Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Simon Cook @drsimoncook.bsky.social · 2h

This is deeply disturbing www.theguardian.com/education/20...

UK universities offered to monitor students’ social media for arms firms, emails show

Loughborough, Heriot-Watt and Glasgow corresponded with companies concerned about campus protests

www.theguardian.com

Reposted by Simon Cook

Cahir O'Kane @cahirokane.bsky.social · 1d

Sad to hear of the death of John Gurdon this morning, aged 92.

Professor Sir John Gurdon FRS (1933-2025) | Magdalene College

Magdalene College is deeply saddened to announce the death of Professor Sir John Gurdon FRS, who served as Master of the College from 1995 to 2002.

www.magd.cam.ac.uk

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Simon Cook @drsimoncook.bsky.social · 1d

Always loved Frances MacDonald's work. In discussions of Glasgow art she is often overlooked in favour of Charles Rennie Mackintosh but her work is fabulous

womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 1d

Girl in the East Wind with Ravens Passing the Moon, 1893 by Glasgow School artist Frances MacDonald #WomensArt

Painting of a stylised white woman in a pale green dress standing facing left in front of a full moon as five or more ravens fly past to the left against a dark sky

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Reposted by Simon Cook

Robert Reich @rbreich.bsky.social · 2d

Journalist Edward R. Murrow used his platform on CBS to criticize the witch hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s.

This is what real journalism should do — hold power to account, not capitulate to it.

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womensartbluesky.bsky.social @womensartbluesky.bsky.social · 1d

Elin Thomas, UK textile artist who uses embroidery/crochet to create unique work resembling petri dishes and bacteria spores #womensart

Photo looking down on four petri dishes, neatly arranged, with what resembles bacteria and mould growing inside created with crochet and embroidery

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Simon Cook @drsimoncook.bsky.social · 2d

Jane Goodall has only increased in my estimation!! www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Jane Goodall said she would launch Trump and Musk on one-way trip into space

Primatologist said in interview released after her death she would also put Putin, Xi and Netanyahu on that spaceship

www.theguardian.com

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Simon Cook @drsimoncook.bsky.social · 2d

Well this sounds pretty cool

Science Magazine @science.org · 2d

In a new Science study, researchers show that lysosomes, degradative organelles activated by food limitation, stimulate epigenetic changes that contribute to transgenerational longevity in C. elegans.

📄: https://scim.ag/4gOlR9N
#SciencePerspective: https://scim.ag/3IOqNyH

From lysosome to longevity: Overexpression of the lysosomal lipase LIPL-4 in Caenorhabditiselegans results in methylation of lysine 79 on histone H3 (H3K79),which increases transcription of the gene encoding histone variantHIS-71. HIS-71 is shuttled from intestine to oocytes through association with yolk particles. On arrival, it is methylated and becomes associated with germ line DNA. These events promote longevity in wild-type descendants for several generations.

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Reposted by Simon Cook

Simon Bayly @simonbayly.bsky.social · 2d

Not what I predicted, but an important discovery that Brunkow and Ramsdell worked on while at a UK biotech company (Celltech Chiroscience)

Nature @nature.com · 2d

BREAKING: The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded jointly to Mary E. Brunkow, Fred Ramsdell, and Shimon Sakaguchi "for their discoveries concerning peripheral immune tolerance"

Stay tuned for more.
#NobelPrize

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Reposted by Simon Cook

Markus Eichhorn @markuseichhorn.bsky.social · 3d

This complete shambles is a useful reminder of why companies who say "Don't worry about the carbon, we're planting trees for that" should be treated with scepticism.

BrewDog sells Lost Forest after series of tree-planting controversies

Brewdog has announced it has sold its “Lost Forest” after 250,000 of the trees it planted on the Scottish estate died ...

www.forestryjournal.co.uk

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Reposted by Simon Cook

Gran-dad @gran-dad.bsky.social · 3d

substack.com/@fathernatha...

