Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Rebecca Charbonneau @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social · 21h

🚀 We’re hiring a 3-year Postdoctoral Fellow in history of science/STS to join my team at the American Institute of Physics! If you're looking for a fellowship opportunity in the history of the physical sciences post-1850, please see our ad for more details: workforcenow.adp.com/mascsr/defau...

Recruitment

workforcenow.adp.com

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Reposted by Rebecca Charbonneau

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · 14d

At AIP we've launched a new policy research program to go deep on current questions and pull together more comprehensive pictures. Leading this work, Lindsay Milliken has produced her first public product, a primer on the new $100,000 fee on H-1B petitions.

Policy primer: A new $100,000 fee on H-1B Visas

President Trump has issued a proclamation requiring a $100,000 payment for each new H-1B petition. We examine what it does and does not do, how it is being justified, and what developments to look out...

www.aip.org

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Reposted by Rebecca Charbonneau

Trevor Owens @tjowens.bsky.social · Sep 9

📣 AIP's Niels Bohr Library and Archives is collecting personal stories from scientists, engineers, students & others in the physical sciences whose careers have been impacted by recent U.S. policy & funding changes. Learn more about how to get involved here ->
www.aip.org/library/ex-l...

Physical Science Careers Disrupted

Documenting the Impact of Federal Funding & Policy Changes

www.aip.org

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Reposted by Rebecca Charbonneau

Trevor Owens @tjowens.bsky.social · Sep 3

The August edition of the AIP History Monthly is out—and it’s packed with exciting updates, new resources, and ways to get involved in preserving and interpreting the history of the physical sciences. -> www.aip.org/history/aip-...

August 2025

AIP History August Update

www.aip.org

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Physics Today @physicstoday.bsky.social · Sep 3

Despite working in a time of tense diplomatic relations, proxy wars, and budget cuts, many US and Soviet scientists collaborated productively during the 1970s and 1980s, writes Anna Doel. Prior exchanges help better understand the challenges to scientific cooperation today.

https://bit.ly/4neNFWQ

The successes and challenges of US–Soviet scientific communication

Research exchanges between US and Soviet scientists during the second half of the 20th century may be instructive for navigating today’s debates on scientific collaboration.

pubs.aip.org

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Reposted by Rebecca Charbonneau

Tiffany Nichols, JD, PhD @tiffanynichols.bsky.social · Aug 22

Huge thank you to AIP (@aip.bsky.social) History and Rebecca Charbonneau (@rebeccacharbon.bsky.social) for spotlighting my latest article! 🤩 #ligo #physics #history #histstem

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · Aug 22

In this week's history newsletter from AIP, @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social spotlights the new article by @tiffanynichols.bsky.social in Isis, digging into the rise and fall of an early proposal to site a @ligo.org detector in Maine's Blueberry Barrens.

Article spotlight: When LIGO might have been in Maine

AIP History Weekly Edition: August 22, 2025

www.aip.org

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Reposted by Rebecca Charbonneau

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · Aug 22

For the fuller story of how NSF took over site selection and decided to place the detectors at Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana, check out Tiffany's lecture here at AIP this past spring

Tiffany Nichols : An Eclectic Array of Expertise:The Federal-Level Site Selection History of LIGO

YouTube video by AIP History

www.youtube.com

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Reposted by Rebecca Charbonneau

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · Aug 22

AIP historian @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social has a new article out in @physicstoday.bsky.social looking at a US-Soviet collaboration in the 1960s to combine observations of radio telescopes across the globe, a powerful early initiative in very long baseline interferometry.

From radio with love: A Cold War astronomical collaboration

To construct an interferometer with a baseline spanning the planet, US radio astronomers reached out to their Soviet counterparts.

pubs.aip.org

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Reposted by Rebecca Charbonneau

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · Aug 22

In this week's history newsletter from AIP, @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social spotlights the new article by @tiffanynichols.bsky.social in Isis, digging into the rise and fall of an early proposal to site a @ligo.org detector in Maine's Blueberry Barrens.

Article spotlight: When LIGO might have been in Maine

AIP History Weekly Edition: August 22, 2025

www.aip.org

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Rebecca Charbonneau @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social · Aug 20

I wrote a short article on my research in the history of VLBI for Physics Today this week :-) pubs.aip.org/physicstoday...

From radio with love: A Cold War astronomical collaboration

To construct an interferometer with a baseline spanning the planet, US radio astronomers reached out to their Soviet counterparts.

pubs.aip.org

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Reposted by Rebecca Charbonneau

Ethan Siegel @startswithabang.bsky.social · Aug 18

A huge loss for NASA science.

Another self-inflicted wound to our national science portfolio.

