Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Madalsa @madalsa.org · 8h

I’ll keep an eye out! I use sumac very often but always bought from Middle East markets.

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Madalsa @madalsa.org · 9h

so I should restock my sumac with grown in…Indiana?

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Madalsa @madalsa.org · 1d

It’s SO good. Many gut laughs, easy three hours. Gosh I needed that

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Madalsa @madalsa.org · 1d

I didn’t think anyone could make a car chase exciting in 2025 but Paul Thomas Anderson did it.

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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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Kevin J. CREATURE @kevinjkircher.com · 2d

In April, Spain and Portugal suffered Europe's worst blackout in 20 years. Now, 5 months later, an expert panel has released a report on the blackout. In the meantime, opportunists filled the information void, blaming renewables without evidence. The misinfo stuck, @juliaradio.bsky.social reports.

After Spain's blackout, critics blamed renewable energy. It's part of a bigger attack

When millions lost power in Spain and Portugal this spring, some were quick to blame too much solar and wind power. That wasn't the cause, but the misinformation had an impact.

www.npr.org

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Stanford University @handle.invalid · 3d

Congratulations to 2025 #MacFellow William Tarpeh! The Stanford chemical engineer is working on sustainable and practical solutions to treat wastewater and recover valuable mineral resources.

🗞️: stanford.io/3IZIBqF

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Year Progress Bot @yearprogress.bsky.social · 3d

▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓▓░░░░░ 76.85%

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ClimateFran @climatefran.bsky.social · 4d

All the life goals, right here

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Nobel committee unable to reach prize winner who is ‘living his best life’ hiking off grid

Fred Ramsdell was among those honoured with a 2025 Nobel Prize in Medicine but might not know because he is somewhere in Idaho and uncontactable

www.theguardian.com

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Seema Jayachandran @seema.bsky.social · Sep 23

Our new paper shows that men benefit from couples' long-distance joint moves more than women do, in both Germany and Sweden. Is this just b/c men are usually the main breadwinner? No, it's hard to explain the patterns we see w/o a gender norm prioritizing men's careers. www.nber.org/papers/w32970

Moving to Opportunity, Together

Many couples face a trade-off between advancing one spouse’s career or the other’s. We study this trade-off using administrative data from Germany and Sweden. We first conduct an event-study analysis of couples moving across commuting zones and find that relocation increases men’s earnings more than women’s, with strikingly similar patterns in Germany and Sweden. Using a sample of mass layoff events, we then find that couples in both countries are more likely to relocate in response to the man being laid off compared to the woman. We investigate whether these gendered patterns reflect men’s higher potential earnings or a gender norm that prioritizes men’s career advancement. We provide suggestive evidence of a gender norm using variation in norms within Germany. We then develop and estimate a model of household decision-making in which households can place more weight on the income earned by the man compared to the woman.

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Seema Jayachandran @seema.bsky.social · 4d

We just spent 6 months to add 1 figure to this paper. Some people said, "Couples aren't prioritizing men's careers. Men just have better earnings opportunities when moving."

Earnings effects of moves for couples on the left, singles on the right. Negligible gap between single men and women.

Event study coefficients that show that men's earnings rise more than women's among couples following a cross-commuting zone move (left panels). The pattern is muted or reverses among single men and single women (right panels).

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 5d

truly a Hall of Fame grift from weiss here. the frank lucas of bad faith bullshit. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/b...

Paramount Buys The Free Press, Ushering in a New Era at CBS News

www.nytimes.com

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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 11d

This is amazing: @ladwp.com, the Los Angeles utility, has launched a program that will install solar+battery systems on qualifying low-to-moderate-income households, *for free*.

Yes: free.

If you know someone eligible, tell them to apply!

Self-Generation Incentive Program

The Self-Generation Incentive Program (SGIP) helps qualified LADWP residential customers install solar and battery storage systems by providing financial incentives. This program supports clean energy...

www.ladwp.com

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David Wallace-Wells @dwallacewells.bsky.social · 11d

“A broad shift to electric vehicles -- which are quieter than traditional vehicles -- could yield noise reduction benefits of $77.3 billion, concentrated among low-income families in dense urban areas.” www.nber.org/papers/w34298

The Traffic Noise Externality: Costs, Incidence and Policy Implications

Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

www.nber.org

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Kevin J. CREATURE @kevinjkircher.com · 11d

A new paper led by Cody Warner at Berkeley shows that utilities can mitigate wildfire risk much more quickly and cheaply by using dynamic grid management (such as fast-trip switches that very quickly de-energize power lines in response to faults) than by trimming trees or undergrounding lines.

Dynamic grid management reduces wildfire adaptation costs in the electric power sector - Nature Climate Change

Extreme events are increasingly becoming severe risks to the electric grid, yet there is limited understanding of the cost-effectiveness of adaptation investments. This research demonstrates that dynamic grid management could reduce large capital spending and limit wildfire risks in the USA.

www.nature.com

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Madalsa @madalsa.org · 14d

At the Nicholas Roerich Museum, since I can’t go to the Himalayas.

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Rob Shum @robshum.bsky.social · 16d

A rather brilliant idea from Massachusetts. 🔌💡

Heat pumps could be affordable for most — if rates were fair

Massachusetts is making a good start by offering seasonal discounts for heat pumps. But it could do more, write authors from Green Energy Consumers Alliance and the Acadia Center.

www.utilitydive.com

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Madalsa @madalsa.org · 18d

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....

Perhaps this analysis showing where electricity and natural gas are priced above (blue) and below (red) the social marginal costs? not quite retail though…

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Prof Mike Yearworth @mikeyearworth.bsky.social · 20d

The OpenAi preprint on arXiv arxiv.org/pdf/2509.04664

arxiv.org

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Prof Mike Yearworth @mikeyearworth.bsky.social · 20d

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits."

www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws

In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

www.computerworld.com

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Year Progress Bot @yearprogress.bsky.social · 20d

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Madalsa @madalsa.org · 20d

- regimes exhibit tendencies to U-turn across liberal-authoritarian spectrum, i.e they bounce back to (largely) their original state
- past liberal democracies (LD) tended to skip intermediate electoral democracy (ED) stage & jumped straight to closed authoritarian regimes before reversion to LD

Madalsa @madalsa.org · 20d

I enjoy cool descriptive papers so much

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 20d

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win (h/t @miriamposner.com)

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

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Madalsa @madalsa.org · 21d

Also hospitals.

There's a serious shortage of doctors, especially in rural areas.

Madalsa @madalsa.org · 21d

Americans have been nothing but wonderful. Every single day, they are gracious neighbours, colleagues, & friends. I can only hope to return the generosity through my teaching and research. But at the end of the day, there are things I can't/ don't want to change -- I'm not from here, and that's ok.