Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Will Shoemaker

Kara McKinley @karalmckinley.bsky.social · 2d

Lab’s 1st preprint!

Menstruation is understudied due to societal taboos + a biological challenge: mice (a key system for research + drug discovery) don’t menstruate.

@cagricevrim.bsky.social made menstruating mice + used them to discover early events in menstruation.

He is on the job market!

Çağrı Çevrim @cagricevrim.bsky.social · 2d

I’m thrilled to share my postdoc work and the first paper from the McKinley Lab! 🎉
@karalmckinley.bsky.social
We built the first transgenic model of menstruation in mice.
We used it to uncover how the endometrium organizes and sheds during menstruation. 🧪
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
🧵

Induction of menstruation in mice reveals the regulation of menstrual shedding

During menstruation, an inner layer of the endometrium is selectively shed, while an outer, progenitor-containing layer is preserved to support repeated regeneration. Progress in understanding this co...

www.biorxiv.org

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Kevin J. CREATURE @kevinjkircher.com · 7d

Sometimes I think about how from 1935-1975ish, Bell Labs produced an insane amount of revolutionary science and technology, including 11 Nobel Prizes, the transistor, UNIX, C, the laser, the solar cell, information theory, etc. The secret? Provide scientists with ample, steady, no-strings funding.

sites.stat.columbia.edu

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Moby Dick @mobydickatsea.bsky.social · 9d

There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause

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Lit Hub @literaryhub.bsky.social · 28d

“It’s another reason to love RSS: seems like the tech lords hate it.” Why you should let RSS feeds back into your (digital) life.

Why you should get (back) into RSS curation.

Right after college, I moved to San Francisco, a city where I knew one person. I had a lonely time at first, and in particular I struggled to stay connected to the friends I no longer shared a camp…

buff.ly

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Sean Gibbons 🦠💩 @gibbological.bsky.social · 29d

The landscape of microbial associations in human cancer www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

TLDR -- most cancers do not have microbiomes...but a few do have consistent microbe associations (i.e., colorectal and oral cancers). Make sense!

The landscape of microbial associations in human cancer

Differences between cancer types, infectious disease, and potential prognostic markers are uncovered by studying microbes within cancer DNA.

www.science.org

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Di Jiang @dijiang319.bsky.social · Sep 12

@science.org ⤵️challenges prevailing notion—repressor and activator act by distinct mechanisms: repressors block via steric hindrance/activators enable Pol II binding to promoter🧬

E. coli transcription factors regulate promoter activity by a universal, homeostatic mechanism | Science bit.ly/adv2064

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ryan cooper @ryanlcooper.com · Sep 12

the amount of Chinese investment in green tech around the developing world is simply mind boggling www.netzeropolicylab.com/china-green-...

China Green Leap Outward — Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab

A new China Low Carbon Technology FDI Database

www.netzeropolicylab.com

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arXiv physics.bio-ph Biological Physics @physicsbioph-bot.bsky.social · Sep 5

Ilya Nemenman, Pankaj Mehta: Randomness with constraints: constructing minimal models for high-dimensional biology https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.03765 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.03765 https://arxiv.org/html/2509.03765

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Mike Blazanin @mikeblazanin.bsky.social · Sep 8

Happy to see this paper finally out in @pnas.org!

#phage #microbiology #MicroSky #VirEvol 🦠 🧫 🔬

Gift link: www.pnas.org/eprint/YYDZ9...

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thetranscendedman @atranscendedman.bsky.social · Sep 5

London researchers estimate COVID-19 vaccines cost $79B in 2020–21 but returned $4.8–$37.8T in health and economic benefits.

That is $60–$475 gained for every $1 invested, making them one of the best global investments ever.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1...

The global return-on-investment of COVID-19 vaccines in the first year of the vaccination programme

COVID-19 vaccines played a critical role in reducing global health burden during the COVID-19 pandemic, but their rapid development required extraordinary effort. This study aims to evaluate their glo...

www.medrxiv.org

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alex williams @atwilliams.bsky.social · Sep 6

faust everywhere for anyone with the eyes to see

Paris Marx @parismarx.com · Sep 6

Geoffrey Hinton’s ex-girlfriend used ChatGPT to tell him “what a rat [he] was.” Now if only the media could wake up to how untrustworthy and self-serving his doomsayer assessment of AI is.

Godfather of AI Says His Girlfriend Broke Up With Him Using ChatGPT

Geoffrey Hinton, long considered a "godfather of AI," revealed that his ex-girlfriend had broken up with him — by using ChatGPT.

futurism.com

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Will Shoemaker @shoestrapped.bsky.social · Sep 4

Rarefaction curves of richness as a function of # paintings! A good pedagogical example of the many ways one can sample biodiversity.

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Will Shoemaker @shoestrapped.bsky.social · Sep 4

Very cool approach

"Italian still life paintings as a resource for reconstructing past Mediterranean aquatic biodiversity"

www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Italian still life paintings as a resource for reconstructing past Mediterranean aquatic biodiversity - npj Biodiversity

npj Biodiversity - Italian still life paintings as a resource for reconstructing past Mediterranean aquatic biodiversity

www.nature.com

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Dave Baltrus 🦦 @surtlab.bsky.social · Sep 3

Common grant reviews I got multiple times from 2 very different NSF panels when I proposed things like this (full acknowledgement it’s on me to write and justify better)

“But Lenski already did this, evolution is gonna happen”

“There are no alternatives proposed in case the bacteria do not adapt”

Richard Lenski @relenski.bsky.social · Sep 3

Should more microbiologists be running long-term evolution experiments? It isn't just me who thinks so :>)

dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2025/09/02/b...

