Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Dr Moira Nicolson

Project Drawdown @projectdrawdown.bsky.social · 4d

We have launched the Drawdown Explorer — the most comprehensive climate solutions platform ever created! It gives decision-makers the tools they need to act faster & more effectively than ever — & your support today can make this revolutionary tool even more powerful. https://drawdown.org/donate

Ways to Give

Your donation to Project Drawdown supports our core climate solutions work, allowing our team to be responsive to the rapidly changing climate landscape.

drawdown.org

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Dr Moira Nicolson @moiranics.bsky.social · 6d

Why?

Reposted by Dr Moira Nicolson

Manoel Horta Ribeiro @manoelhortaribeiro.bsky.social · 28d

Social media feeds today are optimized for engagement, often leading to misalignment between users' intentions and technology use.

In a new paper, we introduce Bonsai, a tool to create feeds based on stated preferences, rather than predicted engagement.

arxiv.org/abs/2509.10776

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Reposted by Dr Moira Nicolson

John Drury @profjohndrury.bsky.social · 12d

Before the professional first responders arrive, there are 'zero responders', including amongst the survivors themselves, who respond to each others' needs

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Manchester synagogue: PM praises rabbi and security staff who blocked attacker

Two killed and four remain in hospital after a man, shot dead by police, carried out the attack.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Reposted by Dr Moira Nicolson

Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 11d

People who have more complex social identities view political identity as a less reliable source of information about others. Therefore they rely less on group-based stereotypes when judging outgroup members.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103125000915

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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · 12d

In a new paper, we find that sycophantic #AI chatbots make people more extreme--operating like an echo chamber

Yet, people prefer sycophantic chatbots and see them as less biased

Only open-minded people prefer disagreeable chatbots: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Led by @steverathje.bsky.social

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Dr Moira Nicolson @moiranics.bsky.social · 16d

Totally agree although the academic literature also has its own blind spots and issues, publication bias being one well publicised problem. I often think there must be better ways than journals to make high quality knowledge more accessible (even if I agree that open access is a good place to start)

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Dr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.social · 16d

Yes! If we want people to listen to science, then don’t put it all behind a bloody paywall.

Saloni @scientificdiscovery.dev · 16d

In general I think it's hard to combat scientific misinformation when some of the best research is locked behind an academic paywall, while lots of nonsense gets published free for everyone to read in predatory journals.

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John Drury @profjohndrury.bsky.social · 16d

'Groupthink' - a zombie idea in social and organizational psychology, from @bpsofficial.bsky.social @psychmag.bsky.social

(Yes there are drives to uncritical conformity in some groups, but that's because of particular group norms not some quality of being a group)

www.bps.org.uk/psychologist...

Groupthink – a monument to truthiness? | BPS

Ramon J. Aldag re-examines a familiar concept.

www.bps.org.uk

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Reposted by Dr Moira Nicolson

Selena Daly @selenadaly.bsky.social · 20d

Please spread this far and wide! I’m on the convening team of this exciting new IHR seminar series and we are looking forward to hearing about all the cutting-edge research being done by ECRs across the country!

HistoryLab @ihrhistorylab.bsky.social · 20d

📢 New Seminar Series!

We are thrilled to be working alongside @ihr.bsky.social on a brand new seminar series titled Migration and Mobility. We are coming together for a special edition of the seminar to showcase the work of PGRs and ECRs on migration and mobility history (1/3)

Migration and Mobility History

Call for Papers: IHR History Lab and Migration and Mobility Seminar

Taking place at the IHR Senate House and online, 10th February 2026, 5.30pm-7.30pm. The IHR History Lab and Migration and Mobility are coming together for a special edition of our seminar series to showcase the work of PGRs and ECRs working on migration and mobility history.

We invite submissions of 20 minute papers from PGRs and ECRs on the topic of migration and mobility (broadly defined), focusing on any period or place.

This is an opportunity to share your research with, and recieve feedback from, established and emerging scholars working on migration and mobility studies. To apply, send abstracts of under 250 words, with a short bio, to Kathleen Commons at kabcommons@gmail.com by 5pm on 15th November.

Migration and Mobility History

About the Seminars

History Lab is the national network for postgraduate students in history and related disciplines. Based at the Institute of Historical Research, it serves as an intellectual and social forum that connects, empowers, and supports the postgraduate community.

