Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Adam Welz

Lyle Lewis @race2extinct.bsky.social · 1d

Iran faces “water bankruptcy”—wells collapsing, rivers dying, over 10,000 villages without drinking water. A preview of what happens when economies run on the illusion of an infinite planet.

time.com/7321571/iran...

Iran's Water Crisis Is Its Greatest Threat

The collapse of water security in Iran has been decades in the making and is rooted in a mania for mega projects.

time.com

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Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 15h

Well, it's official. After our paper last year (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....), the Slender-billed Curlew is officially declared Extinct today.

Scientists dream of describing new species, not writing their obituary and epitaph, knowing that they are gone forever #ornithology

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David Corn @davidcorn.bsky.social · 1d

That got dark quickly.

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 1d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Undark Magazine @undark.org · 1d

Journalist Mona Gable nearly died from malaria. Now, the U.S. has dismantled the CDC’s malaria division and USAID programs that saved millions. As climate change spreads the disease, are we dismantling our best defenses?

Weakening the World’s Ability to Fight Malaria

Opinion | The elimination of USAID and the CDC's malaria division will hinder progress against the deadly mosquito-borne disease.

undark.org

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paris martineau @paris.nyc · 1d

after the 10th radioactive shrimp recall in 7 weeks, i decided to do some digging

little did i know it would lead me to an underreported industrial accident that may have released an airborne plume of radioactive debris over swaths of indonesia
www.consumerreports.org/health/food-...

What Is Really Going on With All This Radioactive Shrimp? - Consumer Reports

Here’s the latest on how shrimp and spices got contaminated with cesium-137, how the FDA has responded, and why consumers should not panic.

www.consumerreports.org

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 1d

Nothing to worry about here, no sir.

Scoop: Dominion Voting sold to company run by ex-GOP election official

Dominion is one of the biggest election equipment providers and was used by 27 states during the 2024 election.

www.axios.com

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 2d

repost this if an editor has ever saved you from yourself

violent alien @blipstress.bsky.social · 2d

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

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Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 1d

This is one of the many problems of the Substack model - editors are good and we've forgotten that

violent alien @blipstress.bsky.social · 2d

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

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Scott Santens @scottsantens.com · 1d

Prices dropped 25% during the Great Depression. I hear everyone had a great time.

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 2d

ANDREESSEN: Even if AI ends up destroying all the jobs, “the result would be hyper-deflation of prices, which is the thing that people miss. .. Things that today cost a lot of money will all of a sudden be cheap or free.”

@fortune.com
fortune.com/2025/10/08/b...

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Adam Welz @adamwelz.bsky.social · 2d

Not always relaxed! The last one I encountered was hissing and pulled back to strike within a second of me noticing it! Depends a lot on the weather in my experience. They can be very fast and active when it’s warm.

Reposted by Adam Welz

Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 3d

"Dear Sweet Blessed Little Baby Jesus, please watch over our armed thugs as they turn away the stranger, persecute the foreigner and harm the least of our brothers and sisters."

David S. Bernstein @dbernstein.bsky.social · 3d

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is in Portland meeting with ICE, Border Patrol and DHS officials; Nick Sortor posted video of Noem saying a prayer for the safety of their officers at the start of the meeting.

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Amanda Katz @katzish.bsky.social · 2d

Horrific reporting from the AP on the Myanmar families watching their kids starve to death from Trump and Musk’s aid cuts apnews.com/article/myan...

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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Adam Vaughan @adamvaughan.bsky.social · 2d

The biggest environmental pollution legal action brought in the UK will be filed in the High Court on Wednesday over alleged degradation of the River Wye. Story 👇
www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...

Biggest UK pollution case to be filed over River Wye

Thousands of people are seeking substantial damages and for the waterway to be cleaned of a ‘mountain of chicken manure’

www.thetimes.com

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Graeme Cumming @gscumming.bsky.social · 2d

Now watch humanity embed the minimum levels in policy… rather than maximising this important habitat. 🤡

Science Magazine @science.org · 5d

A new study in Science evaluating published data from 19 countries has pinpointed the minimum habitat levels needed to sustain pollinators in agricultural landscapes. https://scim.ag/3VIq4Cg

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Adam Welz @adamwelz.bsky.social · 2d

I had an amazing encounter with a fat, relaxed Puffadder yesterday - check out the photos here #snakesky #snake

www.instagram.com/p/DPhLlgoDQr...

