Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jen Woolard

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 3d

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

nyti.ms

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Jo Wood @jwolondon.bsky.social · 14d

A great post from @djnavarro.net, providing an accessible explanation of why statistics that can appear to reveal our ignorance may actually do the opposite. Makes excellent use of #datavis to provide visual support for the argument.

blog.djnavarro.net/posts/2025-0...

Some notes on probability judgement – Notes from a data witch

For the love of fuck, literally nobody thinks that 20% of the population is transgender. Please stop sharing that ridiculous YouGov statistic

blog.djnavarro.net

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Justin Joque @jjoque.bsky.social · 15d

I think one of the biggest mistakes we’ve made in academia over the last few years was treating tenure and academic freedom as a guaranteed right and not a labor relation. Had more understood it as the latter perhaps we would have been better prepared to protect it

Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 15d

“I’m emotionally shellshocked right now,” said one professor in the Texas Tech system. “What does it say about academic freedom? It says we don’t have it.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...

Texas Tech Moves to Limit Academic Discussion to 2 Genders

www.nytimes.com

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David Zipper @davidzipper.bsky.social · 24d

This was very clever:

After collecting fines from speed cameras, Stockholm ran a lottery where non-speeding drivers could win the money.

www.wired.com/2010/12/swed...

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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · Aug 13

And we each must have something that keeps us fueled through this— something that nourishes the deep parts of us.

Could be meditation or prayer. Could be making art or cooking, long walks in trees— hell, parenting will do it if you show up with the right lens.

Concrete ideas & suggestions here:

fortify inside

why spiritual practice matters during the rising authoritarian tide

www.lifeisasacredtext.com

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Rock The Bells @rockthebells.bsky.social · Jul 27

Love moments like this. Public Enemy meets Mavis Staples ❤️

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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · Jul 10

It doesn't matter if they are ever coming for you.

It was always ever already too much that they were coming for anyone.

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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · Jul 3

This is such a beautiful thread and was so exactly what I meant, and I'm so over the moon that it was helpful in any way--

and here are some other ideas if you want some:

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Amy Woolard @a-woo.bsky.social · Jul 1

I've got two new poems in an absolute banger of a double issue of July/August POETRY, along w/luminaries like Kevin Young, Danez Smith, Carey Salerno, Joanna Klink, & a folio from Wang Ping of Chinese poets following the Yellow & Yangtze Rivers from their headwaters. Full issue here:

Shiftless (Day off that begins with James Tate & ends with Charles Wright)

The wind makes a salad
Of the countryside & we still refuse

To learn each other's last names. You get
What you pay-what-you-can-for, is all. Love

Is not the thief love is still choosing to sleep
In the house the night after the thief

Has robbed it. Money burning
A hole in my tip jar. My kiltered love

Like a window AC leaking off
A second-floor sill. Almost everything

I can touch is an artifact I will have wanted
To've preserved as proof it all happened

Just this way. Sweet family meal—wave
Me down, however many seconds

It takes, the quiet *Mississippi* between
Them. Definition of prayer: let the perfect be

The memory of the good. If all you
Have is scissors, everything looks like

It's hanging by a thread. Our days, these
Peonies are so brief & bound as fists.

When everyone shuts it down is when
We clock in. *All explorers must die of heartbreak.*

$Brunch Shift We burn in daylight but we love the dogs until they Become stardust again. Like all dogs do, they love us Better. Small trash in our front yards as we leave, soft pack Wrapper, drugstore receipt. Like stardust our life is penciled In, imagines itself forward only as a name a day On a schedule. Noon is the loneliest number sing The sparrow & I've got my bloodshot eye on him. Jolt On the timecard like setting a fractured bone. Sweetheart, Praise the checkered kitchen floor, still sticking To its late-night story. Marry the ketchups & loosen The tin caps on all the salts. How many hungry girls Until the mourning dove tries to make the last train Home. The math of what to leave us: move the decimal To the left & then double it. Then swallow it. Then cough It up until it's not the cup that's bottomless. The filter Is what keeps my mouth & two fingers from turning To ash right along w/the cig when I inhale. Too many Of us will measure out our hours here In smoke. I swear it'll be funnier when it happens If you think I've been joking. I was above all Waiting for your fondness, the softest punch Of light like pushing a pill through its foil packet.$

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Jay Willis @jaywillis.net · Jun 27

"For the child born this summer in Texas, whose parents receive no documents, whose name never appears in any system, and who grows up asking why she can’t go on field trips, apply for scholarships, or open a bank account, the consequences are not legal theory. They are her life."

The United States Is About to Embark on a Terrifying Experiment in Mass Statelessness

This scenario, until recently, might have read like a dystopian projection. But after the court’s decision on Friday, it is no longer hypothetical.

slate.com

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Jen Woolard @jlwoolard.bsky.social · Jun 27

Showing a gun to intimidate a six-year-old? Beyond monstrous.

Adam Keiper @adamkeiper.com · Jun 27

Monstrous:

"They were crying in fear. One of the agents at one point lifted up his shirt, which displayed the gun that he was carrying....The 6-year-old boy was terrified to see the gun. He urinated on himself and wet all his clothing. No one offered him a change of clothing for many hours."

ICE arrested a 6-year-old boy with leukemia at immigration court. His family is suing.