No matter what Pete Hegseth says, his tattoos are anything but typical symbols of Christianity

In the months leading up to the presidential election, Trump frequently used the phrase “the enemy within” to describe those in opposition to his political ideologies.

substack.com

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Reposted by Simon Cook

Jonathan W. Gray @elmcitytree.blacksky.app · 3d

James Baldwin to Angela Davis in 1970, discussing white Americans:

Or, to put it another way, as long as white Americans take refuge in their whiteness— for so long as they are unable to walk out of this most monstrous of traps-they will allow millions of people to be slaughtered in their name, and will be manipulated into and surrender themselves to what they will think of-and justify—as a racial war. They will never, so long as their whiteness puts so sinister a distance between themselves and their own experience and the experience of others, feel themselves sufficiently human, sufficiently worthwhile, to become responsible for themselves, their leaders, their country, their children, or their fate. They will perish (as we once put it in our black church) in their sins—that is, in their delusions. And this is happening, needless to say, already, all around us.

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Jon Cooper @joncooper-us.bsky.social · 4d

Spot on.

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Caroline Lucas @carolinelucas.bsky.social · 6d

Tory party’s long journey away from science, reason, responsibility, common sense and truth is complete

Kemi Badenoch vows to repeal Climate Change Act

Tory leader says she would replace it with ‘cheap energy’ strategy, ending decades-long consensus on climate

www.theguardian.com

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Toby Wood @tobywoody.bsky.social · 8d

When I first became interested in poetry, at the age of 16, it was thanks to John Clare, Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, John Betjeman … and this book which I read ragged … thank you so much Brian Patten – rest in peace

@michaelrosenyes.bsky.social

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Alice Roberts @profaliceroberts.bsky.social · 7d

I’m sad to hear the news that the wonderful Jane Goodall is no longer in the world. Her work with chimpanzees at Gombe in Tanzania taught us to look at other apes - and ourselves - differently. I was privileged to meet her later in life and tell her what an inspiration she was to me.

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James Dinneen @jamesdinneen.bsky.social · 7d

I joined a team of ecologists wading through the muck of the Carolina coast in search of "ghost forests" killed by rising seas for @science.org. We were guided by a a new map that reveals millions of dead trees standing along the East Coast, marking an overlooked consequence of climate change...

AI reveals vast ‘ghost forests’ along U.S. coast

Machine learning method counts nearly 12 million dead trees, many likely killed by rising seas

www.science.org

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Simon Cook @drsimoncook.bsky.social · 7d

What the hell happened circa 2012?

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 8d

Compelling and quite disturbing...

LorennaCleary.bsky.social @lorennacleary.bsky.social · 9d

Land of the free. Home of the brave.

Reposted by Simon Cook

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · 8d

Compelling and quite disturbing...

LorennaCleary.bsky.social @lorennacleary.bsky.social · 9d

Land of the free. Home of the brave.

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Reposted by Simon Cook

Jennifer Molidor @jennifermolidor.bsky.social · 7d

At a time when we need more of her and less of the rest, it is our great loss.

Eternally grateful for the kindness with which she lived by example, her revolutionary study of chimpanzees that shifted scientific understanding of animals and nature, and decades of advocating for a humane world.

My hero Jane Goodall. Text reads 1934-2025.

Jane Goodall comforts a frightened chimpanzee, early in her career, in Gombe National Park.

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Simon Cook @drsimoncook.bsky.social · 7d

And put quite simply. Science is under attack and Musk is manipulating and using that for his own ends. incompatible with RS

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Simon Cook @drsimoncook.bsky.social · 7d

And all too often has been used for just that -doing nothing

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Simon Cook @drsimoncook.bsky.social · 7d

Agree. Conduct so very obviously discredits the RS

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Simon Cook @drsimoncook.bsky.social · 7d

Saddened to read of the passing of Jane Goodall. Before my head was turned by Biochemistry and Cell Biology I read ‘In the Shadow of Man’ in one day as an enthusiastic teenager and wanted to follow in her shadow. A remarkable woman www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c9...

'An extraordinary legacy': Tributes after chimpanzee expert Jane Goodall dies age 91 - follow live

The primatologist was a

www.bbc.co.uk

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Simon Cook @drsimoncook.bsky.social · 7d

Not moving in those circles I can only imagine that the RS are somehow trying to tread the difficult ‘not being “political“‘ line. But this is not politics. It is morals and ethics and he has neither.

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Simon Cook @drsimoncook.bsky.social · 7d

No. No arguments pro
He brings RS into disrepute

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