Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · 15m

Looking more normal than a month ago (panel size about 30,000 ATM)

Reposted by David Hood

50 Jenna Ipcar Fans Can’t Be Wrong! @ipcar.bsky.social · Nov 26

At the bank I was told "pick your four digit pincode but it can't be a year." "Aren't they all years?" I asked. We sat in silence for a bit.

7 62 260

Reposted by David Hood

Eric Reinhart @eric-reinhart.com · 7h

New article out this month on how doctors become fascists.

50% of German physicians joined the Nazi Party––twice the proportion of any other profession. US doctors today are arguably the most conservative in the world, and we're heading along a similar path.
drive.google.com/file/d/1CAk9...

9 110 250

Reposted by David Hood

Cassie @cassiemph.bsky.social · 2h

This text book situation is an extreme example (and a particularly horrific one) but we already see future doctors struggle with learning the critical thinking that is a staple of the humanities. Much of AI use deprives people of that meta cognition so essential to higher learning.

Claire Zagorski, MSc, EMT-P @clairezagorski.bsky.social · 1d

A student on TikTok has been documenting her journey with a professor who “wrote” the anatomy textbook and it’s all a bunch of AI hallucinations.

She’s saying that, understandably, the students are doing super poorly!

Behold what we’re teaching the healthcare professionals of tomorrow:

A diagram of the bones and (some) deep muscles of the hand and forearm. AI says that we only have four digits. It’s also identified a tendon as the median nerve, another tendon as the ulnar nerve, among other issues.

An AI generated diagram of the muscles of the neck. It hallucinated the “ennocleidomasid” muscle, and the “anterior scalpalin muscle”.

An AI generated diagram of the muscles of the lateral thigh. It says that the gluteus Maximus (the big juicy butt muscle) is on the anterior side. It also points to the quadriceps muscle and says “attattment”. It also says that the same structure is the tibia AND the deep fascia of the leg.

An AI generated diagram of the bones of the hand and forearm. This time AI says we have 6 digits. It also says that the radius is the ulnar artery. Among other many issues.

3 6

Reposted by David Hood

Jack Ashby @jackdashby.bsky.social · 1d

As I argue in #PlatypusMatters, Australia has the world's best mammals, but is sadly the worst place on Earth to be a mammal, with the planet's worst #extinction rate.
The Christmas Island shrew is now the latest species to be officially declared extinct.
www.theguardian.com/environment/...

And then there were none: Australia’s only shrew declared extinct

The tally of Australian mammals extinct since 1788 is now 39 species – far more than for any other country

www.theguardian.com

3 48 97

Reposted by David Hood

Dmitry Grozoubinski @explaintrade.com · 11h

This is an exact encapsulation of why I moved to Bluesky.

No amount of handwringing in the Atlantic about how I owe some eternal Promethean suffering to the discourse is going to make me stay on a site I hate, that stopped doing anything for me professionally years ago.

Well – no. Bluesky may or may not be, as one centre-right friend who felt unwelcome put it, “self-righteous island”. But the idea that’s why we went is nonsense. That I’ve largely stopped posting on a site that’s done more to shape my career and social circle than the rest of the internet combined is less about avoiding rival opinions (I love arguing with people who are wrong!) than with the fact the site simply became unusable. It stopped generating the things (good jokes, interesting debate, clicks) I wanted; it became extremely good at generating the things (racists, pornbots, racist pornbots) I did not.

100 560 2.6K

Reposted by David Hood

Enzo Giordani @enzogiordani.bsky.social · 14h

It’s been brought to my attention that it’s World Migratory Bird Day. I can think of no better excuse to share four of my best pictures of the undisputed king of migratory birds - the kuaka (bar-tailed godwit), which boasts the longest non-stop migration on the planet. Alaska-Aotearoa. 🪶🇳🇿

6 27 130

Reposted by David Hood

Grant Jacobs BioinfoTools/NotJustDNA 🔬🧬🖥️✍️📚 @notjustdna.bsky.social · 14h

Insects take up new locations when climates change. They take the diseases they carry with them, in this case dengue ⬇️

Gavi @gavi.org · 6d

Dengue-carrying mosquitoes have been detected in the UK. Here’s what you need to know, and why scientists are keeping a close eye. 👇🧵

14 37

Reposted by David Hood

Ed @actuallyedwin.bsky.social · 17h

On this day...

