boss asks you to let them know if you get fired?

My latest from inside NOAA, EPA, elsewhere. Please sign up and subscribe to the new very reasonable paid tiers.

Federal Employees Have Been Asked to Tell Their Bosses if They Get Fired

Multiple people at multiple agencies said their bosses have told them to email up the chain if they hear about RIFs, because, per one source, "they probably won't be told if people are fired."

www.gravityisgone.com

1 22 48

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Dave Levitan @davelevitan.bsky.social · 5d

EXTREMELY COOL BAT STUFF: A study out in Science today found that the greater noctule bat, Europe's largest, hunts and catches *migrating birds* while in flight. In at least one case, a bat climbed to more than 1200 feet, then chased a robin downward FAST until it caught it near the ground.

Greater noctule bats prey on and consume passerines in flight

Despite billions of passerines seasonally migrating during the night at high altitudes, only three bat species have been found to consistently tap into this rich prey resource. However, it remains unk...

www.science.org

8 65 190

Christopher Witt @msbbirds.bsky.social · 5d

Foster Hall! 🙌

1

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Eric Topol @erictopol.bsky.social · 5d

Why does the naked mole rat have the longest lifespan of any rodent, nearly 40 years?
A 30-year long mystery unraveled @ScienceMagazine today!
Its cGAS enzyme in cells has 4 missense mutations that upends its function, promoting DNA repair and suppressing inflammation
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

12 95 330

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Governor JB Pritzker @govpritzker.illinois.gov · 6d

If you come for my people, you come through me.

900 6.1K 26K

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Current Biology @currentbiology.bsky.social · 7d

Which journal would publish such a fragmented mess?
www.cell.com/current-biol...

5 17

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · 7d

UC-Berkeley physicist who just won the Nobel Prize tells it like it is: "It is going to be disastrous if this continues"

For "It" read -> science, economy, rule of law, and beyond.

www.yahoo.com/news/article...

Nobel physics laureate says Trump cuts will 'cripple' US research

It was just past 2:00 am when a mysterious number rang Nobel laureate John Clarke, what he deemed "obviously a joke call" that grew increasingly surreal when he heard "a voice from Sweden."- 'Basic sc...

www.yahoo.com

7 21

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Joe Manthey @jdmanthey.bsky.social · 7d

Our paper on the temporal genomics of Ethiopian birds
has been highlighted (and gotten the cover) in @genomebiolevol.bsky.social
Article: doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf163
Highlight: doi.org/10.1093/gbe/evaf175

w/ @bourgeoisyann.bsky.social, @lcampillo.bsky.social, and others not on bsky

Genome Biology and Evolution October 2025 cover image with a photo of an Ethiopian White-eye.

2 12 28

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Niels de Winter @nielsjdewinter.bsky.social · 8d

Such a sad story, but good that it can be told in full in museums now.
doi.org/10.1126/scie...

Fate of the last female great auk is finally solved

DNA and historical sleuthing have traced the extinct bird’s remains to a museum in Ohio

doi.org

4 20 61

Reposted by Christopher Witt

John Fabian Witt @johnfabianwitt.bsky.social · 9d

Political violence, post-pandemic one-party rule, vast economic inequality, and immigration backlash? The 2020s are the 1920s all over again--and that may show us a way out. Adapted from my book, to be published next week. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/o...

Opinion | How to Save the American Experiment

www.nytimes.com

10 54 170

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Alex Nelson @alxnelson.bsky.social · 10d

Roseate spoonbills will splash their wings through the water as part of their beauty routine. Here's one doing so mid-splash, facing straight ahead towards the camera. I really love this shot. #birds

31 150 870

Reposted by Christopher Witt

victoria zeller (buy ONE OF THE BOYS) @dirtbagqueer.rocks · 12d

thank you bills tiktok

5 35 160

Reposted by Christopher Witt

Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · 11d

Attn Black people, stop scrolling.

This is not a drill: Chicago

690 9K 18K

Christopher Witt @msbbirds.bsky.social · 11d

Do they do impressions though?

1 1