Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Jess Butler

Sarah Nelson @blueyedgenes.bsky.social · 18h

Just a reminder that if you are a scientist wondering how you can communicate the value of federally-funded scientific research outside of your bubble, @sciencehomecoming.bsky.social is here to help you pitch and publish in your hometown newspaper
sciencehomecoming.com

Science Homecoming

sciencehomecoming.com

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Reposted by Jess Butler

Stephan Torre @stephantorre.bsky.social · 20h

Oh, big one today.

fuckeveryphilosopherbot @fuckeveryphilosopherbot.zirk.us.ap.brid.gy · 20h

Fuck Socrates (470–399 BC)

#philosophy

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Dr Pat Witts @wittspat.bsky.social · 2d

For this #MosaicMonday, a mosaic I've enjoyed seeing recently: not ancient, but a superb goat by the late Maggy Howarth at Levens Hall showing an accomplished continuation of this ancient art form. Note the wonderful choice of pebble for the eye! 1/3
#AncientBlueSky 🏺(though this isn't!)

A colourful modern circular mosaic made of pebbles with rectangular stones forming the outer border. The mosaic shows the head of a goat facing left, with dramatic horns sweeping backwards, risring from a coronet.

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Alison Fisk @alisonfisk.bsky.social · 4d

A 3,500 year-old Egyptian glass cosmetic jar with two little duck heads!

Glass was a relatively new material at that time, so this jar would have been a precious possession.

From Merit’s beauty case, found inside Theban tomb (TT8) of Merit and her husband Kha in 1906. 📷 Museo Egizio

#Archaeology

Museo Egizio Turin photo showing a small, dark-blue, core-formed, round glass jar which tapers in at the shoulders below the neck. It has yellow, white, and light blue festoon decoration trailed around the main body. There is a single yellow trail just below the neck of the jar. There is a dark-blue circular glass lid, the top of which is adorned with two dark-blue duck heads with yellow bills, a yellow trailed stripe on the top of each duck’s head, and indents for their eyes. The jar is displayed on a perspex (?) stand against a grey background. Glass jar dimensions: 7.6 cm x 9.6 cm.

Core-forming is one of the earliest glassmaking techniques. Glassmakers shaped the body of the vessel around a core, wound colored trails around it. They then let the vessel cool and removed the core.

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The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 6d

In his essay “Proust's Pinks”, Christopher Prendergast celebrates the author's use of the colour pink in À la recherche du temps perdu: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/prousts-pinks

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Julian Reif @julianreif.bsky.social · 7d

“In 2025, American diagnostic radiology residency programs offered a record 1,208 positions across all radiology specialties… In 2025, radiology was the second-highest-paid medical specialty in the country, with an average income of $520,000, over 48 percent higher than the average salary in 2015”

Melanie Mitchell @melaniemitchell.bsky.social · 7d

In 2016 Hinton predicted that AI would replace all radiologists in five years. Ten years later, why hasn't it happened? This post is a great explainer.

www.understandingai.org/p/ai-isnt-re...

AI isn't replacing radiologists

Radiology combines digital images, clear benchmarks, and repeatable tasks. But demand for human radiologists is at an all-time high.

www.understandingai.org

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Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 9d

To be way too earnest for on here, I genuinely think nerds being careful is political activism these days and it cheers me up

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Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 9d

U!S!A! ❤️

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Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 9d

I feel like my beloved stats & methods social media is back and thriving 👑 💘@dingdingpeng.the100.ci @statsepi.bsky.social @rmcelreath.bsky.social @andrew.heiss.phd @masalmon.eu
@statsepi.bsky.social

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Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · 9d

This covers some important sources of bias that arise from naive control strategies. Of value even if you don't care about the life-satisfaction ~ age association.

Tamkinat Rauf @tsrauf.bsky.social · 10d

Life satisfaction mostly declines with age. Previous findings (esp. the famous U-shaped age-SWB trajectory) were artifacts of misspecified models. doi.org/10.1093/esr/...

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Georgina Sturge @georginasturge.bsky.social · 13d

Want to know how digital ID works, what it would involve, why we don't have it already, and why the last time we tried to have an identity register it went tits up very fast?

It's the perfect time to get hold of a copy of Sum of Us (e- and audio-books also available)!

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Ben Goldacre @bengoldacre.bsky.social · 13d

COME TO OUR CONFERENCE!

Lots of people work on medicines data: researchers; but also "medicines optimisation" teams, using data to directly improve NHS care; and teams who build data tools. These clans rarely meet... Until now! Join us, Dec 10th, in Oxford.

www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/events/2025-...

