Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 4m

It seems like a good #2026MMM adjacent news day, hmm?

Nimblenewt @nimblenewt.bsky.social · 1d

"...they watched in astonishment a brown wormlike creature greedily munching through green clumps of algae as if more than 130 years hadn’t passed since its last meal. Equally oblivious, a host of life – water fleas, worms, plankton – danced and spun around it."
#invertebrates #hope

Creatures buried in soil for over a century burst back to life in Toronto waterfront

A project to restore coastal wetland leads to astonishing discoveries of a host of life: seeds and plant scraps, as well as water fleas, worms, larvae and plankton

www.theguardian.com

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 8m

Carcinization talk! #2026MMM

Jo Wolfe, PhD @jopabinia.bsky.social · 3h

I'm on the BBC talking about (how we won't be) evolving into crabs 🧪🦀

Also features Matt Wills (my academic older brother) and Ned Suesat-Williams (of the crab museum!). Unfortunately they were in London and I on zoom, so there was no time to tell Ned to join here

BBC Audio | The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry | To Crab, or Not to Crab?

Hannah and Dara investigate why nature has evolved the humble crabs so many times.

www.bbc.com

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 20m

Hmm. I think I overcooked it? It didn't rise a lot. That could be old baking powder or maybe something to do with the fat?

Thanks to Martha Stewart for the toothpick cutting tip.

The lower half of a Victoria sponge cake, sliced through the middle, with toothpicks stuck into the sides to help guide the knife. It's dense, without a lot of air bubbles.

Reposted by Orion🌈&sm9eb

Nature @nature.com · 2h

Hopes of securing a United Nations treaty on plastic pollution are fading after the final round of negotiations ended without an agreement.

go.nature.com/3J74xjN

The world’s first plastics treaty is in crisis: can it be salvaged?

Hopes of securing a United Nations treaty on plastic pollution are fading after the final round of negotiations ended without an agreement.

go.nature.com

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 1h

I don't touch it, but students sure do. 😔

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 2h

It reads like chatGPT that has been edited.

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Reposted by Orion🌈&sm9eb

Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes @lemoustier.bsky.social · 5h

🧪🦣🏺 Strong criticisms of recent study claiming super-ancient origin forlineage leading to H. sapiens, which is contradicted by DNA that points strongly to a last common ancestor more like 600,000 years ago rather than +1 million.
Also, geopolitics & nationalism often intersect with #HumanOrigins

Manuel Will @manuelwill.bsky.social · 6h

Fossiler Schädel: Homo sapiens viel älter als angenommen? | via BR24
br.de/nachrichten/... @br24.de
#Evolution #Anthropology

Fossiler Schädel: Homo sapiens viel älter als angenommen?

Bisher waren Forschende sich weitgehend einig: Der Homo sapiens hat sich einst in Afrika entwickelt und von dort aus verbreitet. Eine neue Studie über die Rekonstruktion eines fossilen Schädels aus Ch...

br.de

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 2h

IMAGINE excavating this, my gosh. (For that matter, imagine conserving it, eeek.)

Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 7h

#FindsFriday! A Roman brush found in Bregenz.

Roman brush fragments are sometimes difficult to interpret; in this case, their function may relate to textile production, as suggested for similar finds in Eschenz.The bristled surface is suitable for carding or teasing wool fibers. 🧵1/2

📷 me

🏺

A photo of a well-preserved fragment of a Roman brush in a show case. The object consists of a rectangular base with rounded and scalloped edges, formed from wood into which hundreds of stiff rushes have been densely embedded.

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 2h

I was at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh in August! I didn't see the squirrel print, but there were lots of cats! Check their website!

www.warhol.org

The Andy Warhol Museum

Warhol for All

www.warhol.org

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 2h

Good to know! She whacked me in the head on Monday when I needed to give her fresh sugar water, so I guess she was getting ready for the big trip!

Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 2h

I think with the drop in night temps my little hummingbird Tiktok has begun her southward migration! Yesterday she was missing. Did a hawk hurt her? Did the cold shock her? But the hummingbird frenemies that she fights off constantly aren't here, either!
Fly strong, Tiktok! Come back to me!

a hummingbird sitting on top of a red flower

ALT: a hummingbird sitting on top of a red flower

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by Orion🌈&sm9eb

Anarchopology @anarchopology.bsky.social · 2h

I met Gabi in 2018, when she was a law student at Howard. For over a year I’d see her every 2 weeks as we helped unhoused folks deal with the city during the routine “encampment cleanups.” She taught me so much about homelessness & kindness & hope. Thank you for everything Gabi! RIP.