The IHR Migration and Mobility seminar provides a space for historians and scholars from other disciplines to come together to discuss migration and mobility in history. The seminar seeks to attract papers on a diverse range of themes and periods in migration and mobility history, including the emerging field of pre-modern migration histories, and histories of migration within the Global South. We will take an interdisciplinary approach, working with sociologists, legal scholars, and geographers with an interest in historical migration and mobility.

if you have any queries about this seminar, contact Kathleen at kabcommons@gmail.com

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Reposted by Dr Moira Nicolson

Centre for Cities @centreforcities.bsky.social · 22d

If cities cannot get their own university, how much effort should they put into getting a local branch campus? 🎓

@rjson.bsky.social explores in his latest blog👇
buff.ly/EpK0IPM

Branching out: Are campuses an option for cities without universities? - Centre for Cities

Branch campuses can bring a small amount of the benefits that universities bring, but may not be an option for places with struggling economies.

buff.ly

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H. Bell @grudgingcloud.bsky.social · 23d

“In this case, there’s no reason not to credit both scientists, who made original discoveries independently. But Foote got there first. Had she been given the credit she was due at the time-& the institutional support to match-there’s no telling how far her work would have taken her.”

Eunice Foote

Calgary Climate Hub @calgaryclimatehub.ca · 23d

www.openculture.com/2020/01/how-... #ClimateChange

How the Female Scientist Who Discovered the Greenhouse Gas Effect Was Forgotten by History

In the early 19th century, Aristotle’s Meteorologica still guided scientific ideas about the climate.

www.openculture.com

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Reposted by Dr Moira Nicolson

Prof Lorraine Whitmarsh MBE @lwhitmarsh.bsky.social · 27d

😊 Delighted to announce I'll be a Lead Author for ch.8 of @ipcc.bsky.social's Seventh Assessment Report, alongside 663 experts from 111 countries, as part of Working Group III.

Analysis by @carbonbrief.org shows increasing diversity of IPCC authorship: tinyurl.com/462pvby9

#IPCC #ClimateReport

IPCC concludes selection of authors for its Seventh Assessment Report — IPCC

www.ipcc.ch

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John Drury @profjohndrury.bsky.social · 29d

We've found somewhere now...

John Drury @profjohndrury.bsky.social · Sep 8

*Journal editors*: we're looking for a suitable outlet for our paper which provides an indepth analysis of what happened at three of the anti-immigrant riots in the UK last year. Would your journal consider this paper?
Please share?

www.qeios.com/read/17ASAP

Understanding the 2024 Summer Riots in the UK: Three Case Studies

The wave of riots in England in summer 2024 were followed by swift policy responses before any detailed empirical investigation had been carried out. This paper presents case studies of the disorders ...

www.qeios.com

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Reposted by Dr Moira Nicolson

Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · Sep 11

Nice bit of research we supported through a @britishacademy.bsky.social innovation fellowship. By linking census data with health & education administrative data the research shows absences from school significantly contribute to children experiencing mental ill health
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

Chart showing the more school a child misses, the greater the probability that they will experience mental ill health

Source: Bespoke dataset created from Census 2021, NHS Hospital Episode Statistics and Emergency Care Dataset (April 2022 to March 2023), National Pupil Database (September 2021 to August 2022)

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Kate Mackenzie @katemac.bsky.social · Sep 11

We finally FINALLY finished the big insurance piece. There's a LOT that is not in there. But I think we've got a few of the important bits.
TL;DR insurance is extremely interesting, but it's neither the climate problem nor the solution.
www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/ins...

Insurance in the Polycrisis | Kate Mackenzie & Tim Sahay

The future is triage on an uninsurable earth.

www.phenomenalworld.org

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John Drury @profjohndrury.bsky.social · Sep 11

On the anniversary, what do the events of #9-11 tell us?

drury-sussex-the-crowd.blogspot.com/2011/09/what...

