Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Mackenzie Fiss-Nealley, PhD

Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · May 29

Our institutions were never going to save us; they’ve just expanded the demographics of who they’re failing.

I’m seeing a lot of people radicalized for the first time as the scales fall from their eyes. The key is not to become cynical, but to use that energy to liberate one another.

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David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · May 29

AI doesn’t help you work less or get paid more, but does destroy the environment and climate.

Study looking at AI chatbots in 7,000 workplaces finds 'no significant impact on earnings or recorded hours in any occupation'

Despite AI’s promise to revolutionize white-collar work, most workers are using it sparingly—or hiding it from their boss.

fortune.com

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Terry McGlynn @hormiga.bsky.social · May 9

The National Climate Science Graduate Fellowship brought to you by ExxonMobil

Andrew Willoughby @andrewilloughb.bsky.social · May 9

THE NSB (NSF Board) announced the existence and exploration of a pilot program to privatize the GRFP graduate fellowship (my wording). This includes branding opportunities for the companies sponsoring fellowships. This is short sighted and self-destructive, and threatens the mission of the NSF. 1/

Susan E. Brennan @susanelise.bsky.social · May 8

The NSB’s 494th meeting (5/7/25) resurrected a proposal (from the National Defense Education Act of 1958) to solicit public-private partners to provide funds to HMs, “NDEA 2.0” The >3,000 GRFP HMs certainly deserve funding, but it would be far better to convert some of them to NSF GRFP awards. 3/4

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Sarah McAnulty, Ph.D. @sarahmackattack.bsky.social · May 10

“I asked chatGPT-“ ok, and I asked Tinsel, and she said you’re an uninspired, vapid dork who needs a computer to think for them.

Tinsel the calico glares at you with a furrowed brow

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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · May 5

This study was:
-done by immigrant scientists, who are now being turned away from the United States by the Trump regime,
-funded by the U.S. Dept of Energy, which is being defunded and purged by the Trump regime
-hosted at a public university experiencing vast Trump regime funding freezes

KXAN News @kxan.com · May 5

New research from the University of Texas may give the U.S. an added edge in the race toward rare element dominance.

Rare earth element extraction tech may give US a new edge in China trade war

Researchers at the University of Texas have developed a new method for extracting rare earth elements, such as lanthanum, using tiny tubes made of proteins. This process is similar to how cells in …

www.kxan.com

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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · May 1

Nature reports that the National Science Foundation has stopped awarding new grants and allotting funds to existing ones. All of them. @colincarlson.bsky.social says that unless the freeze is lifted, it “is going to destroy people's labs.” 2/10
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Exclusive: NSF stops awarding new grants and funding existing ones

US science funder also plans to screen grant applications for compliance with ‘agency priorities’.

www.nature.com

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Katie Matthews, PhD @katieocean.bsky.social · Apr 18

busy busy busy at work

hard to manage one's natural resources if you've fired all the resource managers

Oceana @oceana.bsky.social · Apr 18

The Trump admin’s new executive orders claim to “strengthen” U.S. fishing—but they do the opposite.

They roll back protections, threaten marine life, and hurt the very fishers they allege to help. oceana.ly/3EpbzOA

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Hank Green @hankgreen.bsky.social · Apr 13

Eugenicists are so stupid.

David Higgins @drhigginsmd.bsky.social · Apr 11

The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services has repeatedly claimed: “If you’re healthy, it’s almost impossible to die from an infectious disease in modern times.”

That is dangerously false.

www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...

Experts Push Back on RFK Jr’s Infection Comments

The new Secretary of Health and Human Services has made claims about measles and other communicable diseases that could lead to sickness, and even death, his critics claim.

www.medscape.com

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Sherrilyn Ifill @sifill.bsky.social · Apr 12

I pray you’ll read my latest. We are being challenged as a nation and this is a test we must pass.

open.substack.com/pub/sherrily...

Americans Must Prepare to Fight for the Citizenship Rights of U.S. Prisoners

Trump's Plan to Render U.S. Citizens to Foreign Jails Seeks to Exploit Americans' Disinterest in the Rights of Prisoners

open.substack.com

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Heba Gowayed هبة جويد @hebagowayed.bsky.social · Apr 7

Sorry to be a buzz kill but "Deport Elon" & "Send Trump to El Salvador" are not slogans that move us forward.

They center individuals & not the system they're wielding for new cruelties. They accept the use of torture as punishment & they minimize violence people are enduring now. 1/

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Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley @pressley.house.gov · Apr 3

🚨UPDATE: Rümeysa Öztürk has now suffered three separate asthma attacks while in DHS custody.

She has not received her required asthma medications—a violation of her fundamental right to medical care.

This is cruelty, it is neglect, and it is a damning moral and legal failure.

Pressley, Warren, Markey Sound Alarm on Rümeysa Öztürk’s Medical Neglect, Renew Urgent Calls for Her Release (1/2):

“It is unconscionable that Rümeysa Öztürk—a young woman pursuing her education, exercising her First Amendment rights, and contributing to her community—remains detained by DHS. Her ongoing incarceration is not only a blatant violation of her constitutional rights to due process and free speech, but it is now an egregious denial of her fundamental right to medical care.

