Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 8h

#edusky

ProPublica @propublica.org · 8h

The Education Department has hired at least 9 people from the America First Policy Institute, co-founded by Secretary Linda McMahon.

The think tank’s listed goals include ending the separation of church and state and “plant[ing] Jesus in every space.”

These Activists Want to Dismantle Public Schools. Now They Run the Education Department.

Under Trump, the Department of Education has been bringing in activists hostile to public schools. It could mean a new era of private and religious schools boosted by tax dollars — and the end of publ...

www.propublica.org

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RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 15h

I’m pretty sure that #science doesn’t quite work like this

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18h

RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: "It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."

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RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 15h

This is an #ai issue in addition to an #energy and #climate one

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 15h

BlackRock is seeking to buy Aligned Data Centers, a data center construction company.

It’s also going to buy AES, one of the major power providers for Big Tech data centers.

While these data centers drive up your electricity costs, wealthy financiers are going to make a killing.

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RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 1d

Can you point them to your IRB with an approved protocol?

RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 1d

Omg 😂

RiotGrlErin @riotgrlerin.bsky.social · 1d

horror movie posters but with muppets: thread

Oscar the Grouch in the movie poster for Alien.

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RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 1d

Crazy story but check out the subplot ✈️ 🛬

Kashmir Hill @kashhill.bsky.social · 1d

This is absolutely wild. I’m on a cross country flight. We are being diverted midway through to Denver. The reason? Some dude is sitting in the exit row who didn’t pay the $155 fee and he refuses to move back to his seat.

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RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 1d

This is just dangerous for the country, humanity, business, and science. Period

Meade Krosby @meadekrosby.bsky.social · 1d

The new head of NOAA, in addition to having violated the agency's code of ethics by criticizing NWS forecasters as part of Sharpiegate, said in his confirmation hearing that "he stood by the Trump administration’s proposals to dismantle much of NOAA’s climate science enterprise."

Guest link.

Senate Confirms ‘Sharpiegate’ Meteorologist to Lead NOAA

www.nytimes.com

RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you!🙏🏻

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RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 1d

Have you ever made a gluten free bread that you liked and would recommend? I really miss 🍞 bread

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RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 3d

Wtaf #astronomy

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 3d

Whisper: Maybe we should stop messing with the radiative balance of Earth.

Plan to Reflect Sunlight to Power Solar Panels at Night Upsets Astronomers

Reflect Orbital aims to launch its first of a planned 4,000 satellites into orbit next year. Scientists worry that it would be “ruinous” for research.

www.bloomberg.com

RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 3d

“The issue is that, under our laws and Constitution and the American tradition of academic freedom, the executive branch cannot coerce independent institutions of higher learning to “align” with the ideological orthodoxies of the moment.” #mit 👏

Nancy Kanwisher @nancykanwisher.bsky.social · 3d

I am proud of MIT, where our branch of AAUP has voted unanimously to endorse this statement urging MIT leadership and the MIT Corporation to reject the Compact wholesale
docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Letter Regarding Compact

MIT Chapter of the American Association of University Professors October 6, 2025 Statement on the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” MIT has been invited by the federal governmen...

docs.google.com

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RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 3d

a man is sitting on a couch playing two drums .

ALT: a man is sitting on a couch playing two drums .

media.tenor.com

RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 3d

Gluten free!! 🙏🏻

RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 4d

Save NASA #science

SpacePolicyOnline @spacepolicyonline.bsky.social · 4d

Govt shutdown notwithstanding, we have a pick of the week: The Planetary Society et al press conference tmrw (Monday) from the Capitol re saving NASA science (livestreamed).
What’s Happening in Space Policy October 5-11, 2025 spacepolicyonline.com/news/whats-h...

RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 4d

Wobbly Life (good citizen examples)

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RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 4d

#boston #ma #aca cost increases!!

Charles Ghoul-ba ✡️ @charlesgaba.com · 9d

6. #MASSACHUSETTS ~400,000 ACA enrollees

Avg gross rate change: +11.4% (FINAL)
Avg gross 2026 premium: $609/mo
NET 2026 increase for 64-yr old couple earning $90K/yr if the enhanced tax credits expire: +173%

Massachusetts: Breakout of ACA enrollment by House district

Massachusetts: Impact on net benchmark Silver ACA plan premiums if enhanced tax credits expire

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RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 4d

Really?!

Ami - Tiny Retro Robot 💾 🏳️‍⚧️ @amithero.bot · 4d

You ever think about how big bird was supposed to be on the challenger space shuttle that day it exploded

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RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 4d

🌲🌳🪾

Katie Holten @katieholten.bsky.social · 5d

Nature and the environment permeate the language viscerally. Irish predates English by a millennium. Its early writing system, Ogham, written vertically as a series of lines and strokes, has an alphabet based on trees. The Irish language is a joy.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Illustration of a new Irish Tree Alphabet. Twenty-six trees represent each letter of the English alphabet. At the bottom of the image are lines representing the Ogham alphabet, horizontal and vertical lines, looking like simple trees.

The Irish Tree Alphabet draws trees from existing native as well as non-natives that are now calling Ireland home due to the changing climate.

The trees are drawn in ink with colored water pencil filling in the leaves and fruit.

The work is rooted in the medieval Ogham alphabet which was used to write the early Irish language. The characters or letters were called feda "trees", or nin "forking branches" due to their shape.

Each letter of the Latin alphabet is given a corresponding tree: A = Ailm (Scots Pine), B = Beith (Birch), B = Coll (Hazel), etc.

The tree drawings were turned into a font called Irish Trees.

Irish Tree Alphabet by Katie Holten was made for Visual Carlow in 2020. The font is available to download, so everyone can write with Irish Trees.

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RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 4d

Ummm 👀🛰️☄️💥

Erik Hoffner @erikhoffner.bsky.social · 4d

1 or 2 Starlink satellites fall to Earth daily, says astrophysicist @planet4589.bsky.social

The top source on this says there will be *up to 5 reentries daily* as 30K satellites are set to crowd the sky

Might not be long before you see a fiery object slowly burn across the sky, w/ unknown impact:

RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 5d

It is that we are hiding proof of alien life and that ufos visiting us are real.

RachelbC 🌎🚀🛰️🔭💫🧪 @rachelbc.bsky.social · 5d

Trying to better utilize @evernote.bsky.social since the cost went up, but it really has a lot of bugs now! What the heck happened to it?! Considering the painful idea of migrating to ... [insert recommendations here]