Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Meehan Crist @meehancrist.bsky.social · 12d

Wait. This year's NSF GRFP solicitation is finally up and... 2nd year PhD students are no longer eligible to apply??

This means a whole cohort of bright young scientists will never have the opportunity to apply for this federal funding??

www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

www.nsf.gov

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Antonia Juhasz @antoniajuhasz.bsky.social · Jul 23

Two sources tell WashPo EPA readying a decision to completely rescind the climate-critical endangerment finding (re: greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health and welfare) and eliminate all resulting limits on motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.
www.washingtonpost.com/climate-envi...

EPA drafts rule to strike down landmark climate finding

The agency proposes to overturn the 2009 “endangerment finding,” which underpins nationwide greenhouse gas emission limits on vehicles and power plants.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Akshat Rathi @akshatrathi.bsky.social · Jul 2

Read this from @eroston.bsky.social and I that shows how exactly fossil-fuel advocates fiddle with climate science www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Inside the Showdown Between UN Climate Science and Global Politics

The IPCC will put out a major new climate science report on Monday. Last time this happened, in 2018, oil-producing nations created last-minute tumult.

www.bloomberg.com

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David A. Graham @dgraham.bsky.social · Jun 27

Duke appears to have lost NIH grants because they used the prefix "trans" in reference to disease transmission, transgenic genetic material, translational studies, or signal transduction www.dukechronicle.com/article/2025...

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Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · Jun 28

Viktor Orban banned pride events in Hungary, the people took it as a challenge and just had the largest pride march in their country's history.

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Nick Cunningham @nickcunningham.bsky.social · Jun 12

NEW: Musk's xAI data center in Memphis is emitting plumes of methane and other pollutants, which are drifting into nearby Memphis neighborhoods

Video from @oilfieldwitness.bsky.social @txsharon.bsky.social captured it on camera

gasoutlook.com/analysis/xai...

xAI data centre emits plumes of pollution, new video shows - Gas Outlook

A massive data centre at xAI’s controversial site in Memphis, Tennessee is emitting huge plumes of pollution, according to new footage.

gasoutlook.com

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Jason Hickel @jasonhickel.bsky.social · Jun 2

This fascinating new research overturns longstanding assumptions. It finds that lower-income groups are more concerned about the environment and prefer environmental protection over economic growth, compared to higher-income groups. Data from the USA.

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Amy Westervelt @amywestervelt.bsky.social · May 29

Fossil fuel execs have talked for years about how they are "saving" Africa and solving energy poverty. Probably best to listen to Africans on that score: drilled.media/news/total-m...

Dispatch from the Front Lines of Mozambique’s Gas Gamble

Mozambique’s LNG project was supposed to bring prosperity to the country. Instead it has fueled the fires of civil unrest. And while local residents are struggling to survive, a small cadre of elite c...

drilled.media

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WIRED @wired.com · May 29

NEW: The US government has collected DNA samples from 133,000+ migrant children and teenagers and uploaded them into CODIS, a national criminal database originally built for convicted sex offenders and violent criminals, according to documents reviewed by WIRED.

The US Is Storing Migrant Children’s DNA in a Criminal Database

Customs and Border Protection has swabbed the DNA of migrant children as young as 4, whose genetic data is uploaded to an FBI-run database that can track them if they commit crimes in the future.

www.wired.com

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · May 29

the modern information environment

Google search "do apples contain lycopene?" The AI overview says "No, apples do not contain lycopene" whereas the highlighted search result begins "Apples contain lycopene"

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Meehan Crist @meehancrist.bsky.social · May 28

So universities are free to do... propaganda?

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · May 28

Linda McMahon: "Universities should continue to be able to do research as long as they're abiding by the laws and in sync, I think, with the administration and what the administration is trying to accomplish."

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τreez🦇 10/22🎂 @zoetreez.bsky.social · May 28

you cannot compete with me. i want you to win too

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Meehan Crist @meehancrist.bsky.social · May 28

"But using crops like corn and soybeans to produce fuel instead of food not only increases food prices and global hunger, it spurs farmers around the world to tear down more forests and plow up more grasslands to create new farmland to replace the lost food."

Michael Grunwald @mikegrunwald.bsky.social · May 27

I wrote about a scandal in the Big Beautiful Bill that should really be shocking even if it isn’t surprising. Replacing jet fuel with corn and soybeans doesn’t pencil out for the climate, so Congress wants to take away the government’s pencils. @yalee360.bsky.social

e360.yale.edu/features/cor...

The ‘Green’ Aviation Fuel That Would Increase Carbon Emissions

The U.S. agriculture lobby has long promoted ethanol for cars. If President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” becomes law, the industry would be given tax credits for producing crop-based fuel for planes, ...

e360.yale.edu

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Alex Wild @alexwild.bsky.social · May 25

Dear science journalism,

Please start including the funding source and whether it has been imperiled by the coup in your coverage of cool new science papers. The public should know the floor is being cut out from under us.

