tinyurl.com/45x849u3

Melania brings the Epstein saga back into the headlines.

For those looking to be distracted from our current and ongoing news hellscape, I thought I should mention:

there is a new Tana French novel out.

Springer Nature Discovers MDPI – The Strain on Scientific Publishing Home page for the paper ‘The Strain on Scientific Publishing’ by Mark A Hanson, Dan Brockington, Paolo Crosetto and Pablo Gomez Barreiro

These "discover something" journals from Springer Nature are here to steal your research money, as those from MDPI and Frontiers (and many others). ⚒️ 🧪

Learn more here: the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io/website/post...

2/2

We’re hiring!
Postdoc position at APC/School of Micro, working on gut microbiome–pathogen interactions in an ERC-funded project with @hilarybrowne.bsky.social

🧫 Anaerobic microbiology + bioinformatics
📅 Deadline: 17 April 2026
📰 Apply here: buff.ly/IxGKwH6

#Microbiome #Postdoc #AcademicJobs

Data Visualization A Practical Introduction

Here’s a full draft of the upcoming second edition of my “Data Visualization: A Practical Introduction”: socviz.co

Was about to suggest the birthday problem from the same...it's a simple one and the answers are quite different, 16 people for 50-50 chance versus 23.

🎉 It's livestream day 🎉

Join me at 1700 (CET; 1600 UCT) today for two hours of GAM goodness 🤤

📽️ Youtube: youtube.com/live/A9U8e1K...
Hit the Notify me 🔔 to get a reminder when I go live

#RStats #mgcv #statistics #GAMs #DataScience 🧪

@Eurostat published a #map showing accessibility to healthcare and education services in Europe:
link.europa.eu/TMxdbb
Explore the map: link.europa.eu/QWbyBX

#gis #cartography #gischat #demography @ec.europa.eu
@nosservicespublics.bsky.social

Meeting alert! EMBO workshop about molecular and physical principles in evolution in Portugal, 2-5 June 2026. Deadline for registration is March 1st. Check out the website it should be a fun and informative workshop bridging evolutionary biology and physics of life meetings.embo.org/event/26-cel...

What's new in the world of Generalized Additive Models YouTube video by Bottom of the Heap

🚨 GAMs have moved on—so it’s time for an update.

On March 3, 2026 (17:00–19:00 CET) I’ll be livestreaming an updated introduction to Generalized Additive Models in R

📺 YouTube livestream link: youtube.com/live/A9U8e1K...

#RStats #mgcv #GAMs #gratia #statistics 🧪

A table. The columns are United States, Australia, France The rows are: Drinking while pregnant (Will Kill Baby, Don't Overdo It, Actively Good for You and Probably Baby) Smoking while Pregnant (We're Arresting You Now, Don't Be Stupid, Eh, Don't Overdo It) Exercising while Pregnant (Pretty Good for You, Great For You, Will Kill You and Baby) Being Near a Cat While Pregnant (Wash Your Hands, Why is This On The List?, Most Dangerous Thing You Can Do)

this @kjhealy.co banger came up in Facebook memories and it deserves to live here too

Bioinformatician in Microbiome Research

🚨We are hiring a Bioinformatician who will be embedded in our lab and work with members of the NCCR Microbiomes at ETH Zurich, as well as the Institute of Microbiology.🚨
nccr-microbiomes.ch
jobs.ethz.ch/job/view/JOP...

Eric, Statistician here, lovely post but I had trouble with: "the regression coefficients with ... for having the shingles vaccine were associated with significantly more inflammation and slower epigenetic aging. ...", seems to be there is "less" inflammation?

'A crucial innovation lay in the invention of ‘timelines’ (...) In 1765, the scientist-philosopher Joseph Priestley, best known for co-discovering oxygen, invented what was arguably the world’s first modern timeline.'

aeon.co/essays/when-...

Comic. Standard 16-Part Epoxy. [Epoxy applicator with multiple labeled chambers in different colors: resin; hardener; filler, softener; rosin; stuff that bonds permanently to skin and nothing else; stuff that will turn white and crack over a few days, for decorative appearance; placebo; minced duct tape; acetone Fragrance; powdered bar magnets; polyethylvinylesteracetate; 2-polyethylvinylesteracetate; salt and pepper to taste; blood sample from the Gorilla Glue gorillas; stuff that bonds to every known material except yours]

16-Part Epoxy

xkcd.com/3194/

A hex sticker with a text that reads Hello Data Science with green, yellow and pink scatterplot points in the background. There is a web address www.hellodata.science

📖 Big news! We just released the first five chapters of our new book, Hello Data Science. It is a fully open-access resource written for beginners. Please help us spread the word! A few points about the book are below 👇

🔗 www.hellodata.science

#rstats #datascience #tidyverse

Rather applaud JOSS's revised approach to deal with AI-based submissions. blog.joss.theoj.org/2026/01/prep... , particularly with 'starting open' and at least 'six months developer history'. More of scholarly pub could benefit from such policies methinks.

course schedule as a table. Available at the link in the post.

I'm teaching Statistical Rethinking again starting Jan 2026. This time with live lectures, divided into Beginner and Experienced sections. Will be a lot more work for me, but I hope much better for students.

I will record lectures & all will be found at this link: github.com/rmcelreath/s...

If you incorporate the differences from weekdays and weekends as well (using a Dirichlet prior) you get down to 16 for a 50-50 chance: seedrive.google.com/file/d/1ShvK_gHZOwOmtrf7...

Photo featuring a large scale triangular shaped Christmas tree created with multicoloured crochet squares with a star on top, sited in an street at night

Crocheted Christmas tree, Medelim, Portugal, created by 50 female textile artists who came together from all over the country for the project #WomensArt #ChristmasEve 🎄 ❄️

Size of Life From an amoeba to a blue whale

and the winner of the "2025 best thing on Internet" has just arrived
neal.fun/size-of-life/

@carlbergstrom.com

All the material for my Bayesian Data Analysis course is available online, including the lectures, which we re-recorded this fall (some of them by @aloctavodia.bsky.social and Noa Kallioinen while I was on vacation). The video links are listed in the schedule at avehtari.github.io/BDA_course_A...

Easy Disappearing Nine Patch Quilt Pattern Disappearing nine-patch quilt patterns are easy to make in any size. Sometimes, you can even make other quilts with a disappearing method. Learn how.

I really like the disappearing nine quilts: www.thesprucecrafts.com/disappearing...

Photos of the 14 victims of the Montreal massacre: Geneviève Bergeron, Hélène Colgan, Nathalie Croteau, Barbara Daigneault, Anne-Marie Edward, Maud Haviernick, Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz, Maryse Laganière, Maryse Leclair, Anne-Marie Lemay, Sonia Pelletier, Michèle Richard, Annie St-Arneault and Annie Turcotte and the rooms where they were killed.

36 years ago today, 14 women, most of whom were studying engineering, were killed by an anti-feminist gun man at École Polytechnique in Montreal. I was a young graduate student studying physics at the time and I will never forget. #MontrealMassacre #NeverForget 🧪 👩‍🔬 ⚛️ 🎢 #AcademicSky 🇨🇦

Excellent news:

What an amazing way to visualize early human migration. Lovely map by @HarvardCGA. A great colour scheme and an appropriate map projection! Source: buff.ly/3lbxonJ

I taught an octopus piano (It took 6 months) YouTube video by Mattias Krantz

I enjoyed this more than I expected to:

youtu.be/PcWnQ7fYzwI?...