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Jay Van Bavel, PhD @jayvanbavel.bsky.social · Sep 8

Extreme views are heavily over-represented on social media

Social platforms’ tendency to reward hostile content creates incentives that systematically reward simplistic messages and extreme positions and this fuels populism www.ft.com/content/9251... via @jburnmurdoch.ft.com

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Dr Moira Nicolson @moiranics.bsky.social · Jul 1

My blog on why Human Behaviour is the missing Piece in AI Safety

Behavioural Public Policy @bppjournal.bsky.social · Jun 30

Beyond Technical Safeguards: Human Behaviour is the Missing Piece in AI Safety

AI safety discussions predominantly focus on easy to conceptualise, highly salient risks including algorithm bias, hallucinations and disinformation. While these are crucial concerns, they overlook a fundamental truth…

Beyond Technical Safeguards: Human Behaviour is the Missing Piece in AI Safety

AI safety discussions predominantly focus on easy to conceptualise, highly salient risks including algorithm bias, hallucinations and disinformation. While these are crucial concerns, they overlook a fundamental truth we've learned from other high-stakes fields like aviation and healthcare: sometimes the most dangerous risks can hide in plain sight. Dr Moira Nicolson and Holly Marquez (Government Communications, Cabinet Office, UK Government) introduce a framework for anticipating and managing these risks, supporting a safer rollout of AI use in the public sector and beyond.

bppblog.com

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Gavin Freeguard @gavinfreeguard.bsky.social · Sep 4

A bit of a comms special - looking forward to hearing from @moiranics.bsky.social and Holly on how they rolled out an AI tool to comms professionals in government, and @bensauer.net on how to be engaging!

Sign up to join us in person or online: luma.com/sm09nslz

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Nicole Hennig @nic221.bsky.social · Sep 2

Why 95% of AI Commentary Fails https://aiascendant.com/p/why-95-of-ai-commentary-fails (so many good points here) #AI #journalism

These are — to understate - not screenshots from a paper saying "95 per cent of
organisations are getting zero return from AI."
Rather, this paper is wildly bullish for the frontier labs, indicating that
1. Al usage is already pervasive in enterprises everywhere
2. the lion's share of it is still accruing to them, despite the efforts of enterprises to keep their tools (and data!) in-house.
...And yet it somehow got reported as, to quote Axios, "an existential risk for a market that's overly tied to the Al narrative." See what I mean about feeling like a conspiracy theorist gleefully aware of the occult truth... just because you actually read the paper?

But you know what else reads freakishly fast, even faster than me, and is fantastically good at accurate summarization?
That's right. GPT-5, and Claude, and Gemini.
A very simple way to avoid being part of the credulous misled masses is this: whenever
you read a story about a paper, run that paper and the story through a frontier model. Have it summarize the paper for you itself, and/or ask if the story has any howling errors or omissions. It's easy, just copy their two URLs into the ChatGPT interface and add your instructions.
No, it will almost certainly not hallucinate.
(Hallucinations usually come from models
'misremembering' their pretraining; here, the paper and report will be in their context window, which they're nowadays very good at recalling.) And the sad reality is that even in the unlikely event it does ... I am confident it will do so much less than, say, modern human reporters.

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Dr Moira Nicolson @moiranics.bsky.social · Aug 19

Lots of my energy colleagues are sharing stories of how they’ve gone about getting their heat pump. This does two things: (1) it shows me that the experts think heat pumps are worth getting and (2) helps me understand how to go about getting one myself. Only works if you have these networks tho.

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Dr Moira Nicolson @moiranics.bsky.social · Aug 19

Great article. To this I would also add that scientists can help just by sharing what steps they’re taking in their personal lives to reduce their climate impact. As you say, scientists are trusted and other people are more likely to act if they’re given social cues from trusted sources.

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Dr. Aaron Thierry @thierryaaron.bsky.social · Aug 19

Pleased to announce that @tristramwyatt.bsky.social & I have a new article out in @uk.theconversation.com, based on work with colleagues from @scientistsforxr.earth

We outline "How scientists can contribute to social movements and climate action"

Here's a thread with some background & key points 🧵

How scientists can contribute to social movements and climate action

Collective action on climate is crucial. Scientists play an important role in driving change.

theconversation.com

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Dr. Ramesh Glückler @rglueckler.bsky.social · Aug 18

Very nice reporting on Portugal's leading role in adapting to more severe #wildfire seasons. Recommendation to watch (airing times in linked article) 🔥🌍🧪

Portugal Fights Severe Wildfires – DW – 08/15/2025

Innovative prevention policies are being implemented in Portugal to combat devastating forest fires.

www.dw.com

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