Autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere will be in just over an hour. Nights are about to get longer. A good time of year to think about the history of #night. 🎂 An appropriate book birth day for #TransformingNight 🌌🌠🌃
Sara Pritchard
@sarabpritchard.bsky.social
🌌💡🌃🛰 #TransformingNight Out Sept 22! https://uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295755205/transforming-night/ #SkyStorian #STS #EnvHist #HistTech #envirotech #HistSci #LightPollution #ArtificialLight #ALAN #Night #Darkness #LightJustice #CriticalDarkSkyStudies VMO
Today @sarabpritchard.bsky.social joins us on @askhistorians.bsky.social for a fascinating history from her new book Transforming Night: The History and Science of Light Pollution. Come check it out! www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...
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Thanks, Cornell Chronicle, for today's write-up of the book! #TransformingNight 🌌💡🌃🛰️ #LightPollution #ArtificialLight #ALAN #Night #Darkness #LightJustice news.cornell.edu/stories/2026...
Light pollution’s ‘transformation of night’ requires prompt action | Cornell Chronicle
Science historian Sara B. Pritchard describes a massive spike in the amount of artificial light in the 21st century, with light pollution increasing by nearly 10% annually between 2011 and 2022.
news.cornell.edu
I'm on @askhistorians.bsky.social today, answering questions about my brand-new book, #TransformingNight, from @uwapress.uw.edu! 🌌💡🌃🛰️ www.reddit.com/r/AskHistori...
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Extensive grazing could help protect landscapes from one of the most destructive impacts of climate change, write Tristan Bove, Emerson Mendoza Ayala, and Neal Haddaway @nealhaddaway.bsky.social. But shepherds need more support. ⬇️
Flocks of nomadic sheep might be Europe’s oldest fix for extreme wildfires
Extensive grazing could help protect landscapes from one of the most destructive impacts of climate change, but shepherds need more support.
buff.ly
Delighted to share that I'll be on @askhistorians.bsky.social to talk #ArtificialLight #LightPollution #Night #Darkness 🌌💡🌃🛰️ tomorrow, 9/22 -- the day that #TransformingNight drops! 🥳🤩 #envhist #envhum #histtech #histsci #sts #histSTM
Make sure you take a moment to be whimsical this week.
Oh my dear god, let your college kids fail. Let them fail courses. Let them fail paying rent. Let them fail doing their laundry. Let them fail basic hygiene. Let them fail and experience consequences. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/13/w...
Worried About Your College Kid? Now You Can Hire a Local Mom. (Gift Article)
At some universities, parents can pay to make sure their children are cared for, the way they were back home.
nytimes.com
We are ALL gonna have inconsistent politics. All of us. Either from simple ignorance or just the hypocrisy of being human. But you cannot be better than in seeking to become better. And that is where integrity lies. It’s fidelity to the journey of being better everyday.
+ So one more time, here’s today’s 294th #ScholarSunday thread. Please share if you value & want to support this work, & happy reading, listening, & learning, y’all! 🗃️ @unlawfulentries.bsky.social @civilwarmemory.bsky.social @lollardfish.bsky.social blackwhiteandread.com/scholarsunda...
#ScholarSunday Thread 294 (9/20/26) – Black and White and Read All Over
Down in Music City for my older son’s college Family Weekend, but y’all knew I’d still find a way to share my 294th #ScholarSunday thread of public scholarly writing, podcast episodes, new & forthcomi...
blackwhiteandread.com
A good overview of the #Kessler Syndrome. This is just one of those catastrophes that will happen someday and seem so avoidable in retrospect. More to come about possible prospective solutions in the coming days…. #spacejunk #astroscale
Are We Too Late To Avoid Kessler Syndrome?
YouTube video by Astrum
youtube.com
This is something I've been thinking about as someone who lives in a cold part of the country. People are already struggling and we haven't even gotten to winter heating bills yet. I'm very concerned about the next 6 months.
Rachel Maddow@maddow.bsky.social · 3d ago"The price of heating oil, a fuel that is very similar to diesel, is up roughly 60% since the start of the war in Iran on Feb. 28. "Many Americans are heading into a 'much more expensive' winter..." www.nytimes.com/2026/09/18/b...
Need 30 seconds of zen? This sweet video of #FormerFoster Zeppo nibbling toes and catching a sunbeam might help 🥹 #TimelineCleanse #CatsOfBluesky
It isn't explicit, but we've seen this pattern before. 1) Black Americans are twice as likely to get Alzheimer's 2) Scientists want to study Black communities to figure out why and what insights this has for treatment/cause 3) Trump people cut the program, most likely because they think it's DEI.
