Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Mike Murphy

Lee Crawfurd @leecrawfurd.bsky.social · 4h

"Every American child is tested for this, so why isn't every British child tested too"

Excited for the new @laurahughesft.bsky.social @financialtimes.com podcast on lead exposure in the UK

open.spotify.com/episode/6M4H...

Introducing Untold: Toxic Legacy

Untold: Toxic Legacy · Episode

open.spotify.com

1 2

Reposted by Mike Murphy

Scott Lincicome @scottlincicome.bsky.social · 20h

"Carlyle Group, the investment manager whose portfolio companies employ more than 700,000 people globally, is stepping into the economic data void left by the US government shutdown with a grim read on the labor market." www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Carlyle Unveils Proprietary Data Showing Weak US Employment

Carlyle Group, the investment manager whose portfolio companies employ more than 700,000 people globally, is stepping into the economic data void left by the US government shutdown with a grim read…

www.bloomberg.com

14 36

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 22h

That's my sense (to be clear I know nothing about their financials, not investment advice!). I find LLMs extremely useful for certain work tasks, but don't see a good reason to believe any particular AI company has a moat to justify their current valuations.

2

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 22h

The other thing I'm stuck on is how you justify the capex if I will be able to run an almost-as-good open source version of the state of the art on my laptop a year from now.

3

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 22h

My weak contribution is pointing out that "AI has huge social and economic effects" and "OpenAI goes belly-up" are not mutually exclusive scenarios.

2 9

Reposted by Mike Murphy

Nature @nature.com · 22h

Antimicrobial resistance is projected to cause 39 million deaths worldwide over the next 25 years

go.nature.com/42x5KHD

The rise of ‘nightmare bacteria’: antimicrobial resistance in six charts

Data reveal how the global challenge to reduce deaths and infections from drug-resistant bacteria is not going according to plan.

go.nature.com

3 44 71

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 22h

It is some lazy foreshadowing on the part of the writers for sure

1

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 22h

This is really good on giving a sense of the insane scale of the current datacentre build-out. Two immediate takes:

- The magnitude of a potential bust is commensurately huge

- The rapid spin-up of mediocre gas plants is going to release a lot of methane (lmk if someone has estimates!)

#EconSky

James van Geelen on the Next Phase of the AI Buildout

What does Stargate actually look like?

www.bloomberg.com

1 1 5

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 23h

Nice piece by Jean Tirole on (not so) stablecoins #Econsky

[🎁 link]

A Nobel laureate on why stablecoins may be nothing of the sort

Payments systems must be built on public infrastructure, not speculative tokens, writes Jean Tirole

www.economist.com

1 1 3

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 1d

de-de-de-doo de-de-de-doo

ceej @ceej.online · 1d

I swear this is not just because I’m the father of a five year old girl but the k-pop demon hunters soundtrack has got to be the pop record of the year, right? it’s like, weaponized pop production. violating the nuclear non-proliferation treaty pop production

3

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 1d

A good thing

Tom Nichols @radiofreetom.bsky.social · 3d

www.theatlantic.com/press-releas...

The Atlantic Announces Free Digital Subscriptions for All U.S. Public High Schools

None

www.theatlantic.com

1 1 2

Reposted by Mike Murphy

Olivier Simard-Casanova @o.simardcasanova.net · 1d

Call me old-fashioned but I think posting a death threat at the CEO of Bluesky because you disagree with a moderation decision the company has made is well, well worthy of a permaban

Kuba Suder 🇵🇱🇺🇦 @mackuba.eu · 2d

Apparently this is the post that got Link banned: pdsls.dev/at://did:plc...

PDSls

Browse the public data on atproto

pdsls.dev

1 5 30

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 2d

Causing you to travel forward in time

1 1

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 2d

Paramount has acquired the Free Press.

If you are a current Paramount+ subscriber and do not wish to support famine denialists, please consider canceling your subscription using the link below & letting them know why.

support.paramountplus.com/s/article/PI...

Paramount+ Help Center

support.paramountplus.com

1 4 9

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 2d

Parent at the park today told me about their CSA dropping off raw milk

a man in a suit is sitting in front of a microphone and pointing at the camera .

ALT: a man in a suit is sitting in front of a microphone and pointing at the camera .

media.tenor.com

2 21

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 2d

"Sam this career civil servant wants to know if the constitution is still in print" etc.

2

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 2d

The thing that stands out having watched before I moved to DC is the portrayal of the political appointees as all-knowing and the staffers as clueless idiots.

1 4

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 4d

Things can have multiple causes. About a quarter of our emissions are from food systems.

Environmental Impacts of Food Production

What are the environmental impacts of food production? How do we reduce the impacts of agriculture on the environment?

ourworldindata.org

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 4d

I liked him a lot in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, the other deep cut is What's Eating Gilbert Grape when he was a teenager.

Man, I really want to see this now but my inner sicko is also wondering if I should read Vineland first.

1 1

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 4d

Strong endorsement, I'm intrigued.

He's obviously a uh cad, but the man has some bangers.

1 1

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 4d

It's hard for me to reconcile "OpenAI is worth a half trillion dollars" and "OpenAI's state-of-the-art model does marginally better than open-source on high-value tasks" #EconSky

Vidgen et al. "The AI Productivity Index"

Link: arxiv.org/pdf/2509.25721

arxiv.org

2 8

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 5d

The good news is that you can do this while saving money, improving your health and without going vegetarian (if you don't want to).

Project Drawdown @projectdrawdown.bsky.social · 5d

“Nothing else on a pound-for-pound basis, except maybe refrigerants, comes close to the polluting power of beef. That doesn’t mean everyone has to be vegan tomorrow, but the goal should be to trim back high-polluting parts of one’s diet" - @globalecoguy.bsky.social

bit.ly/4mPZ7rj

Want to eat more plant-based meals? Maggie Baird, Billie Eilish's mom, has some ideas

Have you heard replacing meat with plant-based foods is better for the planet and can be better for your health too, but you don’t know where to start?

bit.ly

1 1 2

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 5d

The West needs to significantly reduce consumption of animal-sourced foods if we're going to stabilize our climate

POLITICO Europe @politico.eu · 5d

Even if the world stopped burning coal, oil and gas tomorrow, what we eat would still be enough to heat the climate beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius, warns the EAT-Lancet Commission.

Food is wrecking the planet. And Europe has lost its appetite for change.

A landmark study says food systems are breaching Earth’s limits. Europe once promised to lead the way, but the revolution fizzled.

www.politico.eu

1 4 21

Reposted by Mike Murphy

Paul Hünermund @p-hunermund.com · 5d

Post a favorite econ paper: Lichter et al. (2021, JEEA) @sigginho.bsky.social

Regions with higher Stasi spy density in East Germany still show lower trust, lower incomes, higher unemployment, and less entrepreneurship decades after reunification.

Open-access link: doi.org/10.1093/jeea...

2 21 70

Mike Murphy @mjamurphy.bsky.social · 5d

This looks fascinating!

1