Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Maarten De Brauwer @maartendb.bsky.social · 8h

PhD opportunity: improving #eDNA methods to better understand estuarine health.

A collaborative university-government project to provide solutions and improve the management of estuaries in Australia.

sednasociety.com/2025/10/10/p...

2 2

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

marinefreshwater.bsky.social @marinefreshwater.bsky.social · 6d

Calling all marine & freshwater sciences students 📣

@marinefreshwater.bsky.social has a new #StudentPrize!

The first winner will be announced in 2027 to allow time for submissions and nominations.

More details:
www.publish.csiro.au/mf/forauthor...

#MarineFreshwaterRes

CSIRO PUBLISHING

Awards and Prizes

www.publish.csiro.au

7 4

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

marinefreshwater.bsky.social @marinefreshwater.bsky.social · Aug 28

Marine & Freshwater Research is officially on bluesky! We’ll share peer-reviewed articles about ecology and management of aquatic environments, marine and freshwater.
Make sure to follow to stay up to date with latest articles!
#MarineFreshwaterRes
www.publish.csiro.au/mf

8 13

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Iconic Fishes @iconicfishes.bsky.social · 8d

🌊 Whether you paint 🎨, dance 💃, doodle ✏️, weave 🧵, write ✍️, design jewellery 💎, compose music 🎶, build Legos 🧩, cut potato prints 🥔or create in ways we haven’t even imagined, this is your invitation to join a global arts movement Inspired by #IconicFishes
👉 www.iconicfishes.art/updates/intr...

Introducing “Inspired by #IconicFishes”, a global arts movement for our ocean’s quirkiest fishes — Inspired by Iconic Fishes

A global arts movement inviting people of all ages, from every part of the world, to celebrate the wondrous lives of truly iconic fishes: seahorses, pipefish, seadragons, and their cousins: ghost pipe...

www.iconicfishes.art

5 7

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Mark Rubin @markrubin.bsky.social · 12d

Report on Australian Higher Education finds:

🔹️ Council members have no lived experience of universities

🔹️ Council members have COIs with consultancy firms

🔹️ Council meetings are closed affairs that lack transparency

🔹️ Leaders' exorbitant salaries could not be justified

One submission said leaders’ salaries could not be “justified by the quality of executive decision-making, nor by the scope of executive duties. The core business of a university – teaching and research – is co-ordinated virtually entirely by ordinary non-executive staff”.

3 25 53

Maarten De Brauwer @maartendb.bsky.social · 10d

Nice! Keen to have a closer look!

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

IUCN SSC Seahorse, Pipefish and Seadragon Specialist Group @iucnseahorse.bsky.social · 13d

Over the past 7 months, South Australia has experienced the largest recorded mass mortality of leafy seadragons and weedy seadragons. Thousands of these iconic fishes have died during an extended harmful algal bloom. Read more: www.iucn-seahorse.org/news/2025/9/...

1 3 3

Maarten De Brauwer @maartendb.bsky.social · 15d

Winter estuary #eDNA surveys DONE!

The NSW south coast is a special place, even had a fur seal joining us in the Bega River on the last day.

Finished the trip with a new tradition: a dip in the stunning (but cold) ocean pool in Bermaguie

2

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Fiona Chong @fchong.bsky.social · 16d

Beautiful south coast of NSW

1 1

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Sea Change Australia @seachangeaustralia.bsky.social · 21d

Cleaner Crabs 🦀
Climate-driven floods in northern NSW are washing chemicals into estuaries, threatening seafood safety. Researchers and crab fishers show that simple post-harvest steps - like cooking or depuration - can keep crabs safe. Adaptation works, from catchment to coast: tinyurl.com/2tf7e6rk

Cleaner Crabs: Adapting Seafood Safety for a Changing Climate

In the muddy estuaries of northern New South Wales, two of Australia’s most iconic crustaceans – the Giant Mud Crab (Scylla serrata) and the Blue Swimmer Crab (Portunus armatus) – are caught in the cr...

tinyurl.com

1 3

Maarten De Brauwer @maartendb.bsky.social · 21d

Fieldwork time! Currently conducting #eDNA surveys in southern NSW to study estuarine biodiversity.

