Karen Poole
LightNews LightNews
renpoole.bsky.social
Karen Poole
@renpoole.bsky.social
530 followers 390 following 250 posts
Dinosaur paleontologist teaching human anatomy to medical students. Interests: ornithischians, systematics, diversity in science and medicine.

Avi by @blackmudpuppy
Posts Replies Media Videos
renpoole.bsky.social
We’re really going to fix our infrastructure by deporting construction crews.

Abolish ICE.
The Butterfly meme, asking “Is this infrastructure week?”
September 21, 2025 at 10:30 PM
renpoole.bsky.social
Officials at the FDA published recommendations in the New England Journal of Medicine that, in their own words, will kill people involved in vaccine trials. This is incredibly unethical. Article: www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....
Figure 3 depicts the FDA's preferred study design for such trials. Given that there is global equipoise about yearly boosters for the 50-64-year-old age group, we assert that this is an ideal population for future trials. The FDA's preferred primary end point in these trials will be symptomatic Covid-19, with special attention paid to several secondary end points: severe Covid-19, hospitalization, and death. Sample-size calculations should aim to demonstrate that vaccines reduce the incidence of the primary end point with a lower confidence interval bound that is ideally above 30%. People who have had Covid-19 in the past year should not be excluded — since evidence is needed for the average American. Follow-up should extend for a minimum of 6 months to ensure that early booster gains persist. The control group could receive a saline placebo, to permit documentation of the full adverse-event profile. Ultimately, these studies alone can provide reassurance that the American repeat-boosters-in-perpetuity strategy is evidence-based.
May 20, 2025 at 4:48 PM
renpoole.bsky.social
Pew data shows people in their early 30s have become less likely to be religiously affiliated over time: www.pewresearch.org/religion/202...
Graph showing the percent of US adults who identify as Christian at ages 30-34. One line shows those raised Christian: 90% identified as Christian in 1990, while only 65% did in 2020. Another line shows those raised religiously unaffiliated. 44% identified as Christian in 1990 while 21% did in 2020. Another graph shows the inverse of this: that more 30-34 year olds identify as religiously unaffiliated in 2020 than in 1990, whether they were raised Christian or religiously unaffiliated.
May 16, 2025 at 7:07 PM
renpoole.bsky.social
I refuse to believe Zuck is an actual human around my age. The TV of our formative years clearly tells us the average American has 6 friends!
Opening credits of the TV show Friends, showing Ross, Monica, Phoebe, Rachel, Chandler, and Joey splashing each other in a fountain.
May 1, 2025 at 9:54 PM
renpoole.bsky.social
A reminder that a citizen of a country, by definition, cannot be deported from that country. If a citizen is forced to leave, some possible words might be: exiled, banished, kidnapped, forced out.

Do not let governments or journalists get away with misusing language to normalize these actions.
deportation noun 1 : an act or instance of deporting 2 : the removal from a country of an alien whose presence is unlawful or prejudicial
April 26, 2025 at 12:43 PM
renpoole.bsky.social
In response to RFK Jr.’s utter bullshit, let’s celebrate some autistic poets! Here’s an interview with award winning poet Karl Knights, listing several of his favorite autistic poets. Please comment with other recommendations! poetrybusiness.co.uk/2021/10/27/k...
Are there any autistic writers or artists that inspire you? Gosh, too many to name! Coming across Joanne Limburg's collection, The Autistic Alice (Bloodaxe: 2017) was one of the first times I saw autistic experience reflected in poetry. I still think that collection didn't get anywhere near the amount of attention it should have got. I think that, when the histories of autistic poetry come to be written, that book will be seen as a landmark, groundbreaking collection. I've been re-reading the poetry and prose of Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, a writer who deserves to be more well-known on these shores. I've been revisiting Cyree Jarelle Johnson's book, Slingshot, too. It's always a joy to be shown what a poem can do, and how much a poem can hold, and Johnson's expansive book reminds me of what poetry is capable of in droves. I'm looking forward to Jane Burn's forthcoming collection, Be Feared, from Nine Arches Press. I've been returning to a poem by Mollie Russell called 'My Nephew's Second Birthday: A Saga of Self-Stimulatory Behaviour' that people can find in The Emma Press Anthology of Illness. Each time I read Russell's poem I get so much pleasure out of this line: 1 am not broken. My bones just need more oiling.' I've been enjoying the erasure poems of Chloe Erin a great deal, too. There's an optimism to them that I like a lot, but it's not a twee or hokey optimism, it's hard-edged, hard won and earned.
April 17, 2025 at 2:13 AM
renpoole.bsky.social
Cool idea, but why use an AI image that doesn’t even show what you’re talking about? I found a public domain image on Wikipedia in under a minute.
A diagram showing the distribution of median, ulnar, and radial nerves to the skin of the hand.
February 22, 2025 at 8:09 PM
renpoole.bsky.social
Hey guys, is this authoritarian?

(From new executive order found here: www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...)
Sec. 7. Rules of Conduct Guiding Federal Employees’ Interpretation of the Law. The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch. The President and the Attorney General’s opinions on questions of law are controlling on all employees in the conduct of their official duties. No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law, including but not limited to the issuance of regulations, guidance, and positions advanced in litigation, unless authorized to do so by the President or in writing by the Attorney General.
February 19, 2025 at 3:30 AM
renpoole.bsky.social
Oh, so now Trump is trying to install himself onto Saint Luigi’s defense council, too?
Tweet by Donald J. Trump stating “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
February 15, 2025 at 8:19 PM
renpoole.bsky.social
Cartoon of an Iguanodon stabbing a Raptor with its thumb spike captioned “talk dumb, get the thumb”
February 6, 2025 at 3:22 AM
renpoole.bsky.social
🔥🔥🔥
Although RFK, Jr., and Luigi Mangione are both responses to the same underlying problem of US healthcare corruption, there is a major difference between them: one allegedly operated outside the law to kill one person in defense of millions, whereas the other-via his egomaniacal disregard for scientific evidence-seeks to use law itself to inflict preventable death on those millions.
February 1, 2025 at 5:01 PM
renpoole.bsky.social
A reminder to Congress: YOU CONTROL THE MONEY! Allowing the executive branch to decide how taxpayer money is distributed is unconstitutional. So stand up and do the job you were elected—and swore an oath—to do.

Text of Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution: www.archives.gov/founding-doc...
Section. 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States, To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States; To establish Post Offices and post Roads; To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court; To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations; To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy; To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces; To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions; To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress; To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;-And To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
January 28, 2025 at 2:34 PM
renpoole.bsky.social
Mood today.
January 20, 2025 at 10:11 PM
renpoole.bsky.social
Congrats, Scott—you made it!
Screenshot showing that Scott Williams has 1000 followers.
November 16, 2024 at 7:12 PM
renpoole.bsky.social
He’s already over 600, so 🤷🏻‍♀️
November 16, 2024 at 3:48 AM
renpoole.bsky.social
I’m okay with PaleoBS!
A cartoon Iguanodon giving two thumbs up with the caption “Iguanodon: he’s pretty okay with everything”.
November 15, 2024 at 2:22 AM
renpoole.bsky.social
Why are the iguanodontians always dead? 🫤 #2024SVP
October 31, 2024 at 12:52 AM