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Richard Lenski @relenski.bsky.social · Sep 3

Should more microbiologists be running long-term evolution experiments? It isn't just me who thinks so :>)

dynamicecology.wordpress.com/2025/09/02/b...

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Chuliang Song @clsong.com · Sep 2

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

A truly delightful read by Judith Bronstein reflecting on the state of mutualism studies. It's a thoughtful look at where the field has been and where it's going—and such beautiful writing as well!

The Study of Mutualism, Past, Present, and Future | The American Naturalist: Vol 0, No ja

www.journals.uchicago.edu

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BejaLab @bejalab.bsky.social · Sep 2

Bringing the uncultivated microbial majority of freshwater ecosystems into culture www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Bringing the uncultivated microbial majority of freshwater ecosystems into culture - Nature Communications

A large fraction of aquatic bacteria remains uncultured. Here, the authors cultivated 627 strains of abundant freshwater bacteria from 14 European lakes, thus generating a collection that includes man...

www.nature.com

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Reposted by Will Shoemaker

Jan Rosenow @janrosenow.bsky.social · Aug 30

There’s a persistent myth that new solar farms don’t really help tackle climate change because panels are “made with coal” and “never pay back” their carbon debt.

This is simply false.

- UN: solar ~8x cleaner than gas, ~19x than coal per kWh
- panels repay CO2 in 4 months; save 57x over life

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Ulf R. Dahle @ulfdahle.bsky.social · Aug 29

The U.S. decision to deny visas to Palestinian delegates who were planning to attend the UNGA meeting about the recognition of a Palestinian state is highly problematic. It also raises concerns about its role as the UN’s host country.

#Gaza
www.state.gov/releases/off...

Trump Administration Reaffirms Commitment to Not Reward Terrorism and Revokes Visas of Palestinian Officials Ahead of UNGA - United States Department of State

In accordance with U.S. law, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is denying and revoking visas from members of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Palestinian Authority (PA) ahead of the up...

www.state.gov

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Will Shoemaker @shoestrapped.bsky.social · Aug 29

Completely shameful. USian tenured professors, especially at high-profile institutions, need to be making more noise and causing much, much more trouble to roadblock ongoing republican attempts to dismantle science.

Catherine Rampell @crampell.bsky.social · Aug 29

Trump admin planning to change student visas from lasting for duration of academic program to fixed 4-yr term, and then much harder to renew
Could destroy US ability to attract global talent, particularly those seeking advanced degrees in STEM. The median time to complete a PhD is 5.7 yrs per NSF.

Trump Deals A New Immigration Blow To International Students

Trump officials have proposed a new rule limiting international students to fixed periods of entry, making a U.S. education more precarious.

www.forbes.com

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Sean Eddy @cryptogenomicon.bsky.social · Aug 28

Biomedical PhD's take longer than four years. This is a very bad proposed rule.

Sam Gershman @gershbrain.bsky.social · Aug 28

RIP foreign PhD students in the US. So sad and self-defeating.

www.politico.com/news/2025/08...

Trump administration plans to limit how long foreign students can study in the US

Foreign students have been allowed to stay in the country for as long as they were full-time students making progress in their degrees.

www.politico.com

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JW Mason @jwmason.bsky.social · Aug 26

The IRA was surprisingly effective at spurring investment in green energy. Where it failed was making it *politically* sustainable by delivering immediate tangible benefits to the public. In that sense, the Green New Deal was, in retrospect, the more prudent and realistic approach. on.ft.com/4n4Ayra

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Martina Dal Bello @martinadalbello.bsky.social · Aug 25

Check out our new paper led by brilliant @jhuisman.bsky.social about how microbial communities cope with stress due to increasing salinity in their environment. We have all your favorites: isolate phenotyping, pairwise competitions, community propagations, and theory. #microsky #mevosky #ecosky

Jana Huisman @jhuisman.bsky.social · Aug 25

Have you ever wondered what increasing environmental stress will do to microbial communities?

In our new preprint, @martinadalbello.bsky.social, Jeff Gore and I studied the impact of salinity on microbial community composition and function. 🧵 (1/5)
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Microbial communities demonstrate robustness in stressful environments due to predictable composition shifts

Environmental stress reduces species growth rates, but its impact on the function of microbial communities is less clear. Here, we experimentally demonstrate that increasing salinity stress shifts com...

www.biorxiv.org

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Will Shoemaker @shoestrapped.bsky.social · Aug 25

Abandon linkedin

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Gavin Schmidt @climateofgavin.bsky.social · Aug 23

The tendency to credit GenAI efforts with the success of ML in much more specific (and appropriate) contexts to justify increasing emissions for AI slop generation is something to behold.

Nature @nature.com · Aug 22

Without artificial-intelligence technologies, balancing human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions with carbon removals by 2050 is out of reach

go.nature.com/41LtWWk

Net zero needs AI — five actions to realize its promise

Without artificial-intelligence technologies, balancing human-caused greenhouse-gas emissions with carbon removals by 2050 is out of reach. Action in five areas is needed to keep this goal alive.

go.nature.com

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