Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by 🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛

they/them might be giants ☭ @babadookspinoza.bsky.social · 1d

“Israeli” ceasefires only ever apply to the other party. They’ll continue to kill whomever they want, whenever they want until they are stopped. They see themselves as occupying an altogether different moral plane than their enemies, like any colonizer.

Tweet from Quds News Network @QudsNen
BREAKING: Three Palestinians were killed after Israeli quadcopter drones opened fire on residents inspecting their homes in the Shujaiyya neighborhood, east of Gaza City.

8 1.1K 2.8K

Reposted by 🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛

Kathleen Bachynski @bachynski.bsky.social · 1d

Reshma Ramachandran “said the sequence of events is the antithesis of how the FDA is supposed to function.

“What we’re seeing here is, ‘We believe this and we’re going to find the evidence to support that’ …That’s just inherently wrong in terms of how a scientific agency like the FDA operates.”

Inside FDA, career staffers describe how political pressure is influencing their work

Current and former FDA staff said the level of involvement of political officials in nitty-gritty regulatory matters is unprecedented.

www.statnews.com

1 85 180

Reposted by 🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 1d

new blog post on the ai bubble, why it won’t do what its backers need it to do, and why I think they keep getting duped that it will

open.substack.com/pub/primafac...

the not so infinite typewriter

we left the typing monkeys alone and they're planting bombs under wall street

open.substack.com

1 2

Reposted by 🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛

Robert Kelchen @robertkelchen.com · 1d

After getting zero firm commitments to this point from the first nine invitees, the Trump administration is extending its proposed compact to all colleges. Expect some red-state publics to say yes.

Trump Offers All Colleges Preferential Funding Plan Rejected by MIT

The Trump administration is inviting all US colleges to participate in a compact — initially rejected by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — that would grant preferential federal funding in re...

www.bloomberg.com

27 170 400

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 1d

new blog post on the ai bubble, why it won’t do what its backers need it to do, and why I think they keep getting duped that it will

open.substack.com/pub/primafac...

the not so infinite typewriter

we left the typing monkeys alone and they're planting bombs under wall street

open.substack.com

1 2

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 2d

In 1 yr I'll graduate from my MD/PhD program. In choosing how to continue my training, where, and in what field I have to divine how likely it is for this country to remain a safe, stable place with a viable scientific ecosystem and whether or not the specialty I choose can be practiced elsewhere

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 2d

"due to recent actions, >4/5 early-career scientists are considering leaving academia or the US. When I directly pressed Bhattacharya...he said that if researchers did not like the way things are in the US, they were welcome to go elsewhere...

www.the-scientist.com/nih-leadersh... (1/2)

NIH Leadership Is Failing Early Career Researchers

Halted training programs, funding chaos, and hiring freezes jeopardize advancement options for early career researchers.

www.the-scientist.com

1

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 2d

...More than two months later, we have had no follow-up and seen no evidence that Bhattacharya intends to take action."

1

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 2d

"due to recent actions, >4/5 early-career scientists are considering leaving academia or the US. When I directly pressed Bhattacharya...he said that if researchers did not like the way things are in the US, they were welcome to go elsewhere...

www.the-scientist.com/nih-leadersh... (1/2)

NIH Leadership Is Failing Early Career Researchers

Halted training programs, funding chaos, and hiring freezes jeopardize advancement options for early career researchers.

www.the-scientist.com

2 1

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 2d

If Thiel wasn’t named I’d be like oh JBP is writing an antichrist book

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 2d

I’m not even slightly kidding when I say: Jordan B Peterson is 100% of the reason he’s like this

Sharon @sharonk.bsky.social · 3d

thiel, man, what the fuck are you talking about

He describes the plot of Watchmen, a 1986 graphic novel involving superheroes grappling with moral questions about humanity against the backdrop of impending nuclear war:

The antihero Ozymandias, the antichrist-type figure, is sort of an early-modern person. He believes this will be a timeless and eternal solution – eternal world peace. Moore is sort of a late-modern. In early modernity, you have ideal solutions, ‘perfect’ solutions to calculus. In late modernity, things are sort of probabilistic. And at some point, he asks Dr Manhattan whether the world government is going to last. And he says that ‘nothing lasts forever.’ So you embrace the antichrist and it still doesn’t work.

Thiel later finds biblical meaning in the manga One Piece, discussing how he believes it represents a future where an antichrist-like one-world government has repressed science. He believes that the hero, Monkey D Luffy, represents a Christlike figure.

In One Piece, you are set in a fantasy world, again sort of an alternate earth, but it’s 800 years into the reign of this one-world state. Which, as the story unfolds, gradually gets darker and darker. You sort of realize, in my interpretation, who runs the world and it’s something like the antichrist. There’s Luffy, a pirate who wears a red straw hat, sort of like Christ’s crown of thorns. And then towards the end of the story, transforms into a figure who resembles Christ in Revelation.

Thiel, along with a researcher and writer at Thiel Capital, explored these ideas at greater length in an essay for the religious journal First Things earlier this month.

1 1

Reposted by 🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛

southpaw @nycsouthpaw.bsky.social · 2d

The deportation order is based on Vedam’s conviction for murder—a crime he did not actually commit and for which he’s now been wholly exonerated. He entered the US at 9 months old and was a legal permanent resident before his conviction. We are so, so, so far from the light of justice.

Lynn Becker @cmgiulini.bsky.social · 3d

After spending 43 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit, evidence hidden by the prosecution reversed his conviction. Rather than finally enjoying freedom, ICE abducted him for deportation

Depraved.

www.miamiherald.com/news/local/i...

