Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Barbara Thiers @barbarathiers.bsky.social · Jul 1

The Biodiversity Collections Task Force is a nascent effort to help collections through anticipated difficult times in the near future.

We are planning a webinar series, beginning in September 2025.

Let us know which topics would be most useful to you:
lnkd.in/gQmyMKmN

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Reposted by Barbara Thiers

Debbie Ridpath Ohi @debbieohi.com · Mar 25

To Canadians travelling to the U.S. for longer trips: Anyone visiting U.S. for periods > 30 days must now register with the U.S. government. “Failure to comply with the registration requirement could result in penalties, fines, and misdemeanor prosecution.”
travel.gc.ca/destinations...

Travel advice and advisories for United States (USA)

Travel Advice and Advisories from the Government of Canada

travel.gc.ca

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Barbara Thiers @barbarathiers.bsky.social · Mar 1

please don’t just sit there looking annoyed

Reposted by Barbara Thiers

Rachel Jabaily @racheljabaily.bsky.social · Feb 28

What an incredible, ingenious American scientist! I'm so glad I read this story for #BlackHistoryMonth

Dr. Jessica L Ware @jessicalwarelab.bsky.social · Feb 28

Dr. Charles Henry Turner was from Ohio; he earned a BSc and MSc from the University of Cincinnati. He was the first African American to earn a PhD in #entomology, which was at the University of Chicago in 1907.

#28DaysOfBlackSTEMHistory
#BlackHistoryMonth

www.smithsonianmag.com/science-natu...

This Pioneering Black Zoologist's Insights Were a Century Ahead of Their Time

Charles Henry Turner conducted trailblazing research on the cognitive traits of bees, spiders and more

www.smithsonianmag.com

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Ana Bedoya @botana-bedoya.bsky.social · Feb 26

Come work with us! The New York Botanical Garden is hiring a Curator at the Assist. or Associate level. Profile: a productive and FUN Mycologist or Cryptogamic Botanist. Happy to talk to candidates about how wonderful one of the best botanical research centers is, easy.
www.nybg.org/about/work-w...

Employment | New York Botanical Garden

Find out what employment opportunities are available at The New York Botanical Garden.

www.nybg.org

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Andrew Hipp @andrewlhipp.bsky.social · Feb 26

Good to see an #herbarium study from @newphyt.bsky.social featured on NPR, with an assessment of what we stand to lose when herbaria are closed.

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

www.kcur.org/news/2025-02...

Includes quotes from @barbarathiers.bsky.social, Jordan Teischer, Lynn Clark.

Plant libraries hold essential clues about climate change, but they're vulnerable to funding cuts

Scientists say amid climate change and biodiversity loss, the world’s herbaria could hold the keys to overcoming the crises in their folders of dried plant specimens. But their future is in question a...

www.kcur.org

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Caitlin S., PhD @paleophile.bsky.social · Feb 19

The Democrats on the House Science Committee have set up a website to collect stories from fired federal employees, anonymously if desired. Please amplify. (This helps the lawyers establish standing for bringing legal cases against the administration!)

democrats-science.house.gov/sciencefirings

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Stuart McDaniel @stuartmcdaniel.bsky.social · Feb 14

A moss petting zoo? How cool!

www.npr.org/2025/02/14/n...

Moss doesn't get a lot of love. Moss Appreciation Week in Oregon aims to change that

Students at Lewis & Clark College are trying to bring more attention to one of the world's smaller and more humble plants with this year's seventh annual Moss Appreciation Week.

www.npr.org

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Reposted by Barbara Thiers

Dr. Jessica L Ware @jessicalwarelab.bsky.social · Feb 11

Dr. Marie Clark Taylor was the first Black woman to earn a PhD in #botany, studying the impact of photoperiod on plant development.

www.plantcellatlas.org/bipoc-scient...

#28DaysOfBlackSTEMHistory
#BlackHistoryMonth

BIPOC Scientists

Marie Clark Taylor was born in Pennsylvania on February 16 th , 1911, when the world was still highly segregated. Yet, she would go on to become one of the United States’ most successful educators...

www.plantcellatlas.org

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Barbara Thiers @barbarathiers.bsky.social · Feb 10

Actually, two herbaria maintained at Naturalist in the Netherlands are older— the Rauwolf herbarium and the herbarium known as ‘En Tibi’. both from the 1500s.

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Dan Kaszeta FRHistS @dankaszeta.bsky.social · Feb 6

The Papua New Guinea Courier is in rare form.

Screenshot from "Letter from our correspondent" in "Papua New Guinea Courier"

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Brian J. Enquist @bjenquist.bsky.social · Feb 6

Western North American Naturalist Grant Supporting Natural History Research "grants of up to $2,500 each to fund their natural history research. Our intent is to help authors who may not have adequate funding to complete their work." scholarsarchive.byu.edu/wnan/grant_i...

