Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈

Julie Wash @jakwash.bsky.social · 18h

Crazy to poison our aquifers and drinking wells with extraction of fossil fuels which burn into planet-destroying emissions.

Lose-lose.

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 18h

If you want to see all the other 200+ studies documenting how fracking-related activities have depleted or contaminated water sources, you can find them in the open-source fracking science compendium of which I’m an co-editor and co-author:

concernedhealthny.org/compendium/

Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking and Associated Gas and Oil Infrastructure, Ninth Edition, October 19, 2023

The Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking and Associated Gas and Oil Infrastructure (the Compendium) is a fully referenced compilation…

concernedhealthny.org

8 9

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 13h

LOVE you guys. Would be nowhere without the ILL librarians. ❤️

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 17h

“There is no more water available” is the literal lede of the story.

Seems…bad

insideclimatenews.org/news/0610202...

As Colorado River Nears Collapse, It Faces Leadership, Transparency ‘Crisis,’ Environmentalists Warn - Inside Climate News

A new report from a coalition of environmental organizations offers recommendations on how to address the declining water supply in the river as negotiations over its future stall.

insideclimatenews.org

2 20 42

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 18h

If you want to see all the other 200+ studies documenting how fracking-related activities have depleted or contaminated water sources, you can find them in the open-source fracking science compendium of which I’m an co-editor and co-author:

concernedhealthny.org/compendium/

Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking and Associated Gas and Oil Infrastructure, Ninth Edition, October 19, 2023

The Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking and Associated Gas and Oil Infrastructure (the Compendium) is a fully referenced compilation…

concernedhealthny.org

2 1

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 18h

Water contamination from fracking can happen via multiple pathways.

In this case, it was a frack-out: fracking fluids traveled up an abandoned gas well nearby, which provided a pathway to pollute the drinking water aquifer.

Good explainer of new study here: insideclimatenews.org/news/0710202...

Scientists Find Evidence that a Pennsylvania Town’s Water Was Contaminated by Fracking - Inside Climate News

Three years after noticing discoloration and odors in their wells, residents in New Freeport are still fighting for clean water.

insideclimatenews.org

1 4 7

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 18h

🧪 NEW STUDY of fracking and drinking water in PA:

“Our results verify that unintended communication events can result in widespread contamination of subsurface water sources”

The verb “verify” references the 200+ previous studies that also found fracking harms water

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Contamination of private water supplies after a well communication event (frac-out) in southwest Pennsylvania - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Contamination of private water supplies after a well communication event (frac-out) in southwest Pennsylvania

www.nature.com

1 17 28

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 21h

Love this….and it’s also deeply relevant to me right now as I stare down my own book proposal in progress. TY!

1 3

Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈

Jacquelyn Gill @jacquelyngill.bsky.social · 21h

I've been working on a book proposal and alternating between "this is meaningful" and "this is pointless," and a friend recently shared this quote that she stumble on in a Goodreads review: "Every book is a grand gesture of optimism on the part of both the reader and writer." Keep creating, friends.

10 63 380

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 22h

I’m an ecologist who studies how ecosystems maintain balance. This 👇is beautiful science and a testament to the power of systems thinking across international boundaries. Bravo!

The Conversation U.S. @us.theconversation.com · 23h

This year’s Nobel Prize in medicine honors scientists who revealed how the immune system maintains balance between defending against pathogens and sparing healthy cells, opening new doors for treating autoimmune diseases and cancer.
buff.ly/PayRUAu

How does your immune system stay balanced? A Nobel Prize-winning answer

Regulatory T cells help your immune system distinguish between ‘self’ and ‘nonself’ – and can open doors to better treatments for cancer, autoimmune disease and transplant rejection.

buff.ly

2 8 23

Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈

Carl Quintanilla @carlquintanilla.bsky.social · 1d

“.. On closer inspection, however, it turned out that the image was not a photograph of a real event in Portland, but instead a fabrication created by combining two photographs of scenes that unfolded in South America nearly a decade apart ..”

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

710 7.3K 14K

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 1d

Can’t wait! And brava! I hope it feels really great to be at the finish-line stage of the writing process.

1 2

Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈

Kailee Pedersen @kaileepedersen.bsky.social · 1d

🥚 for the adoptee feed - this is my second novel, and my first with an adoptee protagonist! 🥰 🙂

2 3 10

Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈

Kailee Pedersen @kaileepedersen.bsky.social · 1d

Digital galleys of my second novel, THE MINIMALIST, are now available on Edelweiss!

“To compose is among the bitterest of self-mutilations..."

