Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

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🌻OK MR. SUNSHINE!🌻 @entobiologist.bsky.social · 9h

speaking of bivalves, today i learned "margaret" means pearl and derives from either an old iranian or persian word ("mr‌gāhrīta" or "murwārīd" respectively, idk which is older). then i had an aha moment over the unionid genus name margaritifera because i realized it means pearl-carrying!! perfect

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Natalia Jagielska @nataliajagielska.bsky.social · 1d

Did you know. That the meme-explosion that was the wooden model of Sacabambaspis (an Ordovician jawless fish) held at a Museum in Helsinki, was created by a pioneering Estonian fish paleontologist and palaeoartist, Elga Mark-Kurik. 🧵

Valentina Karatajute-Talimaa and Elga Mark-Kurik on Kreuzritter lake (Kryzhiuochiu ezheras), under an umbrella, north of Vilnius,Lithuania, 1977 (photo H.-P. Schultze).

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Aline Ghilardi @alinemghilardi.bsky.social · 1d

The name Bakiribu waridza derives from Kariri words: bakiribú (“comb”) and waridzá (“mouth”), referring to the animal’s comb-like dentition. The name also honors the Indigenous peoples native to the Araripe region, Brazil.
🎨 by @lacerdajulio.bsky.social

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Ian Potter @ianzpotter.bsky.social · 1d

Happy There Is A Circulatory System Walking Through The Kitchen Day to all who celebrate.

It's an artistic representation of a circulatory system walking through a kitchen, as drawn by Dave Gibbons and written about by Alan Moore.
It happens a lot 'round here.

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Lukas Musher @lukemusher.bsky.social · 3d

Our paper on tinamou evolution is finally out in @systbiol.bsky.social. academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan...

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/ɹɑb/ 𓅃 @robertborland.bsky.social · 3d

This would also open up an under-explored angle in Star Wars' setting: how does the spacefaring necessary in a galaxy-spanning polity affect how people behave?

/ɹɑb/ 𓅃 @robertborland.bsky.social · 3d

I dig this: what makes sub films work for me is the way the inherently hostile environment outside the vessel turns it into an isolated social microcosm & a pressure-cooker for characters' personalities to spark conflict. [I think of IKIRAE XB-1 (1963), for example.] bsky.app/profile/robe...

/ɹɑb/ 𓅃 @robertborland.bsky.social · 27d

I think a sci-fi film about a submarine mission to search for signs of life under Europa's ice would be an interesting idea; a combination of two surprisingly similar settings - submarines and spaceships.

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Brittany Trang @brittanytrang.com · 3d

A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death.

Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written."

Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating.
🧪🧬🧫

James Watson, dead at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers

James Watson, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA who died Thursday at 97, was a scientific legend and a pariah among his peers.

www.statnews.com

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Rebecca Spang @rlspang.bsky.social · 4d

Latest write-up about outrageous administrative over reach at IU. www.jta.org/2025/11/07/u...

In Indiana, a vaunted Jewish studies program is upended by red-state politics over Israel and speech - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

A leadership shakeup, a defunded graduate student and political pressure from above have turned a storied program into a flashpoint for Trump-era campus politics.

www.jta.org

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Jeffrey M @jeffreymphd.bsky.social · 4d

Her sister wrote my favorite essay about her. She points out that RF would have been famous even if she'd never looked at DNA

www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Remembering my sister Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin died of ovarian cancer in 1958 aged 37 years. Sympathy and feminism have combined to give us her familiar image as a downtrodden woman scientist, brilliant but neglected, a heroine t...

www.thelancet.com

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depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 4d

happy anniversary of Stupid Lake getting its name [citation needed]

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Alberta Claw @albertonykus.bsky.social · 4d

Phylogeny of tinamous based on whole-genomes and fossils: academic.oup.com/sysbio/advan... 🪶🧪 (📷Musher et al.)

Diagram showing the evolutionary relationships among tinamous, a group of superficially partridge-like birds more closely related to ostriches and emus.

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The Onion @theonion.com · 6d

Flying Squirrel Loves It Every Time

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Henry Thomas 🦤🏳️‍🌈 @zhejiang0pterus.bsky.social · 6d

JUST PUBLISHED!!!! A major azhdarchoid phylogeny paper coauthored with @skyemcdavid.com - the fruit of years of work - is now out in @journalsystpal.bsky.social! New clades, reconstruction of size evolution, and more. Full thread to come soon!