Ian Kremer@wolverinebear.bsky.social · 4d agoAmericans may not get results of Alzheimer’s study due to Trump cuts: Shutdown of study is latest for Trump administration, which has canceled, frozen and otherwise disrupted more than 5,700 medical research grants over two years www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026... #Project2025 #science #Blues
🌌 #TransformingNight💡🌃🛰️ from @uwapress.uw.edu drops this Tuesday, Sept 22! Extra thanks to all who preordered! 🤩 Shipping starts today! In the meantime, read an excerpt from the book on @literaryhub.bsky.social #LightPollution #ArtificialLight #ALAN #Night #Darkness lithub.com/what-the-wor...
What the World’s Nightscapes Reveal About Our Dependence on Artificial Light
An image of Earth at night as seen from space appeared on my laptop screen during an internet search. The captivating image with a vague title—“Global Map”—drew me in like an insect mesmerized by t…
lithub.com
Sara Pritchard@sarabpritchard.bsky.social · 6d agoIt's Here 🥲
Woo-hoo!!!!!!!! BRILLIANT BOOK BY BRILLIANT COLLEAGUE ALERT. 🚨 🚨 🚨
Sara Pritchard@sarabpritchard.bsky.social · 6d agoIt's Here 🥲
It's never just about "technical" feasibility. #sts101 It's about the "deciding," "we" (see @maxliboiron.bsky.social on there is no such thing as we), "willing," and the assumption that brightness should be added at all. #TransformingNight 🛰
John Gell@johngsix.bsky.social · last wk.That’s a useful reminder that a space system can be technically feasible and still fail the human-environment test. The measurement is the easy part; deciding what brightness we are willing to add to a shared sky is the engineering constraint.
🪞 A planned space mirror would outshine the full Moon Modelling of the proposed Reflect Orbital satellite found a single 54m mirror would appear about 4 magnitudes brighter than a full Moon to anyone in its beam. 🔗 doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ae9551 #lightpollution #space 🧪
Atmospheric Light Pollution by Proposed Reflect Orbital Space Mirrors
Atmospheric Light Pollution by Proposed Reflect Orbital Space Mirrors, Kocifaj, Miroslav, Bakos, Gáspár Á., Kundracik, František
doi.org
I read this as "EvilCore." NOT WRONG
ProPublica@propublica.org · 6d agoWhen companies like Aetna or UnitedHealthcare want to rein in costs, they turn to EviCore, whose business model depends on turning down payments for care recommended by doctors for their patients. (Published Oct. 2024 with @capitolforum.bsky.social)
Once again, the median pay for an adjunct professor in the United States of America is $3,500 per course. Not per month, per course.
Jed Brown@jedbrown.org · 6d agoOh. That's a heck of a subsidy.
Extremely depressing to be back at University right now and hear professor after professor offhandedly mention how something interesting *would* have been a good assignment before AI pushed them to focus more and more on exams and in-class work.
This is partly an LLM problem and partly an organizational problem. The LLM makes life much, much easier for everyone who wants to just pretend, and much, much harder for everyone who doesn’t.
🧵 for @kevinmkruse.bsky.social (and the rest of us) Yes, there will be a quiz. 😱
Kim Weeden@weedenkim.bsky.social · last wk.Mike Collins? Isn't he the GOP candidate who refused to denounce the antisemitic and racist posts of the MI Young Republicans & on his outreach team? No, that's Mike Rogers. Mike Collins is the GOP candidate whose son-in-law is a neo-Nazi and whose ex-staffer wears KKK robes and posts swastikas.
To celebrate that I completed my first day in special collections (😍😍) here is my favorite weird illustration: the zoophyte vegetable lamb. Imagined to explain cotton. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetab...
Email that you are actually HAPPY to receive: "The first advance copy of #TransformingNight has arrived here at the press..." 🌌🌃🎉 uwapress.uw.edu/book/9780295...
Transforming Night
Who owns the night—and what is lost as we flood it with light, worldwide?Darkness has become legible—and contested. Blending archival narrative with on-t...
uwapress.uw.edu
TFW you use highlighting to note key/upcoming deadlines on your to-do list and then you realize you are using three different colors of highlighting because it's all coming so fast and furious
Dominic Toretto Driving - Fast & Furious
Alt: Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) driving and looking sideways in the camera in "Fast & Furious"
static.klipy.com
They already made it almost impossible to finish a PhD as an international student, and to come here on a work visa. Now this, a huge deterrent to institutional support of int. students finding US-based work after graduating. I guess white nationalism is worth economic collapse
Michael Clemens@mclem.org · last wk.The US President's new proposal to tax international students has been approved by the White House for release this week. It's an unprecedented $100,000 tax on int'l grads who stay to work after graduation on Optional Practical Training (most grads do), a crucial bridge to remaining by any channel.
