Ashwin Suryanarayanan
LightNews LightNews
banner
antxieti.bsky.social
Ashwin Suryanarayanan
@antxieti.bsky.social
310 followers 420 following 4 posts
PhD student at Uni Liverpool studying sexual selection in fruit flies. Interested in bugs, behaviour, evolution, and eco-socialism. Previously at NCBS Bangalore and IISER Kolkata. he/him
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
georgemonbiot.bsky.social
Keeping people in poverty is an expensive luxury.
My column on the false economies of austerity, which costs us all a fortune. Despite the government's claims, austerity continues under Labour. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
It hurt when I crashed my bike into a pothole – and it taught me the true price of austerity | George Monbiot
Fixing that hole could have cost under £100; the cost of not doing so is limitless. My prang highlights the neoliberal folly of false economies, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
www.theguardian.com
October 4, 2025 at 6:24 AM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
joshdzieza.bsky.social
I wrote about how Wikipedia became the factual foundation of the web and why it's under attack
Wikipedia is under attack — and how it can survive
The site’s volunteers face threats from Trump, billionaires, and AI.
www.theverge.com
September 4, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
nkalamb.bsky.social
Now this is a journalist who deserves respect.
August 26, 2025 at 1:01 AM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
abcmicrogrants.bsky.social
We believe that diversity & inclusion are a must for good science. This is why we support students from historically excluded groups, including LGBTQIA+ students. With this year's anti-LGBTQIA+ and specifically anti-trans measures, we feel it's more important than ever to state this.
A circle of eleven ABC logo bees in the colours of the progress pride flag surrounding a text saying happy pride month, we at ABC support and celebrate all LGBTQIA+ students & scientists
June 20, 2025 at 11:11 AM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
aljazeera.com
‘I just want bread’

This elderly Palestinian man, Sameer, broke down in tears from extreme hunger caused by Israel’s blockade in Gaza. At least 1 in 5 Palestinians faces starvation in Gaza as Israel continues attacks.
May 21, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
stephenkb.bsky.social
One thing that is irksome about the “actually the island of strangers is about social isolation” line is okay, how does doubling the permanent residency requirement *help* with this?
cjayanetti.bsky.social Chaminda Jayanetti @cjayanetti.bsky.social · May 14
The doubling of the period for migrants to qualify for permanent residency is something the online hard right has been ranting and raving about because - let's be blunt - they don't like foreigners and they're worried these foreigners might end up voting Labour
May 14, 2025 at 12:37 PM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
georgemonbiot.bsky.social
The BBC is institutionally biased towards the right and the far right, and here's the proof: the results of an almost perfect before-and-after experiment.
My column today.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The BBC is utterly beholden to the right. Why else would it fear a podcast about heat pumps? | George Monbiot
The broadcaster behaves like Starmer’s government: suppress the left, cave to your critics, and undermine your own survival, writes Guardian columnist George Monbiot
www.theguardian.com
May 1, 2025 at 5:26 AM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social
sometimes people say "___ is a bubble" and mean that ___ is an environment that exceptionally distorts and disfigures people's perceptions of what the world is like, and sometimes people say "___ is a bubble" and mean that ___ doesn't contain statistically representative samples of every Type of Guy
April 7, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
jasonkoebler.bsky.social
75 people at the New York Times arguing over whether to call the plan to build Trump hotels in Gaza “audacious,” “bold,” or “visionary”
ndhapple.bsky.social Dolan's Knicks @ndhapple.bsky.social · Feb 5
Copy desks are good! Having people argue over headlines and adjectives before publication is a good thing! Getting it right and being 30 seconds slower is better than off-kilter and being 30 seconds faster.
February 5, 2025 at 3:09 AM
antxieti.bsky.social
February 5, 2025 at 2:19 AM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
rosemarymosco.com
While I work on this year's valentine, here's last year's.
A four-panel comic. In panel 1, a wood frog stands on a pink background. The text says: "Feeling unlucky in love? Did you know that male Wood Frogs have difficulty perceiving members of their species? Here are some things they’ve been documented trying to mate with." "Spotted Salamander." The wood frog looks at a large yellow-spotted salamander, with a heart over the frog's head. "Cattail." The frog looks amorously at a large cattail flower or "sausage." "Green frog." The wood frog looks at a large confused-looking green frog. "Dead fish." The wood frog stares at a large dead fish. "Live fish." The wood frog looks amorously at a large trout. "Pine cone." The wood frog looks at a large pine cone. The final text says: "Sorry, there's no moral here. I just thought you'd enjoy this fact about frogs."
February 4, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
erininthemorning.com
This is my favorite picture of Stonewall.

They knew they were getting arrested just for being LGBTQ+.