SpacePolicyOnline @spacepolicyonline.bsky.social · Aug 18

David Grinspoon confirms that his term appointment as NASA's Senior Scientist for Astrobiology Strategy will not be renewed and the position itself is being eliminated. He'll participate in Wednesday's Astrobiology Update (which is listed on our Calendar).

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Rebecca Charbonneau @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social · Aug 15

Finished knitting my fishy sweater! Now I’m ready for fall.

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Jason Wright @astrowright.bsky.social · Aug 6

It gets worse and worse.

If you're interested in the slow-motion train wreck that is Avi's sci-comm on this, here are some of the latest (it's very hard to keep up!)

In which spacecraft can have comae, 3I/ATLAS has a 60% chance of being alien, and new papers validate and adopt his calculations.

More Avi and 3I/ATLAS

Following up on this and this: Today images from the Hubble Space Telescope were published by Jewitt et al., and they show the coma of 3I/ATLAS very well: Would this be enough to convince Avi that it’...

sites.psu.edu

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Rebecca Charbonneau @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social · Aug 5

More photos from @aip.bsky.social Early Career Conference for Historians of the Physical Sciences! Too bad they couldn’t find us a meeting space with better views ;-)

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Rebecca Charbonneau @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social · Aug 5

You have come up in conversation (very fondly!) by many people here already :-)

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Rebecca Charbonneau @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social · Aug 5

Monkey spotting at lunch during @aip.bsky.social Early Career Conference for Historians of the Physical Sciences in Salvador, Brazil 😆🐒

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Reposted by Rebecca Charbonneau

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · Aug 1

We're heading to Salvador, Brazil, for the Sixth AIP Early-Career Conference for Historians of the Physical Sciences. This #histsci meeting gathers young scholars from the world over to exchange work and build a supportive global community.

Check out what folks are working on these days:

Conference program: Sixth AIP Early-Career Conference for Historians of the Physical Sciences

AIP History Weekly Edition for August 1, 2025

www.aip.org

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Rebecca Charbonneau @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social · Jul 31

I hope you enjoy it! :-)

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Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · Jul 25

I've long been a fanboy of the Cambridge HPS / National Maritime Museum Board of Longitude project. It recovered a rich institutional history from a heavily mythologized narrative and digitized the board's papers too. Its capstone book is an excellent contribution to #histSTM & #scipol studies.

July 25, 2025

Book spotlight: The Board of Longitude

www.aip.org

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Rebecca Charbonneau @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social · Jul 24

Doing a SETI History AMA on r/AskScience, if anyone is curious :-) www.reddit.com/r/askscience...

AskScience AMA Series: I'm a historian of science who studies humanity's search for extraterrestrial intelligence - from our earliest theories to modern SETI. Ask Me Anything!

www.reddit.com

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Reposted by Rebecca Charbonneau

Trevor Owens @tjowens.bsky.social · Jul 18

🔭 Last month, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory wowed the world with its first ultra-high-resolution images. Ahead of Rubin’s 97th on July 23rd, @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social spotlights Rubin's 1989 oral history with Alan Lightman in this week’s AIP History Weekly. -> www.aip.org/history/oral...

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Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · Jul 7

For those who missed it over the 4th, Women in the History of Quantum Physics is a great example of what a multi-author effort can accomplish. Available now from Cambridge UP www.cambridge.org/us/universit...

Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · Jul 4

The volume Women in the History of Quantum Physics is available now! Our weekly newsletter looks at how the authors use women's history to broaden our views of the terrain of quantum science and the professional landscape that women navigated. 📷Jane Dewey & Walter Michels, taken by Sam Goudsmit #hps

July 4, 2025

Book spotlight: Women in the History of Quantum Physics

www.aip.org

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Reposted by Rebecca Charbonneau

Dr. Haris A. Durrani @hdernity.bsky.social · Jun 25

Excited to speak @shafrhistorians.bsky.social #shafr2025 this week - I'll present on Cuba & communications satellite regulation in the global Cold War

Honored to join the panel Empire, Security & Militarism in the Final Frontier w Andrew Ross, @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social, @aaronbateman.bsky.social

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Will Thomas @williamthomas.bsky.social · Jun 13

It was a gravitational spring here at AIP, with our three excellent Trimble lectures:

-Peter Galison on imaging black holes
-Jaco de Swart on the hunt for dark matter particles
-Tiffany Nichols on siting the LIGO gravitational wave detectors

Videos here:
www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Three side-by-side images of, respectively, Peter Galison, Jaco de Swart, and Tiffany Nichols lecturing.

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Rebecca Charbonneau @rebeccacharbon.bsky.social · Jun 12

LOVE Ruby!

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