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Brad Johnson @climatebrad.hillheat.com · May 4

This is genuinely quite troubling

Francesca Rheannon @writersvoice.bsky.social · May 4

Audubon insurance canceled because it is an "environmental advocacy" organization. WTF?!?!? @climatebrad.hillheat.com eedition.timesunion.com/infinity/art...

Audubon chapter gets surprise insurance cancellation

eedition.timesunion.com

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Daniel Swain @weatherwest.bsky.social · May 2

From a hydrologic risk perspective, these new mass cuts at USGS would further compound broadening NOAA National Weather Service personnel/capability losses when it comes to quantifying and predicting real-time flood risk (among other things).

Mike Dettinger @mdettinger.bsky.social · May 2

Trump has ordered closure of ~½ of USGS Water Sci Centers that monitor US waters for flooding & drought, measure levels & quality in ground & surface water with 1000s of gages, & do sci studies (in coop w/local-to-federal agencies) allowing successful water mgmt.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Trump officials gut 25 centers that monitor flooding and drought in the US

White House orders closure of USGS water science centers, which shares data with weather service for flood warnings

www.theguardian.com

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Melissa Gira Grant @melissagiragrant.com · May 2

we no longer have a chief meteorologist at the NWS office serving NYC

Mark Gongloff @markgongloff.bsky.social · May 2

Donald Trump and Elon Musk have left Houston, Tampa, New York and other major cities without head meteorologists just ahead of what will be another busy hurricane season

This is straight-up life-threatening malpractice

(h/t @lisamjarvis.bsky.social )

www.cnn.com/2025/05/02/w...

A map of the contiguous 48 states titled:
Thirty National Weather Service offices are without a chief meteorologist
Some of these offices issue forecasts for major population centers such as New York City, Houston and Cleveland. Several are prone to hurricanes and tornadoes.
Callouts include:
Upton, NY - Covers New York City and southern Connecticut
Tampa, FL - Hard hit by Hurricane Milton in 2024
Houston, TX - All management positions vacant
Paducah/Louisville/Jackson, KY - Nearly the whole state of Kentucky is covered by forecast areas without leadership

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Meehan Crist @meehancrist.bsky.social · May 2

LSE announces new Centre for Animal Sentience.

shapingtheworld.lse.ac.uk/latest-news/...

LSE announces new centre to study animal sentience - Shaping the world

shapingtheworld.lse.ac.uk

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Vikram Bath @vikrambath.bsky.social · Apr 30

AGI is coming for all of us. It will write symphonies, direct movies, and author the best novels.

The only thing it won’t be able to do is VC investing, which must be reserved as a task only for the most-special people

Marc Andreessen says when AI does everything else, VC might be one of the last jobs still done by humans.

It's more art than science. There's no formula. Just taste, psychology, and chaos tolerance.

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Joshua Weitz @joshuasweitz.bsky.social · May 1

“However bad everyone on the outside thinks it is, it is a million times worse. They’re dismantling and destroying everything.”

Read, share, respond. Call your representatives.

The health and well-being of Americans & America's innovation economy are at stake.

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

NIH insiders: Trump is ‘dismantling and destroying everything’

After just 100 days, agency scientists say U.S. health institutes are demoralized and have lost essential staff and funding

www.science.org

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Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · May 1

"...for protests to succeed, they must be backed by movements with the ability to promise to withhold—labor, debt payments, rent payments, or consumer support—and to follow through if demands aren’t met."

Glad to have gotten the opportunity to push this line in Time

time.com/collections/...

Why Protests Should Be Promises

Modern movements that aim to advance racial equity should withhold and promise, rather than perform, writes Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

time.com

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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · Apr 29

Claudia Sheinbaum:“Plan Mexico is the path that I am certain will lead us to a Mexico with more well-paid jobs, with less poverty & inequality...with a lower carbon footprint that respects the environment and increases our self-sufficiency and sovereignty"
www.netzeropolicylab.com/mexico-green...

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Eric Umansky @ericumansky.bsky.social · Apr 28

RIP Leonard Zeskind, whose book about the rise of white nationalism was just purged by the U.S. Naval Academy.

www.nytimes.com/2025/04/24/u...

Leonard Zeskind, Who Foresaw the Rise of White Nationalism, Dies at 75 (Gift Article)

With “Blood and Politics,” he predicted that anti-immigrant ideologies would become part of mainstream American politics, and warned about downplaying the threat.

www.nytimes.com

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Jeff Goodell @jeffgoodell.bsky.social · Apr 29

Why the National Climate Assessment is important: “It takes [a] global issue and brings it closer to us,” says @katharinehayhoe.com. “If I care about food or water or transportation or insurance or my health, this is what climate change means to me if I live in the Southwest or the Great Plains.”

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