Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Carrie Muir @cmuirmath.bsky.social · 12h

My dad & I are chatting about a long ago ballgame he took me and my sister to. At inning 13, he decided it was time to go home. We listened to the game on the radio the whole way home—probably at least a 45 min drive—and it wasn't done yet. It seemed like such a ridiculously long game… ⚾

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Carrie Muir @cmuirmath.bsky.social · 12h

Which is what made it so funny to come across. 😅

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Carrie Muir @cmuirmath.bsky.social · 12h

Did you mean the 21st?

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old fruit pictures @pomological.xor.blue · 13h

catline apples, painted by royal charles steadman, 1929

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Lizzie Kodpuak née Acid Lich (Gröbnerpilled era) @acidlich.bsky.social · 20h

I love these lads

Credentials, Dan @dancredentials.bsky.social · 20h

Editor: You get that cover of Fossil Frogs and Toads of North America?
Photographer: Sure did boss, real fuckin hard as hell just like you asked.
Editor: what

Cover of a paleontology monograph Fossil Frogs and Toads of North America by J. Alan Holman, with a cover painting featuring three adorable green tree frogs in the foreground while a gigantic bolt of lighting strikes amid a heard of rearing and panicking brontotheres in the background

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QSIDE Institute @qside.bsky.social · 19h

The Data4Justice Accelerator is a 5-week professional development program that equips activists and non-profit professionals with the technical expertise to collect, analyze, and present data to further social justice!

No prior experience required! To learn more visit bit.ly/d4jaccelerator!

QSIDE Institute is Proud to Announce our Data4Justice Accelerator. Winter 2026, January 11th – February 14th. Learn the basic skills of data science and apply them to social justice research in this 5-wee intensive online course!

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Meg Pillow @megpillow.bsky.social · 22h

It’s a very hard thing to sit with, but: if you’re talking about eugenics and you don’t mask, you aren’t someone who is trustworthy on the subject of eugenics.

You don’t get to make exceptions for your behavior just because you don’t want to do something anymore. That’s not how this works

NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 23h

Traveling halfway across the world & packing into a room for a conference panel on the theme of resisting eugenics.

But not wearing a respirator during a surge in the ongoing pandemic.

What a fun way to show how the research & scholars you’re there to ostensibly listen to mean jack shit to you.

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Effin' Birds @effinbirds.com · 18h

A woodcut of a bird beside the text "i am perfectly content to not be a part of your bullshit"

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Joshua Bowman @thalesdisciple.bsky.social · 22h

Meanwhile administration at my university decided to go all in on censoring an art exhibit, now trying to downplay it as no big deal.

hyperallergic.com/1048434/pepp...

Screenshot from an article on the Hyperallergic website:

California School Shutters Exhibition After Altering "Political" Art

Pepperdine University abruptly closed the show as at least a dozen artists asked to withdraw in protest of what they called an act of censorship.

Accompanying photo:
Elana Mann, still from "Call to Arms 2015-2025" (2025)
(image courtesy the artist)

In response to the school's actions, Mann and AMBOS requested that their works be withdrawn from the show.

Both artists told Hyperallergic that Pepperdine administration did not explain their decision. In response to Hyperallergic's inquiry, a representative for the school cited the works' political content. "Because Pepperdine's established practice with the Weisman Museum has been to avoid overtly political content consistent with the University's nonprofit status, it removed these two pieces from display," Michael Friel, Pepperdine's senior director of Communications and Public Relations, told Hyperallergic.

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Nicole "They call me Spooky. Spooky Mulder" Gugliucci @noisyastronomer.com · 18h

❤️📡🐶

Robert “The Bobby Yaga” McNees @mcnees.bsky.social · 1d

The Very Large Array, part of The National Radio Astronomy Observatory, was formally dedicated #OTD in 1980.

It was renamed the "Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array" in 2012. Happy 45th birthday, VLA! 🧪 🔭 📡

An image from the movie “Contact” shows Jodie Foster’s character listening to headphones in front of a line of VLA radio dishes that stretch off towards the horizon. One of the dishes is my shaggy golden doodle Linus, wearing a post-surgery cone around his head.

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Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 17h

To the tune of Eleanor Rigby:

Massive iguana
Makinge a fuss on the beach
At great scale
But then caughte --
Who woulde have thoughte?
www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2...

‘He’s a big boy:’ Massive iguana arrested in Daytona Beach, video shows

A large iguana was thrown in the back of a patrol car in a strange encounter with Daytona Beach officers, according to the police department.

www.clickorlando.com

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Carrie Muir @cmuirmath.bsky.social · 14h

I have been pitching fits about character limits in alt-text! Anything over 120 characters gets flagged as an accessibility fail. 😡

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Goth Auntie @cupcakegoth.bsky.social · 23h

Today’s advice from your Goth Auntie
-Take a few deep breaths, drink some water, take your meds.
-Don’t seek out the social media of people you’ve removed from your life.
-The Cursed Object is the one shrieking “don’t read my diary!” for a change.
❤️ Auntie Jilli

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Chantzy @chantzy.bsky.social · 16h

Mask mandates return to health care facilities in parts of California.