2025 Bennett Institute Medicines Symposium | Bennett Institute for Applied Data Science

The two-day 2025 Bennett Institute Medicines Symposium will take place at Jesus College in Oxford on 10–11 December 2025.

www.bennett.ox.ac.uk

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Martin Smith @martinrsmith.bsky.social · 14d

“Sustainable research excellence depends on the people who make it happen. Environments that support career development, recognise diverse contributions, and foster inclusion don’t just feel better to work in – they produce better research”

Wonkhe @wonkhe.bsky.social · 14d

NEW on Wonkhe: Yolana Pringle and Ben Tatler make the case that the REF pause should be the moment to build on the most substantial sector-wide collaboration ever undertaken on research environments buff.ly/B53PxLd

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Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 14d

£39-47k

"Under the direction of the University’s new Office for Open Research and Scholarship, you will contribute to key open research projects on the University’s Research Culture Action Plan, including activities around open research reward and recognition"

cc.sheffield.ac.uk/rpi/research...

Open Research, University of Sheffield @openresshef.bsky.social · 14d

🔊 Vacancy: Open Research Manager, University of Sheffield Library (full-time, open-ended). The role will involve supporting projects across Sheffield and nationally with the @ukrepro.bsky.social to accelerate open research practices. Closing date 22 October: jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk/job/Open-Res...

Open Research Manager

jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk

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Jess Butler @jessbutler.bsky.social · 14d

This is one of my favourite graphs about science

Our World in Data @ourworldindata.org · 14d

Randomized controlled trials are a key tool to study cause and effect. Why do they matter and how do they work?

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Geoff Belknap @curatorgeoff.bsky.social · 15d

Job Klaxon!

Science Museum is looking for a Curator of Chemistry.

Job Details
Salary - £41,177.63
Full Time
London
Deadline - 29/09/2025
ce0111li.webitrent.com/ce0111li_web...

Powered by MHR

ce0111li.webitrent.com

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Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com · 17d

Yet again, machine learning — even gussied up via the transformer architecture — encodes and reinforces societal biases.

This study reveals that LLM-based peer review relies heavily on author institution in its decisions.

arxiv.org/abs/2509.15122

Prestige over merit: An adapted audit of LLM bias in peer review

Large language models (LLMs) are playing an increasingly integral, though largely informal, role in scholarly peer review. Yet it remains unclear whether LLMs reproduce the biases observed in human de...

arxiv.org

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Philipp Klein @jpkhl.bsky.social · 19d

Quite possibly one of the best presentations on how to conduct research. It is by Peter WG Tennant from the University of Leeds, UK and focusses on modern causal inference methods.

More on it here: youtube.com/playlist?lis...

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Mo Moulton @momoulton.bsky.social · 24d

Some big news: the University of Birmingham is launching a new MA in Gender & Sexuality. It's interdisciplinary, with a focus on combining theory & practice. It's going to be amazing. I'm convening it: message or email with questions. www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/postgr... @unibirmingham.bsky.social

Gender and Sexuality MA - University of Birmingham

Course information for prospective postgraduate students on our MA History taught masters degree programme at the University of Birmingham.

www.birmingham.ac.uk

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Jan R. Boehnke @jrboehnke.bsky.social · 28d

New #RegisteredReport out:
psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...

Trial led by colleagues from @manchester.ac.uk evaluated the impact of a universal, school-based social-emotional learning intervention on internalizing symptoms and psychosocial outcomes

#MentalHealth #Schools
@neilhumphrey.bsky.social

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · Sep 6

Academic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:

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Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · Sep 3

Ooh we've opened our call for small research grants. £10k for any humanities or social sciences research. Open to independent scholars. We use partial randomisation to allocate the funding: random allocation between all that meet the quality threshold
www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/funding/ba-l...

British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grants

The BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants are available to support primary research in the humanities and social sciences. These awards, up to £10,000 in value and tenable for up to 24 months, are provi...

www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk

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Ben Johnson @ersatzben.com · Sep 1

British research has perfected discipline and outsourced magnificence. The fix is to practise demonstration statecraft – visible proofs of capacity that pair theatre with delivery.

A new essay by me for the Better Science Project:
betterscienceproject.substack.com/p/the-counte...

The Counter-Reformation of science: how to make magnificence democratic

British research has perfected discipline and outsourced magnificence. The fix is to practise demonstration statecraft – visible proofs of capacity that pair theatre with delivery.

betterscienceproject.substack.com

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Bellingcat @bellingcat.com · Aug 28

Finding key information shared at council meetings takes time and effort. Today, we've launched a tool that allows you to search verbatim quotes from council meetings in the UK and Ireland, without the need to watch long recordings or sift through extensive notes. council-search.bellingcat.com

Bellingcat Council Meeting Transcript Search

Find verbatim quotes from council meetings in the UK and Ireland using this free open source research tool by Bellingcat.

council-search.bellingcat.com

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Alasdair Smith @alasdairmsmith.bsky.social · Aug 27

Perceptions have real effects

www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-insti...

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