It's been great fun working with the Jerrinja (Shoalhaven River) and Walbunja (Clyde River) rangers this week!

1 3

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

European Environmental Bureau🍃 @eeb.org · 23d

🧵 1/4

🔬💧 Over 600 scientists from across Europe have signed a joint statement calling on the EU to urgently update its water pollution rules.

📢 Freshwater ecosystems are collapsing - and outdated policies aren't keeping up.

Full statement ➡️ www.fba.org.uk/fba-voice/sc...

#HandsOffNature

1 53 84

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Francis Markham @francismarkham.bsky.social · Sep 7

Australian universities are in a governance crisis. VC pay blowouts, scandals, mission drift — these aren’t random, they’re structural.

This new working paper with @marijataflaga.bsky.social & Keith Dowding digs into why the system is broken, and how to fix it.

doi.org/10.25911/MWW...

A thread:

Neither corporate nor government: Why university governance needs to be different, and better
Marija Taflaga, Francis Markham and Keith Dowding.

Preprint, 29 August 2025. https://doi.org/10.25911/MWW4-9781

Abstract
Australian universities face a governance crisis rooted in failures of accountability. Unlike parliaments and corporate boards, university councils lack effective mechanisms for principals to discipline agents. In parliaments, voters can replace elected representatives; in corporations, shareholders can vote out directors. Both systems close the delegation–accountability loop, ensuring alignment between principals and outcomes. University councils, however, are self-perpetuating bodies dominated by external appointees, and in recent decades they are typically from corporate backgrounds. As neither producers nor consumers of universities’ core product—knowledge creation and dissemination—they have minimal intrinsic stake in academic outcomes leaving councils detached from the university’s core mission. This misalignment fosters mission drift, weakens oversight, and contributes to repeated scandals. Because councils largely appoint their own successors, they remain insulated from meaningful scrutiny, unlike boards or parliaments where underperformance is sanctioned externally. Restoring accountability requires giving academic staff and students a renewed oversight role, alongside clear safeguards for the public interest. Because academics and students are both producers and consumers of knowledge, they have a direct and enduring stake in its quality. We recommend two mechanisms to do this are:
1. Academic Senates empowered to appoint and review council members, ensuring councils reflect the university’s purpose.
2. Robust Committee Systems that embed staff and student voices in decision-making, reduce information asymmetries, and align incentives with academic purposes.

8 69 130

Maarten De Brauwer @maartendb.bsky.social · Sep 4

Job opening! CSIRO @csiropublishing.bsky.social is currently hiring 2 #eDNA Postdoctoral Fellowships!

sednasociety.com/2025/09/04/j...

Job opportunities: 2 Postdoctoral Fellowships at CSIRO

CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, is currently recruiting two eDNA Postdoctoral Fellows. Applications close on October 5th. More information and links below. CSIRO Postdoctoral Fell…

sednasociety.com

7 2

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Southern eDNA Society @sednasociety.bsky.social · Sep 3

Great news! We are restarting our eDNA webinar series this year to share exciting new research with the eDNA community.

Our first webinar is by Josh Koh (DCCEEW): Explainable Multimodal Machine Learning Using Combined environmental DNA and Biogeographic Features for Ecosystem Biomonitoring

1 2 1

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Physalia-courses@Online @physaliacourses.bsky.social · Sep 1

For the first time, our course goes fully offline with @angmcgaughran.bsky.social ! 🎉

🎥 Recorded lectures
📄 Annotated hands-on scripts
💬 1 week of Slack support

Designed for a global audience and flexible learning 🌍✨

If interested: www.physalia-courses.org/courses-work...

