Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Jen Grogan 🐙📖📚 @eightarmsedits.bsky.social · 56m

It’s a bit “rustic”—I was short on cream cheese—but it’s a carrot cake with lots of spices and chopped candied orange on top. I’m pretty pleased.

Cake with white frosting covered in bits of candied orange sits on a sky blue plate on a black stovetop.

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Ian Rennie @theangelremiel.bsky.social · 3h

Look for the helpers. If you see them, help them. If you don't see them, you're the helpers.

Jacqueline Antonovich @jackiantonovich.bsky.social · 3h

As a historian, I can certify that we are in the bad times. But bad times eventually end.
In the meantime:
• Figure out a small way to help someone
• Figure out a small way to fight back
• Figure out a small place to find joy
• Figure out a small way to grow and thrive

And do it often.

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Jen Grogan 🐙📖📚 @eightarmsedits.bsky.social · 3h

I sometimes use blue hearts for octopus stuff, because octopuses have blue blood.

Hopefully there’s no other meaning to that…

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Jen Grogan 🐙📖📚 @eightarmsedits.bsky.social · 3h

I’m making a carrot cake for my birthday, and I may possibly have forgotten my intention to halve the recipe and just do one layer after last time (my dad’s birthday).

Oh no. More cake. 😆

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Cecilia Tan @ceciliatan.com · 3h

oooh. Bookmarking this! "How to turn off AI tools in Apple, Google, Microsoft, and more." Step-by-step instructions from Consumer Reports.

How to Turn Off AI Tools Like Gemini, Apple Intelligence, Copilot, and More via @ConsumerReports

AI features are crowding into Google search, Gmail, iPhones, Windows laptops, and other products. If you're suffering from AI overload, these settings can help.

www.consumerreports.org

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Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 4h

The Alaska Native village of Kipnuk was due to receive a $20M grant from the EPA that they were going to use for flood protection.

It was labelled “wasteful DEI spending” and canceled.

The recent storm destroyed homes & flooded Kipnuk: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/c...

Before Alaska Flooding, E.P.A. Canceled $20 Million Flood Protection Grant

www.nytimes.com

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Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · 19h

Three panel cartoon by Wawa wiwa comics

An octopus, a shark and a jellyfish are talking to each other

Octopus: I once saw a human and peed myself

Shark: a human saw and peed himself

Jellyfish: a human touched me once and his friend peed on him

Octopus: dude…

Shark: what?

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Luke Steuber @lukesteuber.com · 8h

No notes

Robin Williams' daughter, Zelda Williams, also recently slammed people who are making Al-generated videos of her late father, calling the clips "gross." She added, "To watch the legacies of real people be condensed down to 'this vaguely looks and sounds like them so that's enough, just so other people can churn out horrible TikTok slop pup-peteering them is maddening. You're not making art, you're making disgusting, over-processed hotdogs out of the lives of human beings, out of the history of art and music, and then shoving them down someone else's throat hoping they'll give you a little thumbs up and like it."

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Jen Grogan 🐙📖📚 @eightarmsedits.bsky.social · 7h

That is one seriously contented and happy-looking cat. ♥️

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Mary Hrovat @maryhrovat.bsky.social · 1d

The two trunks of this tree remind me of dancers.

A tree with two trunks, seen from the side in a woods full of trees with green and yellow leaves.

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The New York Times @nytimes.com · 1d

Months before catastrophic floods swept through an Alaska Native village on Sunday, the Trump administration canceled a $20 million grant meant to protect the community from extreme flooding. At the time, the EPA administrator said he was eliminating "wasteful DEI and Environmental Justice grants."

E.P.A. Canceled $20 Million Flood Protection Grant to Alaska, Parts of Which Just Flooded

The remote village of Kipnuk planned to use the money to protect against flooding. On Sunday, it was inundated.

nyti.ms

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Northwest Editors Guild @edsguild.bsky.social · 23h

We've got a new regular group for you to check out! Our Book Coaching Virtual Group debuts on 10/22 as a place to chat with fellow editors about book coaching!

*Note: This meeting is not for authors!

Free to attend, open to all editors, registration required at www.edsguild.org/meetings-eve...

Giant Pencil wearing tropical shirt and glasses. Text: @EdsGuild Virtual Event. Book Coaching Group.

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CNN @cnn.com · 1d

The forecast for the powerful and deadly storm that battered small communities in western Alaska over the weekend was likely made worse by a lack of weather data triggered by the Trump administration’s cuts.