Remora House DC 🎃 @remorahousedc.bsky.social · 2h

Cant believe it’s been 3 years since we lost Gabi. She was an amazing human.

Her energy lives on in the many lives she has change. If able, donate to The Gabriela I. Sevilla, Esq. Scholarship.
givebutter.com/SevillaESQ

RIP Gabi. Love & Solidarity!

The Gabriela I. Sevilla, Esq. Scholarship

By The Lambda Theta Alpha Foundation

givebutter.com

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Reposted by Orion🌈&sm9eb

Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 1d

Trump has been illegally bombing boats off the coast of Venezuela.

Tim Kaine and Adam Schiff forced a vote on reasserting Congress's role over war powers and ending this reckless
warmongering.

It failed 48-51.

Murkowski and Paul voted yes.

Fetterman voted no.

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 20h

Thank you!

Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 20h

THANK YOU INKY you are a hero! My friend lost her beloved kitty and I'm making her a comforting treat.

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Reposted by Orion🌈&sm9eb

Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 1d

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

nyti.ms

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 20h

Can you substitute shortening (like Crisco) for whatever "buttery spread" is? (Looking at a Mary Berry recipe for Victoria sponge cake.) #GBBO

a cake on a glass stand with powdered sugar on top of it

ALT: a cake on a glass stand with powdered sugar on top of it

media.tenor.com

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 21h

Bad news from Alaska. I cannot emphasize enough that these kind of events there have consequences and issues other places don't face (infrastructure, transportation, food supply).

Dr. Kat Napaaqtuk❄️ @napaaqtuk.bsky.social · 1d

Another "storm of the century" is hitting Kotzebue, for the second year in a row. Last year's storm almost took out my dad's house. Woke up to videos of the flooding and it's already bad. They are expected to get another storm after this one passes.

www.kotz.org/kotz-local-n...

Kotzebue has issued a mandatory evacuation order as flooding from coastal storm begins

Water could rise as much as 10 feet above the high tide line, according the National Weather Service

www.kotz.org

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 21h

Mine is the same species as the one from the gif, but female (and very fierce!).

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 21h

They eat migrating passerines (songbirds) at high altitudes *in flight* in the dark using echolocation to track them!! #2026MMM

(Now I'm worried for my little hummingbird friend Tiktok, who may have started her migration today.)

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · 22h

Fascinating, while at the same time somewhat nightmarish:

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Greater noctule bats prey on and consume passerines in flight

Despite billions of passerines seasonally migrating during the night at high altitudes, only three bat species have been found to consistently tap into this rich prey resource. However, it remains unk...

www.science.org

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 21h

O my noble colleagues in archaeologyland!! Hurry up and sign up for Skype a Scientist! It's Archaeology Month!

Skype a Scientist @skypeascientist.bsky.social · 1d

Look I know it'll shock you to know this, but we are almost out of archeologists AGAIN.

Do you know any archeologists? Are they willing to be matched with a LEGO team?

Please send 'em our way we need all hands on deck (STILL!)

We have had 585 requests for archeologists 🫠
forms.gle/PU3x7oayXGr3...

two men are pushing a small boat through the water .

Alt: Three young men are on a rowboat when it capsizes and then they salute as the ship sinks

media.tenor.com

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 22h

If you want a wonderful museum-related ghost story, I recommend reading The Court of the Stone Children (1973, by Eleanor Cameron). It tells the story of a girl who gets an internship in a late 1780s French manor house transported in its entirety to San Francisco as a house museum.

Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 22h

New adjunct gig just dropped

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Reposted by Orion🌈&sm9eb

Juno Rylee Schultz @junoryleejournalism.com · 1d

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems...
SIMON: What?
SHAPIRO: ...Or saying...
SIMON: You imagine that?
SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over.
SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level.
SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this.
SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

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Orion🌈&sm9eb @sm9eb.bsky.social · 22h

Or garbage that needs to be picked up in highly touristed and photogenic areas. #FreeDC

The Onion @theonion.com · 23h

Bored National Guard Goes Door To Door Asking If Chicagoans Have Any Order They Need Restored https://theonion.com/bored-national-guard-goes-door-to-door-asking-if-chicagoans-have-any-order-they-need-restored/

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