Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Liz Renner

Mirya R. Holman @mirya.bsky.social · 10h

Here are my published articles in each year and the number of times each was rejected before publication

A scatterplot of the number of rejections (y axis) by year (x axis)

2 7 47

Reposted by Liz Renner

violent alien @blipstress.bsky.social · 7h

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

18 230 1.4K

Reposted by Liz Renner

Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 3d

And he’s back!!

Sunday isn’t Sunday without Stewart Lee. We were so thrilled at @thenerve.news that Stewart came with us.

His satirical columns for the Observer were some of our most-read content: funny, surreal, angry true. Essential weekend reading.

www.thenerve.news/p/stewart-le...

DOUBLETHINK DOES DOUBLETIME

STEWART LEE

www.thenerve.news

17 140 560

Reposted by Liz Renner

Alex Hanna-ween @alexhanna.bsky.social · 1d

I'm not an economist but seems worrying that the whole US economy is seven companies in a trenchcoat, passing the same $20 up and down

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

NVIDIA and OpenAi:

Concerns that their “increasingly complex and interconnected web of business transactions is artificially propping up the trillion-dollar AI boom.“

@bloomberg.com $NVDA 👀
www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

26 320 890

Reposted by Liz Renner

ae @aelkus.bsky.social · 1d

I think that people who experienced the Internet Before have to act as monks preserving the illuminated manuscripts until something better eventually emerges

5 12 65

Reposted by Liz Renner

Josh Pasek @joshpasek.com · 1d

How should university boards prepare?

- Strategize in advance (could happen here)
- Leverage internal expertise (strategize with political scientists, public policy scholars and law faculty)
- Respond collectively and support one another
-Stay true to the mission

This is the real fiduciary duty!

Jackie Gardina @jackiegardina.bsky.social · 1d

@joshpasek.com, @umich.edu, provides boards of trustees a roadmap for responding to external pressue, like the so-called Educational Compact.

@aaup.org @utaustinaaup.bsky.social @aaup-penn.bsky.social

riverside.fm/shared/expor...

One thing boards can d... | Oct 7, 2025 001 - Riverside - HD Podcast & Video Software

riverside.fm

2 14 41

Reposted by Liz Renner

your #3 source for absurdist true crime 🔨 @davidgerard.co.uk · 2d

AI SLURS

*ahem*

Clanker
Slopper
Token tanker
Thought stopper

20 18 110

Reposted by Liz Renner

Patrick Cosmos @veryimportant.lawyer · Sep 8

working on a new unified theory of american reality i'm calling "everyone is twelve now"

100 2.3K 11K

Liz Renner @lrrenner.bsky.social · 2d

Ah, that time of year again, when the leaves are changing, the nights are drawing in, and the only thing I'm interested in is how many hours until I can have another Lemsip.

1 2

Reposted by Liz Renner

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 5d

As a theoretical cosmologist, I'm frequently asked "what is the benefit of the work you're doing for people's lives?" Nothing I work on makes money or cures disease.

There are a few different answers one can give, at various levels of "convincing" / "actually relevant to why the work is done."

1/🧵

53 250 1K

Liz Renner @lrrenner.bsky.social · 4d

this is the question I want the answer to the most. How much longer will I be cursed to mark AI-generated essays? (please let it not be forever)

1 5

Reposted by Liz Renner

Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social · 5d

Yesterday the Royal Society held a series of panels & keynotes in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Turing Test. The unanimous critical takes on AGI, big tech's power concentration & the call for urgent action left me w hope things might be turning

Watch here m.youtube.com/live/GmnBTCK...

2 30 78

Reposted by Liz Renner

Joe Bak-Coleman @jbakcoleman.bsky.social · 7d

One of the loudest bells tolling for social science right now is that the decade of abundant data on humans is coming to a close. Whether you work on digital trace or surveys, LLM pollution is a serious problem, even while the wide roll out of LLMs creates an urgent need for social science.

Julia M. Rohrer @dingdingpeng.the100.ci · 8d

A lot of psych is already conducted with online convenience samples & ppl are probably excited about silicon samples bc it would allow them to crank out more studies for even less 💸

How about we reconsider the idea that sciencey science involves collecting own data.
www.science.org/content/arti...

AI-generated ‘participants’ can lead social science experiments astray, study finds

Data produced by “silicon samples” depends on researchers’ exact choice of models, prompts, and settings

www.science.org

3 38 130

Liz Renner @lrrenner.bsky.social · 6d

Oh no. I think I hate everything

Reposted by Liz Renner

Hillary Rodham Clinton @hillaryclinton.bsky.social · 7d

For over 60 years, Jane Goodall was a force for research about our precious planet—and climate change action to protect it—while breaking glass ceilings along the way.

I'll so miss her courage and commitment to help expand what we know about our world and preserve it for the generations to come.

Jane Goodall holding a sign that says “Vote for Nature!” in a group shot

130 1.3K 7.6K

Reposted by Liz Renner

Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 9d

The real generational divide is people who refuse to watch a video if it could be an article versus people who refuse to read an article if it could be a video

520 2.2K 12K

Reposted by Liz Renner

poorly drawn cats @poorlycatdraw.bsky.social · 9d

something very spooky is coming this week 🎃

a preview of a new plushie! i can’t tell you what it is… it’s a surprise

9 32 450

Reposted by Liz Renner

Dave Vanness @djvanness.bsky.social · 9d

A lot of people think that every international student admitted means one fewer spot for domestic students, when the opposite is more likely true - the tuition revenue international students bring allows public universities to provide substantial discounts to domestic students, improving access.

Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 9d

30% drop year over year!

Amid visa restrictions, international freshmen enrollment plummets at UW-Madison

This year’s number of international freshmen is the lowest recorded since at least 2015.

www.jsonline.com

82 1.7K 5.9K

Reposted by Liz Renner

Kaedan O'Brien, Ph.D. @deadbovids.bsky.social · 11d

After two days of reading, thinking, and reading again, I think there are two possible ways to interpret the Yunxian cranium (note that @johnhawks.net and others have already shared some great, and often overlapping ideas): (1/4)
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

The phylogenetic position of the Yunxian cranium elucidates the origin of Homo longi and the Denisovans

Diverse forms of Homo coexisted during the Middle Pleistocene. Whether these fossil humans represent different species or clades is debated. The ~1-million-year-old Yunxian 2 fossil from China is impo...

www.science.org

1 3 7

Reposted by Liz Renner

Your Internet Friend Tom Tomorrow @tomtomorrow.bsky.social · 12d

you probably need to be of a certain vintage to understand the absolute hilarity of ken starr being in the epstein files

140 2.1K 13K

Reposted by Liz Renner

Kate Schapira @kateschapira.bsky.social · 12d

It's Don't Argue Inside Your Head With Other People Friday. Today, if you find yourself arguing inside your head w/someone who's not present, or whom it's not safe or not fair for you to argue with, gently move your mind away. Do this as many times as you need.