Lack of weather data due to Trump’s budget cuts impacted forecast for deadly Alaska storm | CNN

The forecast for the powerful and deadly storm that battered small communities in western Alaska over the weekend was likely made worse by a lack of weather data triggered by the Trump administration’...

www.cnn.com

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Marie Brennan @swantower.bsky.social · 1d

<totters out onto porch>

<settles into rocker>

<thumps cane a few times>

Let's talk about what the process of submitting short fiction used to look like, shall we? And about what it looks like now.

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Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪 @diygeochemist.bsky.social · 1d

This country needs more people employed at places like JPL, not fewer.

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Dr. Robin Bond, biogeochemist at a PUI 🧪 @diygeochemist.bsky.social · 1d

Awwww shit.

JPL was a big part of my life when I was young. (My ex used to work there. Long enough ago that many of his former coworkers are probably retired now, but still.)

It was a place of hope and excitement then, and everything I've seen since then said it still was.

Paul Byrne @theplanetaryguy.bsky.social · 1d

Layoff notices at JPL are going out today.

About 11% of the Lab, or 550 people, are being let go.

I'm thinking of my friends and colleagues there, some of whom will still be employed after today and some of whom won't.

I'm sorry you're having to deal with this.

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Jen Grogan 🐙📖📚 @eightarmsedits.bsky.social · 1d

Hooray! Look forward to seeing you there!

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Matinee Mode @matineemode.bsky.social · 1d

Take a few minutes to appreciate Drew Struzan creating the original artwork for THE PHANTOM MENACE. Truly a master at work.

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Jen Grogan 🐙📖📚 @eightarmsedits.bsky.social · 1d

I have this great yarn, I wound it during a meeting this morning, and now I'm all ready to knit...

But I can't find the Right Pattern. 😭

It's fingering wt highland wool in turquoise with black spun in, and I have 870 yds. I want to make either a tee or a shawl, I think, but can't decide which.

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Bo Thompson @gaudipern.bsky.social · 1d

The use of AI to marionette a woman whose tortured existence was spent trying to carve her own life and identity out of the space men forced her into is both damningly macabre and a surprisingly perfect encapsulation of the problems with this ghoulish use of technology.

Scientific American @sciam.bsky.social · 2d

Despite early, and familiar, copyright growing pains, Sora may be the prelude to AI-generated on-demand TV and movies

Want to See Marilyn Monroe in Game of Thrones? AI Could Make It Soon

Despite early, and familiar, copyright growing pains, Sora may be the prelude to AI-generated on-demand TV and movies

www.scientificamerican.com

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Cats of Yore @catsofyore.bsky.social · 1d

At one time in my life I wouldn't donate to fundraisers if I only had a little to give. It seemed too small to make a difference so why bother? Now I know that goals get achieved when LOTS of people give those small amounts! Let's smash this hay drive one $8 bale at a time. 🍂

Merrymac Farm Sanctuary @merrymacsanctuary.bsky.social · 1d

Truly, every bale matters and you can give one today for only $8! donorbox.org/mmfs-2025-ha...

2025 Hay Drive | Merrymac Farm Sanctuary (Powered by Donorbox)

Hay, grain and supplements are the #1 expense at MMFS. It's part of the foundation of the farm's daily activities. As you may imagine, we go through a LOT of it, and it's not cheap - costing $8 per ba...

donorbox.org

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Dr. Tom Frieden @drtomfrieden.bsky.social · 1d

CDC is not a Democratic or Republican agency. It's an American agency. One in three employees have been lost in recent months. This is dismantling of our health protections, not reform.

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citrus sapling 🍋 mcm lnd 2p7 @citrussapling.bsky.social · 1d

I spy... With my 30-40cm diameter eye #art #watercolour #sciart

A watercolour painting of a colossal squid, with eyelashes on it's large eye. The text around it reads "I spy with my COLOSSAL eye".

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Gabby HC, but a ghost, hiding in a corner @scriblit.bsky.social · 1d

Sometimes there'll be a joke written by someone who's been dead for tens, hundreds of years & i'll stop and think about another human reaching through time to make another human laugh, long after they're gone, and it's so beautiful it makes me well up.

John Wiswell @wiswell.bsky.social · 1d

Tell me your most life-affirming literary opinion.

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Yell In a War @jelenawoehr.bsky.social · 1d

I know the temptation is to just scroll past this with a “not surprised” reaction, but you should read this if you have the emotional bandwidth to encounter horrifying slurs and violent sentiments, because there’s an important takeaway: extremism is often performed to reinforce an in-group’s bond.

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

POLITICO: “.. They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies .. and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.

@politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/10...

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