Pressley, Warren, Markey Sound Alarm on Rümeysa Öztürk’s Medical Neglect, Renew Urgent Calls for Her Release (2/2):

“According to her lawyer, Rümeysa has not received her required asthma medications and has now suffered three separate asthma attacks while in custody. This is cruelty, it is neglect, and it is a damning moral and legal failure.

“As her representatives in Congress, we demand DHS immediately provide Rümeysa with access to the health care she needs, and absent compelling evidence justifying her detention and the revocation of her status, we call for Ozturk’s release and the restoration of her visa. Every minute she remains in custody is another minute her health and rights are at risk, and DHS must move with urgency.”

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · Mar 23

every person involved in this needs to be in prison

Jenny Cohn @jennycohn.bsky.social · Mar 22

“One young man sobbed when a guard pushed him to the floor. He said, ‘I’m not a gang member. I’m gay. I’m a barber.’ I believed him. *** He “began to whimper,” as his head was roughly shaved, “folding his hands in prayer as his hair fell.” He “asked for his mother & cried as he was slapped again.”

What the Venezuelans Deported to El Salvador Experienced

Exclusive photos of the arrival of Venezuelan detainees deported from the U.S.

time.com

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Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · Mar 23

Columbia University agreed to a mask ban to appease Trump.

The school is no longer safe for disabled individuals, not to mention anyone who protests or speaks out on civil rights or Palestine.

Whatever your politics, mask bans should enrage you. They violate our freedom to avoid infection.

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Chris Hayes @chrislhayes.bsky.social · Mar 14

This is the gold standard measure of atmospheric carbon, the one you see in almost every chart that tracks emissions.

The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com · Mar 14

The Trump administration is planning to cancel its lease at a government laboratory in Hawaii, a site where scientists support key observations of surging greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, according to a list obtained by Democratic members of Congress and shared with The Post.

Trump moves to close facility that helps track planet-warming pollution

The lab is connected to the Mauna Loa Observatory, where scientists gather data to produce the Keeling Curve, a chart on the daily status of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

www.washingtonpost.com

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David Green, PhD @ecologistgreen.bsky.social · Mar 10

And so it begins — NIH is planning to terminate active grants that no longer meet the agency's "priorities".

Grants that were already approved for funding through peer review.

The pursuit of knowledge should be apolitical, inclusive, and forward-thinking.

🧪 #PeerReview #DefendResearch

Exclusive: NIH to terminate hundreds of active research grants

Studies that touch on LGBT+ health, gender identity and DEI in the biomedical workforce could be terminated, according to documents obtained by Nature.

www.nature.com

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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · Mar 6

"You have made me feel like I do not belong in science & I cannot forgive you for that."

BRAVO to this student. While I am so disappointed we are still navigating misoogyny in our educational and professional spaces, I am so grateful we have a generation who name it so clearly and capably.

Adriana Guatame-García @adrianaguatame.bsky.social · Mar 6

A friend included this anti-acknowledgement section on her PhD thesis. She also added the proposition: “Systematic bullying and undermining of girls and women in STEM starts early on and is the reason why they do not stay in science and related fields.”
Absurd we still need to go through this
🧪👩‍🔬

There have been people less than helpful in my journey here. I wanted to acknowledge those too, bc I know I am not unique in this experience.
No thank you to the physics study assoc that made me sing songs about how women couldn't study physics without sleeping with the professor, the day I stepped into university life. No thank you to the 5th year physics student that decided to assign me a stripper name within the first minute of meeting me in the physics coffee corner in my first year. No thank you to the technician that was responsible for onboarding me on the use of the cluster in my third year who raised his eyebrows and asked me if that meant I was some sort of computer girl. No thank you to the senior researcher that sent me utterly inappropriate texts after a conference, then proceeded to apologise months later by telling me they had not been meant for me anyway so no hard feelings remain hopefully And no thank you to him for attending every conference I've been to since. No thank you to the people who told me that it was surprising that I was doing a PhD since I was a girl. No thank you to the man who mistook me for a coffee lady at a conference, and after having to correct him two times that I did not work there, responded with you should consider it. No thank you to the researcher that asked me what I was wearing underneath my outfit during a conference. No thank you to the physicist who declared to a room full of other physicists that biologists don't know how to design an experiment. No thank you to the people who have called me scary instead of strong and intimidating instead of intelligent.
And finally, no thank you to the exec board of the TU Delft, whose knee-jerk reaction to being held up a mirror about the social safety at the university, was to sue the party holding up the mirror instead of looking at the problems they highlighted.
... You have made me feel like I do not belong in science & I cannot forgive you for that.

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Daniel Collins @watercyclist.bsky.social · Mar 4

For something completely different from my normal fare, a piece of glaciological art I recently completed.

'Fox Glacier, not looking up'

Draws from a 19th C watercolour, glacier length time-series, and reference to a painter who drew inspiration from a geologist.

