Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Sarah Cooley

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · 19d

What’s a pirate’s favorite computer programming language?

You’d think it’s R, but no, their first love will always be the C.

Happy talk like a pirate day!

a man with a beard is wearing a pirate costume and laughing .

ALT: a man with a beard is wearing a pirate costume and laughing .

media.tenor.com

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Aug 6

Today I got a *personalized* letter from Department of Commerce confirming that I was in fact fired. It's so weird, their letters say ⬇️ but they keep getting in touch.

a woman is sitting on a couch and says we are never ever ever getting back together

Alt: Taylor Swift, wearing a red shirt, is sitting on a white armchair and says "we are never ever ever getting back together" while making a "no" gesture with her pointer fingers.

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by Sarah Cooley

The Onion @theonion.com · Aug 5

‘Seek Funding’ Step Added To Scientific Method

PARIS—In an effort to modernize the principles and empirical procedures of examining phenomena and advancing humanity’s collective knowledge, the International Council for Science announced Thursday t...

theonion.com

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Aug 5

Get ready for the other nations that have satellite CO2 observing capabilities to begin selling us data to help American farmers manage American agriculture.

www.npr.org/2025/08/04/n...

Why a NASA satellite that scientists and farmers rely on may be destroyed on purpose

The Trump administration has asked NASA staffers to draw up plans to end at least two satellite missions that measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to current and former NASA employees.

www.npr.org

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Jul 24

So you’re saying I should have also bought a lottery ticket today?! Darn it! 🎰

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Jul 24

TIL that my annual leave payout is still being processed. On the plus side, the email reply from talent management came the same day I asked, which is a new and exciting development.

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Jul 22

I just went through this mini-course on LLMs/AI and it's worth the time! It expands on ideas that were kind of vaguely forming in my head and has a lot of great references for further reading. thebullshitmachines.com/index.html

Modern-Day Oracles or Bullshit Machines: Introduction

A free online humanities course about how to learn and work and thrive in an AI world.

thebullshitmachines.com

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Reposted by Sarah Cooley

The Onion @theonion.com · Jul 21

EPA To Drop 'E,' 'P' From Name
theonion.com/epa-to-...

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Reposted by Sarah Cooley

Yale Climate Connections @climateconnections.bsky.social · Jul 17

Toughness won’t stop droughts. Domination won’t prevent floods. But care, cooperation & equality just might help us get through it. We can’t fix the climate crisis without transforming masculinity, writes Ishimwe Félicien:

yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/07/toxi...

Toxic masculinity isn’t just a social issue. It prevents us from fully addressing climate change, too. » Yale Climate Connections

Social norms that welcome men into caregiving and cooperation strengthen communities as they face climate shocks.

yaleclimateconnections.org

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Jul 15

How many people are starting to make an “in case of flash flooding I’ll do this” plan (no matter how vague) when they receive a flood warning? 🙋🏼‍♀️

Kate Marvel @drkatemarvel.bsky.social · Jul 15

The National Climate Assessment may have been deleted but the planet keeps reminding us what it said

graphic showing increases in extreme precipitation across the continental US

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Reposted by Sarah Cooley

Sarah Taber @sarahtaber.bsky.social · Jul 13

Ex-farm worker here.

We need to talk about this whole "But a living wage for farm workers would spike the cost of food!" thing.

Not true AT ALL.

Y'all don't understand how fast experienced farm workers are.

The average tomato picker pulls 650lbs per hour.

At $20/hr, that's $0.03/lb for labor.

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Jul 13

👏 Don’t 👏 be 👏 fooled! 👏 Climate change is still bad and needs action at all levels! But we KNOW how to act.

Valérie Masson-Delmotte @valmasdel.bsky.social · Jul 12

theconversation.com/can-you-trus...

Can you trust climate information? How and why powerful players are misleading the public

Powerful corporations, governments and political parties intentionally spread false information about climate change to avoid ending greenhouse gas emissions.

theconversation.com

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Jul 12

I think they were dead for a different (explainable) reason but it made me think hard about what happens if more go away.

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Jul 12

I’d have to dig back but they were OCADS related, specifically SOCAT I think.

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Reposted by Sarah Cooley

Paul Voosen @voosen.me · Jul 10

Senate appropriators showed today they are *not* down with Trump's proposed budget cuts for NASA and NSF. (Likely NOAA too, but can't say for 100% yet.)

Long way to go to a law. But this is rare good news for scientists this year.

www.science.org/content/arti...

www.science.org

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Reposted by Sarah Cooley

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · Jul 10

Everyone is acting like US scientists will just go get science jobs elsewhere and sure some will but there are not anywhere close to enough science jobs elsewhere.

The end result of this will be much, much, much less science, not science happening in different places.

Nancy Parmalee @nparmalee.bsky.social · Jul 10

People are talking about the imminent brain drain of US researchers to other countries but that’s not the only way it’s going to look. There is going to be a brain drain out of science and into other US sectors. There are a lot of non-science things you can do with a Ph.D.