"1917 – First World War: New Zealand troops suffered more than 2,000 casualties, including more than 800 deaths, in the First Battle of Passchendaele, making it the nation's largest loss of life in one day."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_B...

First Battle of Passchendaele - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

2 4 32

Reposted by David Hood

Terry Baucher @trabaq.bsky.social · 17h

In related news I am presently transcribing a podcast episode covering the OECD's report "Tax Policy Reforms 2025". And guess what Denmark did? Introduce a carbon tax on agriculture aimed at reducing CO2 emissions from agriculture & forestry by 30% by 2030.

1 5 22

David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · 17h

If you follow two people, and they are directly replying to each other, I think it is the current state of things that you see that post-reply connection in the following view.

1 1

Reposted by David Hood

Jennifer Nuzzo, DrPH, SM @jennifernuzzo.bsky.social · 19h

Some of these people have now been fired and rehired TWICE since January. The current state of dysfunction is mind boggling.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 21h

OOOPS! UPDATE: Two HHS officials tell me that disease detectives, measles response officers, global health officials and the MMWR staff were laid off by mistake and will be reinstated. But Washington office is still RIFed

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 1d

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

31 700 2.3K

David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · 19h

I have my own algorithm from 2002 (that was the date I wrote a working paper about it and put it on the then project website, and people picked it up and began implementing it)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caverph...

Caverphone - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

1 5

David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · 19h

I think my data science scripts in 1995 were applescripts connecting a data source in Excel or Filemaker to Adobe Illustrator for plotting maps. It was a few more years before I began processing data in python.

1 2

David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · 21h

Currently it looks like trade moving away from the US (so likely less US demand being matched by other markets) except some seafood industries maybe be in decline and not finding substitute markets. But I'll get the full notes out in a week or so.

2 3

David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · 21h

For the NZ Trade Data I am writing a guide for, This is my current standard commodity panel. 1st - monthly change in dollars (h/t @schiff.nz) which suggests if movements between US and non-US amounts are replacements, 2nd (I may yet drop) is US as % of non-US, & 3rd unit value- checks if oversupply

1 3 8

David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · 23h

Citations formatting has been highly automated for decades, but most teaching allocate marks for formatting but no teaching time for teaching the tools, and even less technical support for setup and operation. So there is a gap, which in an ideal world would be filled by teaching what is marked.

2 5

Reposted by David Hood

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 1d

Even if OpenAI claims it's reducing political partiality in LLM outputs to satisfy conservative agitators, since science is now so politicized that basic sociological concepts like structural privilege are coded "woke", etc etc, then these models must undermine fundamental educational values.

2 7 55

David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · 1d

I've strong concerns about online the social licence/trust/ transparency.
Personally, I would rather see synchronisation with general where you get the local a month out (basically as now) and you can drop them off anywhere with advanced voting or on the day. Noting election date (snap etc) issues.

1 5

Reposted by David Hood

Marcus Luther @marcusluther.bsky.social · 1d

Genuine question: for those enthusiastically pushing AI tools into every part of our education system—what checks/guardrails are there around algorithmic biases like this?

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 1d

The administration “is currently pressuring OpenAI and other AI companies to make their models more conservative-friendly.”

OpenAI is trying to clamp down on ‘bias’ in ChatGPT

GPT-5 is better at resisting liberal ‘pressure,’ the company says.

www.theverge.com

17 110 320

Reposted by David Hood

Annikakes @annikakes.bsky.social · 1d

What a start to the day!

1 1 14

Reposted by David Hood

Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 1d

Epidemiologists of Bluesky: do you know of any papers that developed statistical models to infer Covid (or something else) incidence or mortality at scale based on survey data about contacts (i.e., “has someone you know died?”)

2 12 14

Reposted by David Hood

Paul Campbell @moonbaseotago.bsky.social · 1d

I will note that in today's Ōtepoti mayoral election the antivaxxer was outvoted by the vampire by almost 2 to 1

2 13 68

David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · 1d

They are repeating a self-description. In general, I support media describing people the way they describe themselves without editorialising, because the main alternative is the RNZ/Alex situation.

1 3

David Hood @thoughtfulnz.bsky.social · 1d

That said, I expect that @thepress.co.nz will have the opportunity to bear witness to lots of local government news stories being generated out of Selwyn over the next few years.

1 3