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Enter the dragons: the phylogeny of Azhdarchoidea (Pterosauria: Pterodactyloidea) and the evolution of giant size in pterosaurs

Azhdarchidae is a clade of pterosaurs which includes the largest-ever flying animals. The evolutionary history of this clade and its closest relatives remains incompletely understood and highly deb...

www.tandfonline.com

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Gabriel Ugueto @serpenillus.bsky.social · 8d

One of the largest temmnospondyls ever to exist: the gigantic Koolasuchus was also the last non-lissamphibian temnospondyl to exist. It survived into the Early Cretaceous of Australia when all other stereospondyls were long gone

#temnospondyls #paleoart

Illustration of Koolasuchus next to the silhouette of a ca. 1.8 m tall human

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Dining and Cooking @diningandcooking.bsky.social · 9d

Duane Roberts, Inventor of the Frozen Burrito, Dead at 88

https://www.diningandcooking.com/2363023/duane-roberts-inventor-of-the-frozen-burrito-dead-at-88/

Duane Roberts Billionaire Who Invented Frozen Burrito Dead at 88 Published November 2, 2025 9:51 AM PST Duane Roberts — the billionaire …

Duane Roberts, Inventor of the Frozen Burrito, Dead at 88 - Dining and Cooking

Duane Roberts -- the billionaire businessman credited with inventing the frozen burrito -- has died ... TMZ has learned.

www.diningandcooking.com

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Duncan McIlroy @dmcediacaran.bsky.social · 12d

This #FossilFriday I’m excitedly sharing a new #Ediacaran #Charnia brasieri named for my PhD Supervisor & friend Martin Brasier who died 2014. I’ve wanted to name something for him ever since but I wanted it to be something special. When I saw the first one from Inner Meadow I knew it was the 1 🧵

leaf shaped animal fossil with sickle shaped branches meeting a a zigzagged axis Charnia brasieri sp nov

Shaped of the currently valid species of Charnia and their branch types

seafloor reconstruction of Charnia brasieri as a procumbent organisms living among microbial matgrounds

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Kristi Ellingsen @kristiellingsen.bsky.social · 13d

Sorry spider haters, but this was just the most beautiful beast & I knew (nearly everyone) would need to see it 😉. It sat frozen, up on its toes, on the edge of Leeman (WA) salt lake while I took pics. Unfortunately it was too big (body length 1.4cm) for my lens. #spider #Lycosidae #Tetralycosa

Most of a wolf spider, taken from directly above. The last segments of a few legs have been cut off by the frame. It is standing on holy salty sand, so the background looks like a solid slab of black specked beige. The spider is a mainly soft grey body with four black eyes showing. The abdomen is marked with a grey line and black rimmed blobs all over it. This made it incredibly hard to see if you weren't paying close attention. The legs are a more pinky white with diffuse black barring. If it was big enough people would be wearing the "pelt" as luxury coats. It's gorgeous.

The same spider taken from a low angle, looking at the face slightly angled. This shows the female palps and the entire set of 8 black eyes. It also showed how the spider was right up on its "toes" ready for a fast get-away (or maybe the blinding white salt was hot to stand on). There is a bit of a shadow from the intense sunlight. Spider description is on the other photo.

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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 14d

regular reminder that when i say something is my *favorite* that is distinct from saying it is *the best*.

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Emily J. Edwards @msemilyedwards.bsky.social · 17d

i’m just so mad because if we absolutely had to elect an unqualified media personality to be president we should have gone with either of the guys from CAR TALK

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Yuki Haba @yukihaba.bsky.social · 18d

How does life evolve to adapt to modern cities?

Out now in Science, my PhD work with @lindymcbr.bsky.social uncovers the ancient origin of the “London Underground mosquito” – one of the most iconic examples of urban adaptation.

🧵(1/n)
@science.org
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady4515

Ancient origin of an urban underground mosquito

Understanding how life is adapting to urban environments represents an important challenge in evolutionary biology. In this work, we investigate a widely cited example of urban adaptation, Culex pipie...

www.science.org

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Alessandro Chiarenza @macroecoevoale.bsky.social · 19d

New paper today in @science.org: we date the Naashoibito Member (New Mexico) to 66.4–66.0 Ma, coeval with the Hell Creek, with important remarks on pre-extinction dinosaur diversity & regionalisation in North America 🦖🦕☄1/
Art: @nataliajagielska.bsky.social
🔗 www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New Mexico dinosaurs including Alamosaurus watch the asteroid hit the Yucatán about 3,000 kilometres away, 66 million years ago

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Natalia Jagielska @nataliajagielska.bsky.social · 19d

Had the pleasure of working on the press release image for this groundbreaking research!

A streak of white in the sky startles a large sauropod with ceratopsian and theropods under its legs

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Ricki Coughlan @rickicoughlan.bsky.social · 19d

Sound UP! When a gang of young male Superb Lyrebirds surround you, often within less than a metre. I zoomed back to 80mm but often had to lean back to get this footage. I've left it largely unedited to capture the mayhem of the moment. #birds #birding #nature #lyrebirds

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Petra Korlević @petrathepostdoc.bsky.social · 19d

Day 24 #Invertober2025 - New Zealand mussel (Perna canaliculus) 🦪

#SciArt #invertebrates

semi realistic drawing of two halves of a green New Zealand mussel almost in the shape of a heart, with green and yellow lines and a shiny top, on a black background.

semi realistic drawing of two halves of a green New Zealand mussel almost in the shape of a heart, with green and yellow lines and a shiny top, on a white background.

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