The mandate goes from Nov. 1 to March 31, 2026. Someone tell Covid it needs to be over by then

www.newsweek.com/mask-mandate...

Mask mandate returns to parts of California

The order in Sonoma County is designed to protect the "most vulnerable populations" in health care facilities during fall and winter.

www.newsweek.com

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lukelukeluke @lukelukeluke.bsky.social · 16h

Here is a nice a mushroom

A vase shaped golden chanterelle grows from the mossy forest soil like an ocean wave breaking against a rock. Rain wet ferns grow all around under the green forest background. All photos by me

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Sara Custer @saracuster.insidehighered.com · 16h

As far as we know, 500 employees at ED were fired today. A senior department leader told @jessicablake.bsky.social that the directive came from Ross Vought's OMB and took the department by surprise.
www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

Trump Fires More Education Dept. Employees

The Trump administration threatened to lay off federal workers because of the government shutdown. Thousands reportedly got pink slips Friday.

www.insidehighered.com

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It's ME(Jaime) @exceedhergrasp1.bsky.social · 15h

I remember this-- and it's a great story!

Diane Galloway @adgwatches.bsky.social · 16h

Comrades, I’m inclined to tell you a story from my organizing days. In 2018, I was one of hundred of union organizers who had the privilege to assist with a nine-day, statewide, unauthorized teachers’ strike to save their schools from a critical staffing shortage. Buckle up, it’s a good one. 1/x

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NightMar on Hicks Street, Part 4: The Rabbit’s Revenge @histoftech.bsky.social · 19h

The Virginia Senate just told UVA it’s not getting state funding if it accepts the compact since UVA exists to serve Virginia, its residents, & their interests—not be a tool of the federal govt. Scoop from our student newspaper, who’ve been doing vital reporting www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...

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Kevin M. Kruse @kevinmkruse.bsky.social · 1d

There’s a reason academics universally rejected the initial push to canonize Charlie Kirk as a saint devoted to free speech.

We know all too well that’s the exact opposite of reality.

Matt Gabriele @profgabriele.com · 1d

I know this case is all over - & it should be - but Turning Point USA has waged a harassment campaign against faculty for more than a decade. I know of at least a half dozen other faculty, personally, who have received death threats and several of those who felt so unsafe they too left their homes

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 1d

Are we great yet?

Mark Bray, a Rutgers University professor and expert on anti-fascist groups, is fleeing to Spain with his family due to death threats that stem from a campaign by Turning Point USA and other conservative groups to get him fired, falsely labeling him as an antifa member.

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Carrie Muir @cmuirmath.bsky.social · 1d

I got one of these the first time around and love it!

Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · 1d

I'm doing another print run of these "Biology is Bigger than Binaries" shirts!

Back, quite literally, by popular demand. Bullying works, sure, but so does a bunch of nice cutie patooties politely asking!

Order 'em now, I'll mail 'em in early November.

SquidFacts.net

a woman with short bown hair, glasses, and tassel earrings, wears a purple KN95 and looks cool as hell in her biology is bigger than binaries shirt, in orange

a woman with green glasses takes a selfie lookin' cool as hell in her pink biology is bigger than binaries shirt. She's also got ice cream, that lucky dog.

a woman with long brown hair and glasses hangs out in the back yard with her pink biology is bigger than binaries shirt

A man with a hat and sunglasses stands in hero-pose with his biology is bigger than binaires shirt (orange)

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old fruit pictures @pomological.xor.blue · 1d

summer pound apples, painted by mary daisy arnold, 1921

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Mount St. Helens in 1980 @mountsthelens1980.bsky.social · 1d

#MSH45 | Richard Lasher
You've been at a job long enough to know a decent colleague to chat with.

The more you get to know them, the more they share. What's fact or fiction? You don't know, but you listen.

Then there's one story that's so over the top—a bona fide lie. But then, a photo appears.

A red Ford Pinto hatchback angles across a narrow gravel forest service road, a blue enduro motorcycle on a rear hitch carrier. Tall firs frame the view. Beyond them, a towering ash cloud from a pyroclastic density flow billows skyward. Photo by Richard Kent Lasher, May 18, 1980.

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Dr. Lucky Tran @luckytran.com · 1d

All we are saying, is give peace a chance

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Marvelous Patric @marvelouspatric.bsky.social · 1d

WEIRD AL YANKOVIC

Who else is able to put lyrics that are funny and clever into ANY GENERE of music, even fitting them into pre-existing structures as well as his own?

Emily, a Two-Shoes-Gooder @rebelmusicteach.bsky.social · 5d

I also need to know: I am fairly middle-of-the-road on Taylor Swift but someone I know called her the Greatest Living Lyricist. She is not.

Who is yours? Either the greatest or your favorite?

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Ron Buckmire 🏳️‍🌈♾️🇬🇩 @ronbuckmire.bsky.social · 1d

Some more recent professional news.

www.oxy.edu/magazine/iss...

Ron Buckmire Tackles Life’s Equations

Ron Buckmire grew up in a house full of Cap’n Crunch. His father, R.E. Buckmire, a University of Massachusetts Ph.D. turned food scientist for the Quaker Oats Co. in Barrington, Ill., invented the Cru...

www.oxy.edu

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