Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · 2d

New pub! 5 yrs in the making, the result of dedication of an awesome interdisciplinary team, the paper lays out a new approach to link social, ecological, and evolutionary processes that influence urban animals, through traits, aiming to improve management. 🌎

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

An integrated social–ecological–evolutionary–phenotypic (SEEP) approach to understanding animal responses to urbanization

Humans play key roles in shaping the structure and processes of ecosystems globally, especially in cities. This recognition has prompted a recent focus on understanding urban systems via interactions....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · 6d

Come work with me! We are hiring a new TT Aquatic Ecologist (Assistant Professor), affiliated with my department and the Center for Great Lakes and Watershed Studies. Please spread the word. Thanks!

🌎

www.schooljobs.com/careers/bgsu...

Assistant Professor - Biological Sciences

The Department of Biological Sciences at Bowling Green State University invites applications for a tenure-track assistant professor position with a start date of August 2026. This is a full-time, 9-mo...

www.schooljobs.com

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Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · 24d

We’ve been lucky to work with a great group of people on this project!

www.bgsu.edu/news/2025/09...

Biology students at BGSU research key aspect of Ohio wetlands implementation

BGSU students are studying how different plants behave in wetland environments, giving scientists an idea of which species mitigate harmful algal blooms.

www.bgsu.edu

Reposted by Kevin McCluney

Prof. Jeff Ollerton @jeffollerton.bsky.social · Aug 8

(Bee) Sex in the city: As part of a recent study led by Muzafar Sirohi, we explored how urban conditions might be influencing the timing of bee emergence and the sex ratios of different species. Read more about it here: jeffollerton.co.uk/2025/08/08/b...
#pollinators #bees #biodiversity #ecology

(Bee) Sex in the city: a new study shows how urban life skews pollinator populations

Bees are among the most important pollinators in the natural world, quietly sustaining ecosystems and food production. While honeybees often steal the spotlight, a vast number of solitary and primi…

jeffollerton.co.uk

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Reposted by Kevin McCluney

Matt McGovern @mattmcgovern.bsky.social · Jul 19

EVs Pay Off Their Carbon Debt in Just 2 Years — After That, It’s No Contest
Electric cars now emit up to 71% less than gas vehicles — and every mile makes the gap wider. www.autoblog.com/news/evs-pay...

EVs Pay Off Their Carbon Debt in Just 2 Years | BEV Lifecycle Benefits

Discover how U.S. battery electric vehicles offset their higher manufacturing emissions within 2 years of driving and deliver 41–71% lower lifetime greenhouse gases than gas cars.

www.autoblog.com

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Reposted by Kevin McCluney

altNOAA 🇺🇸 @altnoaa.bsky.social · Jul 9

Let’s talk about weather balloons—a.k.a. radiosondes—and why recent cuts to NWS staffing and balloon launch schedules are putting the public at risk (eg., Deaths in Texas). No satellite or model can replace what these humble balloons do. Here's why. 🧵

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Reposted by Kevin McCluney

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Sep 18

I think most people (myself included) don’t have an intuition for orders of magnitude (e.g., the difference between millionaire and billionaire).

One way to appreciate this is time, since we all experience it. Here's the difference between a thousand, a million, and a billion seconds.

The image presents a comparison of time represented in seconds: 1 thousand seconds is approximately 17 minutes, 1 million seconds is about 11.6 days, and 1 billion seconds is roughly 31.7 years.

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Reposted by Kevin McCluney

Thomas Shahan @tshahan.bsky.social · Jun 30

Photographed a LOT of handsome salticids in Costa Rica, but these Anasaitis canalis males were the fanciest! ✨💙 Very difficult to shoot - not just tiny - but super skittish too!

In situ, stack (3 shots?), Pentax, Laowa 25mm

Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica - ground level, shaded areas w/ tree cover

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Reposted by Kevin McCluney

Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · Jun 3

If you burn down a forest, you don't miss out on lumber for just that season. You have to replant all the trees, nurture them, and wait for them to grow.

The science and research budget cuts happening now are wanton, senseless arson. Recovery, if it ever happens, will take generations.

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Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · Jun 2

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/31/c...
🧪🌎

Trump’s Proposed Budget Would Cut a Major Ecology Program

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Kevin McCluney

Emilio M Bruna @brunalab.bsky.social · May 31

Proposed cut to DEB is 89.6%

bsky.app/profile/maur...

Maureen Kearney @maureenmkearney.bsky.social · May 30

In case you couldn't bear to read all the way to the end (understandable), here is the proposed picture for the BIO Directorate.