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Reposted by Sarah Cooley

Paige Vega @paigeblank.bsky.social · Jul 9

The systems meant to protect us from climate change are shrinking while each disaster trends more extreme.

If the federal safety net unravels, what’s left is you, your neighbors, and whatever you’ve managed to build before the sky turns.

Heather Hansman for @vox.com: www.vox.com/climate/4189...

Do we have to take climate risks into our own hands now?

Why DIY disaster preparation matters more than ever — even if it’s not perfect.

www.vox.com

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Reposted by Sarah Cooley

Grumpy Brian🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇮🇪🇪🇺 @brian770.bsky.social · Jul 5

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Jul 3

Relevant. Today I ran into a bunch of dead links at NCEI that made it tough for me to think how to cite my points using another authoritative source.

Eos @eos.org · Jul 3

Opinion: If scientific databases in the Earth and environmental sciences are not adequately supported, we risk losing and potentially needing to replace these resources, an extremely costly, yet preventable, outcome.

buff.ly/WTgm4IC

Read more: bit.ly/Eos-Jul2025

The Valuable, Vulnerable, Long Tail of Earth Science Databases - Eos

Community-curated data resources in the Earth sciences, highly valuable but systematically underfunded, are vital to research on a changing planet.

eos.org

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Jul 3

🌊Even if you, like me, don't follow the world of "harass marine wildlife for views," this is worth reading because a) it's a great and entertaining read and b) you'll learn about what responsible *conservation* of [insert anything you care about] should look like. 🦈🦠

David Shiffman, Ph.D. 🦈 @whysharksmatter.bsky.social · Jul 2

Enough of you asked me about this that I wrote some brief thoughts on Ocean Ramsey's particular brand of pseudoscientific nonsense. I believe this addresses almost all of the frequently asked questions I receive, but as always I am happy to answer serious questions asked in good faith.

🧪🦑🌎🦈

What Ocean Ramsey does is not shark science or conservation: some brief thoughts on “the Shark Whisperer” documentary

Netflix has a new (sarcastic air quotes) “documentary” out about Ocean Ramsey, who longtime readers and followers know is a serial wildlife harasser who also coordinates massive online …

www.southernfriedscience.com

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Reposted by Sarah Cooley

Eos @eos.org · Jul 3

The Gulf of Maine has been buffered against drastic ocean acidification. But it won’t last forever.

Comments from @damian-brady.bsky.social

eos.org/articles/war...

Warming Gulf of Maine Buffers Ocean Acidification—For Now - Eos

Scientists constructed a 100-year history of acidity in the Gulf of Maine. They expected coastal variability but were surprised by what they didn’t find: a strong anthropogenic signal.

eos.org

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Reposted by Sarah Cooley

Dr. Dawn Wright @deepseadawn.bsky.social · Jul 2

"Women climate scientists are connected, productive, and successful but have shorter careers"
Accessible, though paywalled at doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
🧪

Women may be discouraged from becoming climate scientists if they perceive the field as male-biased, but little is known about gender in climate science. An analysis of over 400,000 publications shows that men and women in climate science have similar degrees of productivity, success, and connectedness with other scientists, and publish in high-prestige journals at similar rates. However, the analysis also shows that women have marginally shorter careers, which leads to cumulatively fewer publications.

Scholars have long been concerned about gender representation in scientific research but there has been little work on gender differences in participation and performance in climate science, a field that engages with both male-majority disciplines (e.g., geosciences, engineering) and female-majority disciplines (e.g., life sciences, medical science). This has implications for both gender equity and viewpoint representation. Sampling over 400,000 publications and a similar number of authors, we examine gender differences in several scholarly outcomes including publication count, career survival, coauthor gender, journal status, and mean citation count. We find men and women are similarly productive, successful, and connected, though women have shorter research careers and thus fewer papers. We also find gender homophily effects in collaboration, but no evidence of gender bias in peer review.

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Reposted by Sarah Cooley

Terry McGlynn @hormiga.bsky.social · Jul 1

If you don't know about mosquito dunks, you should!

They're floating plant material containing a type of bacterium that only attacks mosquito larvae. Just put one in the water and stop mosquitos from hatching.

They're inexpensive and highly effective.

Signed, a friendly bluesky entomologist.

Isabel @isabelott.bsky.social · Jul 1

Hey y’all - heads up that mosquito-borne viral diseases in the US are off to an *early* start this summer. Make sure to cover/bugspray up and reduce standing water around your home (or treat with products like Mosquito Dunks that kill developing larvae!)

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Jul 2

As someone very on the job market and very online as a result, I feel like this summer is my AI slop era. I’m ready for fall (the fall of AI) already.

Trevor A. Branch @trevorabranch.bsky.social · Jul 2

AI use in medical research papers
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/h...

454 Hints That a Chatbot Wrote Part of a Biomedical Researcher’s Paper

www.nytimes.com

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Sarah Cooley @co2ley.bsky.social · Jul 2

Our town is filthy with ‘em. And they’re all a little suspect. And none of them play my ringtone.

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