Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 3h

Save the tigers! The idea of a world without them is so bleak. Luckily, as this suggests, there is hope precisely because extinction is a political choice, not an inevitability, when it comes to our current loss of species.

Wildlife Conservation Society @wcs.org · 3h

Tigers are Critically Depleted, says the species’ first
IUCN Green Status of Species Assessment. But conservation has prevented even greater losses and provides hope for recovery.

🌏 bit.ly/4n2seb0 #IUCNcongress

New IUCN Assessment Finds Hope for Tiger Recovery Despite Critical Depletion

Bronx, NY, October 10, 2025—The first IUCN Green Status of Species assessment for the tiger (Panthera tigris) finds that the world’s largest cat is Critically Depleted after a century of population de...

bit.ly

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 3h

I’ve not heard it yet, but this is such an important point and why trying to establish migration free fortresses will be impossible as well as profoundly unethical as our world changes.

Matthew Jee @freedomforall.net · 19h

@wanderinggaia.bsky.social

Gaia Vince making the positive and plain case for the inevitability of clean energy and necessity for migration on BBC Radio 4 'Radical' with Amol Rajan - very refreshing.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Radical with Amol Rajan - Climate Migration: Confronting the Reality of Global Warming (Gaia Vince) - BBC Sounds

Gaia Vince makes the positive case for immigration despite public concern over the issue.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 3h

Looking back, the history professors were more like some in the job than I could ever have imagined. Crucially, they’re also unlike many of the most amazing historians I know who are recovering the most mind blowing stories imaginable.

Samira Ahmed @samiraahmeduk.bsky.social · 3h

"It's time for..." episode 2 of Through the Square Window. Well, nearly. It's actually out on Wednesday, hosted by @samiraahmeduk.bsky.social and @gkw.bsky.social Looking at shows from October 1990, including...

Reposted by Sadiah Qureshi

Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 14h

Drake lost that rap battle so badly that I wrote about it in my book about SPACE-TIME

A rap battle loss of literally cosmological proportions

Find out how by preordering a copy!!

The Edge of Space-Time by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein: 9780593701683 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

A fresh, charming, socially conscious tour of the mysteries of space-time, from the award-winning author of The Disordered Cosmos In her highly acclaimed debut, distinguished cosmologist and particle...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 14h

Oh my word. What a way to lose, and be remembered (or forgotten).

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Reposted by Sadiah Qureshi

Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 1d

Super excited for the Manchester event as part of this book tour. Link to book tickets below.

The first time I saw Sara give a talk, a friend who also attended told me he’d never seen a room so full of love at a talk. Not to be missed!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sara-ahmed...

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Reposted by Sadiah Qureshi

Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 1d

An astonishing story involving a great deal of impressive detective work to find the last known great auks. The story of their dispersal, literally in terms of organs and skins, and extinction is bleak.

Science Magazine @science.org · 1d

DNA and historical sleuthing have traced the extinct bird’s remains to a museum in Ohio. https://scim.ag/4791YqA

Fate of the last female great auk is finally solved

DNA and historical sleuthing have traced the extinct bird’s remains to a museum in Ohio

scim.ag

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 18h

This collaborative PhD project with the LSE and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, on Planting Decolonization: Plantation Science and Empire in the Twentieth Century, sounds amazing.

I’m sure many of you might be interested.

#STS #HPS #HistSci

www.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse...

LSE Collaborative Studentship with Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

www.lse.ac.uk

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Reposted by Sadiah Qureshi

Caroline Dodds Pennock @carolinepennock.bsky.social · 2d

God bless The Church Times for their ongoing insistence on responding moderately but forcefully to the Reverend Canon Nigel Biggar’s nonsense. www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202...

Even given all that Biggar writes about the universality of slavery and the complicity of Africans, three things might be said. First, Britain played a key part and, however others may want to respond to their own history, it is morally responsible to face up to our own heritage. Second, as a Tory, he might have made more of Burke’s view that society is a partnership not just between the living, but between the living, the dead, and those still to be born. Third, guilt is not the only spur to action. There are the obligations that we owe one another irrespective of any personal responsibility for atrocities in the past.

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 1d

An astonishing story involving a great deal of impressive detective work to find the last known great auks. The story of their dispersal, literally in terms of organs and skins, and extinction is bleak.

Science Magazine @science.org · 1d

DNA and historical sleuthing have traced the extinct bird’s remains to a museum in Ohio. https://scim.ag/4791YqA

Fate of the last female great auk is finally solved

DNA and historical sleuthing have traced the extinct bird’s remains to a museum in Ohio

scim.ag

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 1d

Oh my word. I’d be honoured to sign it after all your words have done to help me write it. So looking forward to seeing you and celebrating your book’s roarsomeness.