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Reposted by Kevin McCluney

Biodiful @biodiful.bsky.social · May 16

Meet Eupholus geoffroyi, a beetle 🪲 from New Guinea that glows blue through structural coloration 👉 microscopic scales bend light to create its shimmer! 🌈

Feeding on yam leaves, it shapes plant-herbivore dynamics in tropical forests.

#Biodiful 🌍
photo (c) Chien C. Lee

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Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · May 14

www.propublica.org/article/noaa... 🧪🌎

Millions of People Depend on the Great Lakes’ Water Supply. Trump Decimated the Lab Protecting It.

The Trump administration’s slashing of budgets and staff have Great Lakes scientists concerned that they have lost the ability to protect the public from toxic algal blooms, which can kill animals and...

www.propublica.org

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Reposted by Kevin McCluney

Julian Olden @oldenfish.bsky.social · May 13

✊

Liz Neeley @lizneeley.bsky.social · May 13

“The NSF can be understood not only as a catalyst of scientific promise for national purpose, but also as a guarded response to fears about centralized control over knowledge and thought, shaped by the dark shadows of the Third Reich and the emerging Red Scare.”

Alondra Nelson @alondra.bsky.social · May 13

"For me, the answer now lies in refusal, the withdrawal of participation from systems that require dishonesty as the price of belonging."

Today I am resigning from the National Science Board and the Library of Congress Scholars Council.

I wrote about my decision in TIME.

time.com/7285045/resi...

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Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · May 12

Interesting… I feel like many people hate investment bankers, so that one surprises me. The other too make sense to have increased. I’d still be surprised if being an engineer was more prestigious than a medical doctor. But again, clearly I don’t have a handle on it.

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Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · May 12

I clearly don’t have a good handle on this. Which professions are higher prestige now?

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Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · May 12

Thanks for sharing… this makes it clear that my personal perception that MDs still have high prestige doesn’t mean that prestige hasn’t decreased.

Definitely not surprised that sexism still influences prestige, sadly.

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Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · May 12

I agree that it likely is harder to be an MD now, but is that the same as prestige? Maybe how we define prestige influences our answer to this.

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Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · May 12

I’d like to say medical doctors… maybe one could argue that their prestige has declined a bit in recent years, but that could be common to the general erosion of prestige of all “experts” or the politicization of COVID rather than a gender shift. But this opinion isn’t based on data or research.

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Reposted by Kevin McCluney

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · May 4

The Merlin Bird ID app wouldn’t exist #WithoutNSF. 🪶

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · Apr 17

I've been taking early walks in the park to watch and listen to birds for my sanity, and the Merlin Bird ID app has been indispensable for identifying bird songs.

Merlin was funded by a grant from the NSF, the science funding agency that Trump is trying to destroy.

www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/...

Screenshot of a bird sound identification app in use. The screen shows an audio recording at 27.3 seconds, with a green pause button at the center. Above the timer is a spectrogram visualizing the bird sounds as a series of dark and light horizontal and vertical patterns on a gray background. Below the timer, the app provides a list of "Best suggestions" for bird species based on the recording. The top suggestion, highlighted in yellow, is "Common Chiffchaff," with a thumbnail image of a small brownish bird. Other suggestions include "Great Tit" (a black, yellow, and white bird perched on a branch), "Rose-ringed Parakeet" (a green parrot with a red beak), and "European Robin" (a small bird with an orange-red breast). Each entry includes a small arrow for more information.

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Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · Apr 30

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/b...

Trump’s Cuts to Science Funding Could Hurt U.S. Economy, Study Shows (Gift Article)

Reducing federal support for research and development could cause long-run economic damage and reduce government revenue.

www.nytimes.com

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Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · Apr 30

www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/w...

How Healthy Is Tofu? (Gift Article)

It’s touted as a nutritional star, but concerns about soy have been raised in the past. Here’s what experts say.

www.nytimes.com

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Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · Apr 22

Awesome!

Kevin McCluney @mcclunatory.bsky.social · Apr 22

1/5 of pollinators and 1/3 of bees in North America at risk of extinction 🧪🌎

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

PNAS

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a peer reviewed journal of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) - an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans...

www.pnas.org

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Reposted by Kevin McCluney

Ted Pavlic (he/him/his) @tedpavlic.bsky.social · Apr 16

When you're just starting out in scientific research, formalizing your causal questions and how they connect to hypotheses, study designs, predictions, and results can be confusing. 🧪

With that in mind, I've tried to put together a guide/templates:
pavliclab.org/tips-for-bui...

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