INVASION GENOMICS IN R

8th, 10th and 11th September 2025

www.physalia-courses.org

2 3

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Australian Society for Fish Biology @austsocfishbiol.bsky.social · Aug 31

#PhD opportunities at UTS in seadragon #ecology and #conservation 🐟

🏢 UTS Fish Ecology Lab, University of Technology Sydney
📍 #Sydney
💰 Normal graduate research support + $5,000pa scholarship for up to 3 yrs

📨 Contact Prof David Booth: profiles.uts.edu.au/David.Booth

5 9

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Society for Conservation Biology @society4conbio.bsky.social · Aug 13

SCB’s 2025 Graduate Student Research Awards are open!
Ten $1,000 grants for grad students advancing #biodiversity conservation. You can use the funds for travel, field gear, or materials. Apply now + read guidelines: conbio.org/mini-sites/s...
#grants #conservation #studentawards

12 12

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Australian Society for Fish Biology @austsocfishbiol.bsky.social · Aug 24

#PhD #opportunity optimising #seagrass restoration at the University of Tasmania

📍#Hobart #Tasmania
💰$33,511 pa scholarship
🚨Deadline: Wed 1 October 2025

👀https://www.utas.edu.au/research/degrees/available-projects?id=1948

1 4

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Australian Society for Fish Biology @austsocfishbiol.bsky.social · Aug 25

#JobOpportunity: Tasmanian Government is #hiring…

🎣 Manager – Recreational Fisheries
🗓️ permanent, full time
💰 $129,302 to $136,089

👀 careers.pageuppeople.com/759/cw/en/jo...

🚨Deadline: Tue 02 Sep

1 4

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Australian Society for Fish Biology @austsocfishbiol.bsky.social · Aug 27

#PhD opportunities at UNSW in fish passage and fishways design 🐟

🚨22 Sept
🏢 UNSW Water Research Laboratory
📍 Sydney
💰 Scholarships available

📨 Jasmin Martino: www.linkedin.com/in/jasmin-ma...
📨 Iain Suthers: www.unsw.edu.au/staff/iain-s...
📨 Stefan Felder: www.unsw.edu.au/staff/stefan...

6 2

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Professor Euan Ritchie @euanritchie.bsky.social · Aug 19

"Australia has the second-lowest public expenditure on tertiary education institutions in the OECD…This has resulted in an endless chase for dollars (international students & “the next big thing”) rather than thinking about what an educated Australia should look like” www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

Universities such as mine are making poor decisions, and we’re not allowed to know why

UTS has announced a “pause” on enrolments in 100 courses. Vacating these critically important areas diminishes not only the brand of UTS but the state it was designed to benefit.

www.smh.com.au

14 130 230

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

The Royal Society @royalsociety.org · Aug 20

#OnThisDay in 1858, a seminal journal article comprised of papers by Alfred Russel Wallace FRS and Charles Darwin FRS on the theory of evolution by natural selection was published by the Linnean Society, the first public announcement of the theory of evolution. bit.ly/3k8fq4u

3 96 200

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Southern eDNA Society @sednasociety.bsky.social · Aug 21

The New Zealand Molecular Ecology conference returns for its 27th year! This meeting brings together students, researchers, & industry to divulge the latest in ecological genomics and eDNA. This year, the meeting is held in Raglan, 26-28th of November. You won’t want to miss it! shorturl.at/inWqz

2 3

Reposted by Maarten De Brauwer

Ehsan Hamzehpoor @hamzehsan.bsky.social · Aug 19

“You are here to learn to ride a bicycle, not to invent a bicycle.” 🚲🧪
Read my story in Science Magazine on how I dealt with my "Mid-PhD Crisis".
www.science.org/content/arti...

@science.org
@sciencecareers.bsky.social
#ScienceWorkingLife
#AcademicChatter
#AcademicTwitter
#ScienceTwitter

Science Magazine @science.org · Aug 18

"For half an hour, I vented everything I had been holding in for months … my supervisor … then calmly offered a line I’ll never forget: 'You are here to learn to ride a bicycle, not to invent a bicycle.' That one sentence landed softly, but it cracked something open." https://scim.ag/4lt1Ru0

An illustration of a man riding a bike surrounded by wheels and other bike parts, with text: How a Ph.D. is like riding a bike

2 20 65