Grants for Individual Researchers | Western North American Naturalist | Western North American Naturalist Publications | Brigham Young University

scholarsarchive.byu.edu

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Darby Saxbe @darbysaxbe.bsky.social · Feb 4

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · Feb 3

Well the award for most cowardly, boot-lickingest academic society has squarely gone to the American Society of Microbiology, who has taken down features of various non-white scientists. Absolutely pathetic behavior. Those articles are now coming up as “under review”. Truly sickening cowardice here.

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Dr Emma Hodcroft @firefoxx66.bsky.social · Feb 1

It's all gone. They've taken down all the CDC datasets from data.cdc.gov

Data that's critical for public health & research. Data paid for by citizens. That the government now censors.

"Do not fear those who tell the truth. Fear those who try to hide it. They are willing to sacrifice other things."

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Dr. Hilary Rose Dawson @hilaryrosed.bsky.social · Feb 1

If you need some positive science in your feed, check out @nerdychristie.bsky.social’s piece about how we can use #conservation dogs to find fungal diversity, inspired by the first #truffle paper my sister and I co-authored.

www.science.org/content/arti...

🧪🌎 #mycology @ecol-evol.bsky.social

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Tom Kimmerer, PhD @tomkimmerer.bsky.social · Feb 2

I have proudly been a scientist my whole life. We are now watching the deliberate destruction of American science at the hands of the corrupt regime. Data is disappearing, young scientists are not getting paid, free speech is crushed. We can fix this, but we don't have much time to undo the harm. 🧪🌏

A diverse group of five scientists in a lab in Borneo, Indonesia. Copyright Tom Kimmerer

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Barbara Thiers @barbarathiers.bsky.social · Feb 2

Some at NYBG used those crimped metal ventilators- I think mostly those working in the tropics. I can see how they wold promote quicker drying especially over a head source— but I don’t know if there is a downside (maybe sourcing/cost)

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Mike Dickison @adzebill.bsky.social · Feb 1

The Internet Archive has to date downloaded 500 terabytes of US government websites, which it crawls at the end of every presidential term. The whole archive is fully searchable. This effort's housed by a donation-funded nonprofit, not a branch of the US government. blog.archive.org/2024/05/08/e...

End of Term Web Archive – Preserving the Transition of a Nation | Internet Archive Blogs

blog.archive.org

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Jason Koebler @jasonkoebler.bsky.social · Jan 29

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a declassified World War II-era CIA guide to sabotaging fascism in the workplace has become one of the most popular free ebooks on the internet:

www.404media.co/declassified...

Declassified CIA Guide to Sabotaging Fascism Is Suddenly Viral

The World War II-era "Simple Sabotage Field Manual" is full of steps that office workers can take to resist leadership.

www.404media.co

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Barbara Thiers @barbarathiers.bsky.social · Jan 29

Hugs to friends and colleagues who care for federal collections, preserved and living. Not just their own livelihoods, they have the worry that our cultural and scientific heritage could be lost or imperiled, upending of previous generations

images.app.goo.gl
bs56VbRrVG2EGn3C9

images.app.goo.gl

Reposted by Barbara Thiers

Morgan Kelly @invertevoeco.bsky.social · Jan 28

One of the stories I will tell:

I have maintained these experimental lines of live animals continuously for 10 years.

They help us to understand the impacts of climate change in the ocean.

They cannot survive for 90 days without care.

A pause doesn't mean losing 90 days.

It means 10 years.

a clear container containing seawater and marine plankton

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Ayana Elizabeth Johnson @ayanaeliza.bsky.social · Jan 24

As expected, the Trump team is already deleting climate info from government websites. In anticipation, our team at Urban Ocean Lab created a permanent archive of 100+ key resources and published a permanent archive: www.urbanoceanlab.org/resource-hub 👩🏽‍💻

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Dr Fevziye Hasan @fevziye.bsky.social · Jan 21

Increasing Disconnection of Primary Biodiversity Data from Specimens: How Does It Happen and How to Handle It? academic.oup.com/sysbio/artic...

The Increasing Disconnection of Primary Biodiversity Data from Specimens: How Does It Happen and How to Handle It?

Abstract. Primary biodiversity data represent the fundamental elements of any study in systematics and evolution. They are, however, no longer gathered as

academic.oup.com

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Reposted by Barbara Thiers

Christopher Webb @cwebbonline.com · Jan 21

I love this so much!

At the inauguration, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wore a distinctive collar adorned with cowrie shells, which are believed to offer protection from evil in African traditions.

This choice mirrors the late Justice Ginsburg’s practice of using collars to convey a message.

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