Login • Instagram

Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.

www.instagram.com

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Annalee Newitz @annaleen.bsky.social · 3d

A lot of the apps on your phone are tracking your physical location and selling that information to other companies. Here's a fantastic explainer from @pcmag.com about 20 of the most common apps that spy on you. Service journalism at its finest. www.pcmag.com/explainers/t...

These 20 Apps Are Watching You—And You Probably Use Them Every Day

You might use these apps every day, but have no idea what they collect. These 20 apps are quietly harvesting your location, contacts, photos, and more—here's what you can do about it.

www.pcmag.com

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Adam Welz @adamwelz.bsky.social · 3d

Has anyone told these guys about batteries?

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Mike Sowden @mikeachim.bsky.social · 4d

Damn. This is amazing. £325 per week, paid monthly, for 3 years - and the result was a profit for the Irish economy:
www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employmen...

Post from Threads user rodneyowl: "Ireland has declared the Basic Income for Artists scheme permanent. This will be officially announced in tomorrow’s budget. Details to follow. Congratulations to all who fought for it and the present and future artists of all sorts in Ireland. That includes me 👌We’re just comin to the end of a 3 year pilot scheme. It’s been a roaring success. For every €1 paid out to the 2000 participants, the government got €1.46 back. Can’t argue with that. Other countries are already taking note."

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Nikolaj Bichel @nikolaj-bi.bsky.social · 4d

Lion estimates are a circus when both hunting orgs and antihunting orgs try to be involved. If you combine the silliest "research" coming out of each side, you learn that there are less than 7,000 lions left in the world and that over 20,000 of them are in Tanzania.

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Adam Welz @adamwelz.bsky.social · 4d

S. demersus sometimes has double breast bands, e.g. this bird I recently saw: www.inaturalist.org/observations...

African Penguin (Spheniscus demersus)

African Penguin from Simon's Town, Cape Town, 7975, South Africa on August 29, 2025 at 12:07 PM by Adam Welz. Note 2 breast bands, rare for this species. Both photos of same individual.

www.inaturalist.org

Adam Welz @adamwelz.bsky.social · 4d

Have you checked if the gallery has records?

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Reposted by Adam Welz

Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 7d

In cities, street space is a really scarce (and under-valued) commodity. Increasing vehicle size costs everyone.

And vehicle weight determines your impact on the wear-and-tear of cities.

So this kind of public policy is really just common sense.

𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇 @taras-grescoe.com · 10d

On Sunday, #Zürich residents voted 52.8% in favor of increasing parking fees for cars according to weight.

The owner of a BMW X2 (Diesel), which weighs 1,675 kilograms, will now pay equivalent of €717 Euros per year to park on a public street. (Before, about €321.)

Direct democracy!

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Reposted by Adam Welz

Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 4d

📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU.

Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.

Signal @signal.org · 7d

We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...

signal.org

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Brett "Solidarity 2025" Banditelli @banditelli.org · Mar 16

When I posted this many folks said this likely isn't an injury, it's just something they do to stay warm, and OMG today over 100 sanderlings flew in right next to me and almost all of them were hopping on one foot. See thread for more 😭🪶

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Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 4d

OK, by this logic...the surveillance of every facet of life--from comms to movement to social relationships to etc--which has become the norm over the last decades c/o the surveillance biz model, makes LE surveillance MORE possible than it's ever been in history.

But somehow e2ee is the problem?

Wessel van Rensburg @wildebees.bsky.social · 4d

The problem with digital speech activists’ one sided framing of this debate is that they don’t acknowledge that digital architecture has shifted what is possible. End-to-end encryption makes it impossible for law enforcement to do targeted surveillance, just as lack of it makes filtering trivial.

Meredith Whittaker @meredithmeredith.bsky.social · 4d

📣 Germany's close to reversing its opposition to mass surveillance & private message scanning, & backing the Chat Control bill. This could end private comms-& Signal-in the EU.

Time's short and they're counting on obscurity: please let German politicians know how horrifying their reversal would be.

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