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 1d

Super excited for the Manchester event as part of this book tour. Link to book tickets below.

The first time I saw Sara give a talk, a friend who also attended told me he’d never seen a room so full of love at a talk. Not to be missed!

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/sara-ahmed...

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Reposted by Sadiah Qureshi

HistFest @histfest.bsky.social · 1d

"There is a sense of pre-emptive mourning for something that we know is on the way"

Interview: Prof. Sadiah Qureshi on her career, research and latest book, Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction histfest.substack.com/p/there-is-a...

"There is a sense of pre-emptive mourning for something that we know is on the way"

Sadiah Qureshi on her career, research and latest book, Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction

histfest.substack.com

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 1d

Thank you Rebecca. As always, it was a pleasure to talk to you.

Reposted by Sadiah Qureshi

Rebecca Rideal @rebeccarideal.bsky.social · 1d

Loved chatting to the always interesting and thoughtful @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social about her brilliant new book. Listen to the interview via the link below ⬇️

HistFest @histfest.bsky.social · 1d

"There is a sense of pre-emptive mourning for something that we know is on the way"

Interview: Prof. Sadiah Qureshi on her career, research and latest book, Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction histfest.substack.com/p/there-is-a...

"There is a sense of pre-emptive mourning for something that we know is on the way"

Sadiah Qureshi on her career, research and latest book, Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction

histfest.substack.com

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Reposted by Sadiah Qureshi

Anthea Butler @antheabutler.bsky.social · 2d

I'm not a quoter of scripture, but this seemed appropriate for the horror that has been unleashed because of the gutting of USAID.

“Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me.” -Jesus

Starving children screaming for food as US aid cuts unleash devastation and death across Myanmar

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has repeatedly said “no one has died" because of his government’s decision to gut its foreign aid program.

apnews.com

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 2d

It’s revealing how thrown the interviewer is by an answer that is evidently an honest expression of genuinely held political principles, as opposed to the sound bites and weasel words that dominate political interviews in the present.

BBC Newsnight @bbcnewsnight.bsky.social · 2d

“You described Reform and other parties across Europe today as among the 'right wing equivalents of the fascists in the 1930s'. Why?”

“Because that’s what they are”

@vicderbyshire.bsky.social asks Lord Heseltine about remarks he made at Conservative Party Conference.

#Newsnight

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 2d

Apparently generations of scholars interested in canon formation, publishing, and reception have been twiddling their thumbs because they were missing *the thing* to have any answers. 🤨

It’s incredible that people think the theft and environmental damage involved in such uses of AI are worth it.

New Scientist @newscientist.com · 2d

Why do we continue to devour some old books, while others that were popular when published never get picked up? AI may have the answer.

Novels with a certain structure are more likely to be classics

Novels need a gripping story to stay popular as the decades pass, but it seems that other less-obvious factors may also contribute to their lasting success

www.newscientist.com

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 2d

إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعونَ

Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 3d

Now would be a great time to check out this BBC radio 4 series on the far right and racism in Britain by the amazing Camilla Schofield.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

BBC Radio 4 - Britain's Fascist Thread

Camilla Schofield explores the unbroken thread of fascism in Britain.

www.bbc.co.uk

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 3d

And, of course, Brummies are not alone. So many places across the country have fared the same or even worse. In spite of it all, those who call such places home have found ways to survive and thrive *together* and against the odds. We are amazing no matter what any outsider tries to tell us.

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 3d

Brummies have always deserved better than the decades of neglect, underinvestment, and poor management which has caused many of its problems and which have been the butt of so many demeaning jokes. It’s such a shame that visitors can’t acknowledge that reality as they’re so busy running away.

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 3d

As a Brummie, listening to people whine about the city is so tedious. It is a city where so many unwanted people made their home, from the poor to global migrants, and found love, joy, and community while the city was ignored by so many who loathed the place and its people.

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 3d

I grew up in Handsworth. It is one of the most vibrant and diverse places in the UK, whether in terms of complexion or creed. For someone to feel uncomfortable there says everything about the kind of sameness they crave, rather than anything meaningful about Handsworth or Birmingham.

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Sadiah Qureshi @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social · 4d

Briefly here to thank GrrlScientist for this lovely review of Vanished for
@forbes.com.

www.forbes.com/sites/grrlsc...

Also, by the same author a story about a spider that is half male and half female. The picture is extraordinary. www.forbes.com/sites/grrlsc...

Back to my break.

‘Vanished: An Unnatural History Of Extinction,’ By Sadiah Qureshi — Review

A poignant recounting of the tangled and unnatural histories of extinction and empire, and how extinction is not necessarily inevitable but instead, is a political choice.

www.forbes.com

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