A Honduran mother and her two children — ages 6 and 9 — sued the Trump administration over their arrest at Los Angeles Immigration Court, the first lawsuit challenging the arrests of children under a ...

www.tpr.org

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Atul Gawande @agawande.bsky.social · Jun 25

This is a travesty & a nightmare. The US was a founder of @gavi.org. It lowers global vaccine costs, has vaccinated 1B children, & averted 19M deaths. This pull out will cost 100s of thousands of children's lives a year - and RFK Jr will be personally responsible.
www.politico.com/news/2025/06...

RFK Jr. says US won’t donate to global vaccine effort

Kennedy ripped into Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, in a video address at its pledging summit.

www.politico.com

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Jen Woolard @jlwoolard.bsky.social · Jun 25

www.chronicle.com/article/in-d...

In Defense of ‘Silly’ Science

Basic research and the value of curiosity.

www.chronicle.com

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Grey @mgreys.bsky.social · Jun 22

Sunday thoughts. ☕️

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Amy Woolard @a-woo.bsky.social · Jun 19

"If we only fight because we think we’ll win, we aren’t going to last as long as we’re needed."

I appreciated so much a work colleague sharing this today.

What U.S. v. Skrmetti Did, What It Didn’t Do, and What It Can Never Do

There is going to be a lot of catastrophizing today. We lost U.S. v. Skrmetti, one of the biggest transgender civil rights cases of our…

samamesesq.medium.com

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Teen Vogue @teenvogue.com · Jun 11

Dealing with law enforcement can be stressful, so it’s important to know your rights before you’re face-to-face with ICE agents.

While there’s never any guarantee that law enforcement officers will follow the law, here’s what they can and can’t legally do to you and what you can legally demand. ⤵️

What Are My Rights During an ICE Raid?

Immigration law can be tricky, but here's what you should know.

www.teenvogue.com

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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · Jun 11

Floridas’s child-welfare agency — in a reversal of a 30-year policy — is now willing to turn minors over to ICE.

This 17-year-old was taken from his foster home in handcuffs and shackles.

www.miamiherald.com/news/politic...

Florida child welfare agency calls ICE on teen migrant in foster care, sparking criticism

‘If this is a policy decision, it is a huge deal.’

www.miamiherald.com

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-𝚖𝚘𝚡 ❆ ☃︎︎ ❆ @moxiest.art · Jun 11

leftists: that thing you teach us in school to be terrified of is happening

historians: that thing is definitely happening

star wars: here is a beat-for-beat breakdown of how the thing happens, but with pew pew lasers. we know you watched it

news outlets: these protesters are out of control

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Katie Matthews, PhD @katieocean.bsky.social · May 29

Scientists saved lives. The village was evacuated a week ago.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

ian bremmer @ianbremmer.com · May 28

before and after today’s glacier collapse that buried 90% of blatten, switzerland

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Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · May 28

This piece by @mashagessen.bsky.social will go down in history. It is the cry of a nation going down in flames. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/o...

Opinion | Beware: We Are Entering a New Phase of the Trump Era

www.nytimes.com

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Jason Cantone @jasoncantone.bsky.social · Apr 25

Do judges view psychiatrists and psychologists differently when they offer testimony on an individual’s competency to stand trial?

Check out NEW RESEARCH here for the answer: psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-...

@apajournals.bsky.social @pppl-journal.bsky.social

APA PsycNet

psycnet.apa.org

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Brandon Friedman @brandonfriedman.bsky.social · May 22

Posted this afternoon. Masked ICE agents arresting immigrants at their court hearings in Dallas.

Cristina Salazar Law

CONFIRMED: ICE agents in Dallas Immigration Court are detaining people as soon as they exit the courtroom.
WHO: If your case is dismissed by the government attorney or judge AND you have been here less than 2 years.
WHY: If you have been here less than two years, ICE can then use the "Expedited Removal" process to detain and remove you from the U.S.

WHAT CAN YOU DO: Depending on your case, do not agree to get your case dismissed if you have been here less than two years, request a date for an individual hearing on your claim (most are requesting asylum).* Go to your hearing with an attorney or a trusted family member.

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR: ICE agents are arriving undercover, masked, in jeans, and hang out in groups of 2-3. They will be hanging out in the hallways.

I personally observed three arrests today, with no warrant and no identification by the ICE agents.

*Please speak to an attorney or BIA accredited representative before making your decision on whether you should decline or agree to a dismissal.

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Jen Woolard @jlwoolard.bsky.social · May 23

Unconscionable

National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) @youthlaw.bsky.social · May 22

👉 Today, the Trump administration filed a motion in court to end the Flores Settlement - an agreement that provides basic safeguards for the treatment of children in federal immigration custody.

Why does this matter? Let’s break it down: 🧵👇

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Isabela Dias @isabelaalhadeff.bsky.social · May 9

"No trial can be fair that leaves a person with mental illness alone before a court."

A counsel-appointed program for detained immigrants with mental health needs and cognitive disabilities has been gutted. Providers say people will languish in detention and be deported without a fighting chance.

Trump's DOJ stripped lifeline legal services from the most vulnerable detained immigrants

"Without a lawyer, people don't have a prayer. They don't have a chance in hell."

www.motherjones.com

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💉Josh Rubin, MD @drsandman11.medsky.social · May 7

I don’t mean to alarm anyone, but the orcas now have two F/A-18 Hornets

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