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Reposted by Mackenzie Fiss-Nealley, PhD

Andrew J. Hawkins @andyjayhawk.bsky.social · Mar 3

DOGE is gutting the federal agency that leads climate research and oversees the weather service, laying off 10% of staff (with the ultimate goal of eliminating 50%) and cancelling office leases, @justcalma.bsky.social scoops www.theverge.com/news/622990/...

The US faces ‘devastating’ losses for weather forecasts, federal workers say

“If these cuts continue, you will feel them personally.”

www.theverge.com

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Mark Copelovitch @mcopelov.bsky.social · Feb 22

The entire business model of American R1 universities is not viable without restoration of federal funding, & every individual institution pretending it can solve this problem alone is also not viable. University presidents need to be speaking out, collectively & loudly about this, in DC, right now.

WESA @wesa.fm · Feb 21

The University of Pittsburgh confirmed Friday that there would be no new Ph.D. offers of admission while Pitt works to understand how reduced federal aid could impact the institution.

The University of Pittsburgh pauses its Ph.D. admissions process amid research funding uncertainty

A spokesperson for the University told WESA Friday that the school has "temporarily paused additional Ph.D. offers of admission," while Pitt works to understand how proposed federal funding cuts could...

www.wesa.fm

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SK Winnicki, PhD 🏳️‍⚧️ @skwinnicki.bsky.social · Feb 22

The US prison system is intentionally cruel and evil, but this is especially cruel and evil, even by their standards:

Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · Feb 22

Trump's DOJ is preparing to put all incarcerated transgender women into men's facilities as early as next week, and according to NPR "the bureau is well aware of concerns about potential risks of assault, sexual violence and suicides"

Federal prisons prep to move trans inmates as early as next week

The Bureau of Prisons is moving forward with plans to move transgender inmates out of prisons that align with their gender identity and into facilities that align with their assigned sex at birth.

www.npr.org

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CoreyWelch_STEM @coreywelch.bsky.social · Feb 19

Just saw an email sent to a student of mine from a REU canceling their program due to staffing & federal research funding uncertainties.

A REU was when I internalized my science ID & applying to grad school.

If this continues, it will devastate my students #1 pathway to STEM careers.

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The Transmitter @thetransmitter.bsky.social · Feb 18

A large portion of grants awarded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health cannot be funded for the foreseeable future because of an indefinite hold on submissions to the Federal Register, according to an email reviewed by The Transmitter.

By @avaskham.bsky.social

bit.ly/3X8ngz8

Federal Register hold makes ‘end run’ around court pause on NIH funding freeze

www.thetransmitter.org

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Erin Biba @erinbiba.bsky.social · Feb 17

This commission statement refers to people with Autism, ADHD, asthma, auto-immune disease, and chronic illness as a “dire threat to the American people and our way of life”.

This is a manifesto against disability.

This is the language of eugenics.

Establishing the President's Make America Healthy Again Commission

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.

www.whitehouse.gov

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Angeline J. Dukes, PhD @heydrdukes.bsky.social · Feb 17

Our #MINDS post-bacc program is accepting applications til March 1st! ✨

✅ two-years full-time PAID research
✅ $41,000 annual salary +benefits
✅ personalized grad school prep & cohort of peers
✅ $1,500 to relocate + $1,500 in prof dev funds
✅ dedicated mentors
+ more!

z.umn.edu/minds
Please share ✨

A group selfie of the 2024-25 cohort of MINDS post-baccalaureate scholars and their program director at the 2024 ABRCMS conference. This diverse group of historically marginalized scholars are all dressed up in conference attire and smiling widely for the photo.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @aoc.bsky.social · Feb 14

It is perfectly legal to know your rights and to educate others about them, too.

EVERYONE in the United States, citizen or not, has rights. I will not allow this administration to intimidate us from helping you know about them.

Here’s our shareable guide ⬇️: (pt. 1/2)

KNOW YOUR
RIGHTS
IN CASE OF ICE:
CONOCE TUS DERECHOS
EN CASO DE ENCUENTRO CON ICE:

DO NOT OPEN YOUR DOOR.
ICE cannot enter your home without a warrant signed by a judge.
Tell the agents to show you the warrant by sliding it under the door.
NO ABRAS TU PUERTA.
ICE no puede entrar a tu casa sin una orden firmada por un juez. Diles a los agentes que te muestren la orden deslizándola debajo de la puerta.

ASK THEM
TO LEAVE.
If ICE doesn't have a warrant, tell them you do not consent for them to enter your home and ask them to leave. At work, ICE cannot enter employee-only areas without permission.
2
PÍDALES QUE SE VAYAN.
Si ICE no tiene una orden judicial, diles que no das tu consentimiento para que entren a tu casa y pídeles que se vayan. En el trabajo, ICE no puede ingresar a áreas exclusivas para empleados sin permiso.

REMAIN SILENT.
You have the right to remain silent.
If the agents ask you questions, tell them,
"I wish to remain silent."
PERMANECE EN SILENCIO.
Tienes derecho a permanecer en silencio.
Si los agentes te hacen preguntas, diles:
"Deseo permanecer en silencio".

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