He was wrongfully imprisoned for 43 years. Moments after being released, ICE took him

Subramanyam “Subu” Vedam now faces deportation.

www.miamiherald.com

65 1.7K 4.8K

Reposted by 🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛

Iris van Rooij 💭 @irisvanrooij.bsky.social · 4d

“Deloitte “misused AI and used it very inappropriately: misquoted a judge, used references that are non-existent,” Pocock told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “I mean, the kinds of things that a first-year university student would be in deep trouble for.””

👀

fortune.com/2025/10/07/d...

Deloitte was caught using AI in $290,000 report to help the Australian government crack down on welfare after a researcher flagged hallucinations | Fortune

The updates “in no way impact” the report’s findings and recommendations, the Big Four firm said.

fortune.com

6 60 140

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 3d

When the MMWR lapsed its weekly report for the first time in half a century in January it was the canary in the coal mine that Trump 2 would be significantly more hostile to public health. Now the MMWR is effectively defunct.

www.statnews.com/2025/10/11/c...

Deep cuts made to CDC's flagship MMWR publication, a cornerstone of public health

CDC staff behind the agency’s flagship publication have been fired amid drastic cuts to the HHS promised by the White House due to the government shutdown, according to five people familiar with the s...

www.statnews.com

1 1

Reposted by 🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛

Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · 3d

Per CDC source: At internal leadership meeting this afternoon, it was shared that 1,257 people were RIF'd at CDC. Number may not be final. Apparently, chief of staff was unaware that RIFs were going to occur so not clear who is making decisions. (Short 🧵)

92 1.6K 3.5K

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 3d

Post pandemic has taught us that it’s a terrible idea for everyone to be Online. Only a few Elect souls are strong enough to be Online and remain mostly intact.

www.statesman.com/entertainmen...

Skrilla's brain rot rap sucked at ACL Festival. Is society doomed?

What Skrilla’s ACL Fest set revealed about Gen Alpha, meme culture, and how online fame crumbles under festival lights.

www.statesman.com

Reposted by 🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛

LongTime🤓FirstTime👨‍💻 @longtimehistory.bsky.social · 3d

ICE secretly kidnap autistic boy during bathroom break—never notify parents.

Mother reported him missing a week ago—turns out ICE had him detained the whole time.

He was helping sell fruit and asked to go to the restroom—by the time she was done helping a customer he was gone.

Houston, Texas

220 2.4K 4.1K

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 3d

Tell the universe to hurry it up

Reposted by 🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛

Sophie Sherry @sophiesherry.bsky.social · 4d

During a military-style raid on a building in Chicago’s South Shore, one resident heard a knock on his door.   It wasn’t the feds — it was a mom and her 7-year-old daughter, pleading for help.

He let them hide in his unit for the next 3 days.

chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/...

Neighbor shielded 7-year-old during South Shore federal raid: ‘I didn’t want them to take her’

During the Sept. 30 raid one tenant protected a terrified girl and her mom. Remnants at the complex, including a detailed map of all the units, offer clues to what authorities may have known before th...

chicago.suntimes.com

190 2.4K 7.5K

Reposted by 🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛

Jay D. Aronson @jaydaronson.bsky.social · 4d

MIT rejects "the Compact"
orgchart.mit.edu/letters/rega...

Regarding the Compact | MIT Organization Chart

orgchart.mit.edu

4 31 130

Reposted by 🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 5d

he does not regret to inform you and neither do I

Willamette Week @wweek.com · 5d

Jack Dickinson, 26, says “we’re winning this.”

An Interview With the Portland Chicken

Rachel Saslow

www.wweek.com

14 210 1.3K

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 5d

American Catholicism has always been a unique strain in the Universal Church but now here we have an American Pope saying things that it’s far right government, headed in significant part by adult Catholic converts, would brand him as a domestic terrorist for saying

Lucius Fox In The Box @carnegro.bsky.social · 6d

Pope Leo is spitting.

www.npr.org/2025/10/09/n...

Leo questioned a world where the wealth of the elite grows
"exponentially" while many "millions of people die of hunger or survive in conditions unfit for human beings." He also criticized "ideologies that defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation,"
with false promises "that a free-market economy will automatically solve the problem of poverty."

Leo described a "new tyranny," which shuns any kind of oversight and where the economy is structured "in such a way that sacrifices are demanded of the masses in order to serve the needs of the powerful." The poor, he wrote, are only allowed "drops that trickle down."

The pope openly challenged "prosperity theology" and called Christians to the practice of giving charity. "It will not solve the problem of world poverty, yet it must still be carried out, with intelligence, diligence and social responsibility," he wrote.

Popular movements that challenge "the empire of money," invite people to take on the cause to combat poverty alongside the poor, instead of on their behalf, and "make history," the pope said. It our duty, Leo said, to "make their voices heard, albeit in different ways, in order to point out and denounce such structural issues, even at the cost of appearing foolish or naïve."

1

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 5d

Of course, these people don’t care. They are banking on finally being able to shred the social contract between capital and labor once and for all.

open.substack.com/pub/primafac...

the rulers cash out

the tides may turn, but will it matter?

open.substack.com

1

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 5d

In addition to this being deranged, I have a tough time believing Andreessen actually thinks this as he must be aware the majority of consumer spending comes from the top 10% wealthiest individuals. Maximizing profit means producing consumer goods for the wealthiest primarily

1 1

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 5d

the most absurd thing about the “we just arrested the antifa founder’s gf” thing is that in that same meeting the leaders of the free world were nodding along to Jack Posobiec saying antifa was founded 100 years ago in Weimar Germany, so they must have arrested a 120 year old who fought the Nazis

3

🪾santiago, phd 🐈‍⬛ @santiagokique.bsky.social · 5d

theonion.com/gop-maintain...

3 18