Yet... they're still here, standing outside of the boarded up Stonewall Inn, smiling as the world was at a fever pitch of hatred against them.

I think about it a lot in moments like this.
January 29, 2025 at 3:18 AM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
theguardian.com
A cicada: ‘What cicadas leave behind is a kind of crystallised memory’ | Helen Sullivan
A cicada: ‘What cicadas leave behind is a kind of crystallised memory’ | Helen Sullivan
Part of their body is hollow, this amplifies the sound. The longer you listen to their sound, the more they seem to sync up Of all the languages’ words for cicada, Croatian’s might be the best: cvrčak, pronounced: tvr-chak. The sound it makes is “tvr-chi…
www.theguardian.com
December 31, 2024 at 12:28 AM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
askylitocean.bsky.social
Lucy Grossmith, Mumurations over Fields
January 4, 2025 at 10:24 AM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
askylitocean.bsky.social
Fumi Yanagimoto
January 4, 2025 at 8:16 PM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
catsofyore.bsky.social
Girl with Cat. Ca. 1940 - 1952. portlandartmuseum.us/mwebcgi/mweb...
Highly stylized print of a young girl and cat face to face in profile. The girl's girl is composed of bold black lines in a geometrical bob cut and a dark red leaf-like shape surrounds her eye, pointing up. The space behind her is filled with the same red as the leaf. The cat is black with a huge, round white eye crossed. over with a slim black pupil and a slash of the same red of the leaf and the space behind the girl. Everything about it bold, strong, striking.
December 28, 2024 at 1:26 AM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
lauraruis.bsky.social
Do you know what rating you’ll give after reading the intro? Are your confidence scores 4 or higher? Do you not respond in rebuttal phases? Are you worried how it will look if your rating is the only 8 among 3’s? This thread is for you.
November 27, 2024 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
rosemarymosco.com
Happy Christmas Eve. Every year I inflict this upon you, one of my least popular comics ever. Enjoy!
A 6-panel comic. In panel 1, two people talk against a snowy backdrop. In panel 1, the first person says "Did you know that if you rearrange the letters in SANTA, you get something sinister?" and the other says, "Yes: A ANTS." In panel 2, the first person says "Wait, no, that's-" The second says, "How do you think Santa finds his way to all those homes at night? Pheromone trails!" In panel 3, we're down in an ant nest. "Once the night is over, Santa returns to the North Pole, mates with the Queen Claus, and dies." There's a festive ant nest with an ant-bodied Mr and Ms Claus looking at each other lovingly. Panel 4, "The Queen begins laying eggs that will hatch into next year’s workers." The Queen lays eggs, and the workers are ant larvae with elf heads. Panel 5, "Next December, she will produce fertile Queens and Santas and the cycle will begin anew." The Queen lays eggs with both Santa and Ms Claus heads. In panel 6, we return to the two people talking, and the second person says "Of course, one queen must best the rest in combat, and the workers can't interfe-" "Stop." "But I haven't told you about the Santa-mimic spiders!"
December 24, 2024 at 3:03 PM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
bengoldfarb.bsky.social
New from me, in the New Yorker: In 2015, I co-discovered a population of non-native Italian wall lizards dwelling in my hometown. Their origins, though, remained a mystery—until this spring, when I learned of a rogue biologist with a shocking secret... #longreads

www.newyorker.com/news/the-wee...
The Lizard King of Long Island
Jon Sperling secretly spread a non-native species across the Northeast. “It’s insane what this guy was doing,” a biologist said.
www.newyorker.com
November 16, 2024 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
official-bweems.bsky.social
In case you missed it, our mini grants application opens up on January 6th, 2025.

This program is designed for our members to apply for funding for research, travel, personal expenses, etc.
December 12, 2024 at 6:42 PM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
matthewcobb.bsky.social
Once more on Crick and the Central Dogma! press.asimov.com/articles/crick
Francis Crick Was Misunderstood
The Central Dogma is not a
press.asimov.com
December 1, 2024 at 5:26 PM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
jgilligan.org
Today (Dec. 1) is World AIDS Day. Spare a thought for all those who perished. 🌈🏳️‍🌈

www.instagram.com/p/DDC6vPzPj5...
A photo of the San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus, taken in 1993. Five men, dressed in white are the surviving members of the original choir. 115 other men, dressed in black, stand in for the original members who died of AIDS. A caption reads, "How are so many young people LGBGQ all of a sudden? Where are all the older queer people?"
December 1, 2024 at 8:19 PM
Reposted by Ashwin Suryanarayanan
popgengoogling.bsky.social
Is it p-hacking if I ate only the biggest fruit flies
November 23, 2024 at 12:15 PM