Request here: www.edelweiss.plus#sku=1250328276

eGalleys on Edelweiss available now for Kailee Pedersen's THE MINIMALIST. Cover features an Asian woman's face inside the silhouette of a piano.

The Minimalist by Kailee Pedersen - out in hardcover August 18, 2026

Cover features an Asian woman's face inside the silhouette of a piano.

Novel includes: classical music psychodrama; gruesome, unsettling, queer elements; vibes of Tár and The Piano Teacher; a descent into madness; a bisexual protagonist; Asian adoptee issues; and 20th century Jewish composers.

1 1 9

Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈

Brooke @brooklynmarie.bsky.social · 1d

Actually it did begin with a parade of tanks

Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney.bsky.social · 1d

NEW: The militarization of American cities isn’t happening with a parade of tanks. It’s a slow drip of troop deployments that are probing courts’ willingness to give unlimited deference to the commander in chief — and testing workarounds when they don’t.

www.politico.com/newsletters/...

29 340 1.8K

Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈

Eileen Clancy 🧿 @clancyny.bsky.social · 1d

"[Bodycam] video shows an agent turn federal vehicle left into Martinez’s vehicle, after which an agent says, 'Do something b----.' The agent then exits the vehicle and shoots at Martinez.

[Her lawyer] Parente said Martinez has 'seven holes' in her from the shooting."

Govt didn't show that video.

Chicago Sun-Times @chicago.suntimes.com · 1d

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government’s claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed.
trib.al/9Sxu9IN

Attorney for woman shot by Border Patrol claims officer said 'Do something b-----' before shooting

Body-camera video appears to contradict the government's claim that Marimar Martinez, 30, drove toward officers before one of them opened fire at her late Saturday morning in Brighton Park, her attorney claimed. A judge ordered Martinez and a co-defendant released pending trial.

trib.al

6 140 250

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 2d

lol! Guess so.

Running from the glut squads too…

1

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 2d

*Goon squads

1 5

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 2d

Two running hacks that get me out the door when I’m not in the mood:

1) Recall that there are whole hospitals full of people inside MRI machines who would GIVE EVERYTHING THEY OWN to walk out the door and run.

2) Meditate on my intention to outlive the fascists and outsprint their goon quads

2 5 38

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 2d

Fossil fuels = prenatal harm

Original study: read the data yourself and figure out what you want to do about this…

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Investigating the Aliso Canyon gas blowout disaster and adverse birth outcomes: A quasiexperimental approach

Late pregnancy exposure to the Aliso Canyon gas blowout is linked to higher rates of low birthweight and term low birthweight.

www.science.org

4 6

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 2d

The 10-year anniversary of the Aliso Canyon blowout is upon us. For 4 months it spewed climate-wrecking methane + toxic chemicals into the San Fernando Valley.

NEW STUDY: women pregnant during the leak had babies with low birth weights at rates 50% higher than normal. 1/2

laist.com/news/health/...

Low birth weight rates rose nearly 50% around Aliso Canyon gas leak, UCLA study finds

A UCLA study in the journal Science Advances also found a likely increase in miscarriages around the methane leak in the northern San Fernando Valley in 2015.

laist.com

3 6 14

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 2d

Agree with you on the merits. The legal and political issue here in the US is rightwing willingness to outlaw and even criminalize medical abortion while overlooking chemical exposures that result in involuntary abortions, which we call miscarriages and pretend they are acts of God.

1 1

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 2d

🥚Fantastic research by one of our finest adoptee rights authors.

Open adoption is the bait used to convince vulnerable mothers to relinquish babies for adoption, but it’s not a legal contract and it serves at the pleasure of the adopters, who can subsequently close an adoption at will —and they do.

Nicole Chung @nicolechung.bsky.social · 5d

If you want to understand open adoption, it makes sense to start with birth parents—yet studies of them are few. 2+ yrs ago, I began talking w/ birth mothers to try to understand what living in an open adoption is like for them, and what rights or options they might have if challenges were to arise.

When Adoption Promises Are Broken

Many birth mothers hope to maintain contact with their child. But their agreements with adoptive parents can be fragile.

www.theatlantic.com

9 12

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 3d

Done! Thank you

1

Reposted by Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈

Nick Cunningham @nickcunningham.bsky.social · 3d

If you want to follow events in Portland, don’t read NYT.

Follow local reporters who know their community

@alexzee.bsky.social
@alexbaumhardt.bsky.social
@taylorgriggs.bsky.social
@gosiawoz.bsky.social

4 33 57

Dr. Sandra Steingraber 🏳️‍🌈 @ssteingraber1.bsky.social · 3d

Well yes. Not giving them a pass.

1 1