is there a good citation discussing recent Gelman/Vehtari/etc style choices of prior? like what's on the Stan wiki but in the form of an academic paper? github.com/stan-dev/sta...

God damn them all, I was told ...

This is a really cool project, I was lucky to have the opportunity to participate. news.mcmaster.ca/mcmaster-res...

Since I can’t get it out of my head, I wrote up my thoughts on @kevinbaker.bsky.social's critique of AI-automated science and the logical end of processes that can't self-correct.

Looking for a postdoc in 2026? The Ewel fellowship at UF provides $70K salary and $20K research support for 2 yrs. I'm happy to sponsor a postdoc interested in microbial ecology of Florida coastal ecosystems (seagrass, coral, mangroves, springs). 🦠 Due 1/11/26 postdoc.aa.ufl.edu/current-post...

2-3 days to "analemma day", earliest northern-hemisphere sunset of the year ... gist.github.com/bbolker/1bb9... (I could have vibe-coded this into a Shiny app with reverse geocoding for the user's choice of location, etc etc but couldn't be bothered ...) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analemm...

This just popped up in my feed; I read it quickly, but it seems thoughtful and clear.

#rstats It is with profound sadness I heard that my long-time friend and colleague, John Fox passed away this week. He was the author of {car}, {effects}, {Rcmdr}, ... and numerous influential books. I will miss him greatly. www.john-fox.ca

A colleague is looking for an open-source/online (pref. peer-reviewed) reference for properties of probability distributions. Any ideas? (NIST gives *very* basic properties e.g. www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handb... but I think they're looking for something more complete ...)

CANSSI postdoc w/ Alex Stringer (Waterloo) www.alexstringer.ca and me (McMaster): implementing/exploring Gauss-Hermite quadrature methods in lme4/glmmTMB canssi.ca/wp-content/u... (Alex has shown that Laplace approx is sometimes awful, we'd like to provide alternatives!) canssi.ca/program/dist...

👀 Eco/evo tweeps teaching undergraduate courses ... Can interactive web apps help biology students become better modellers? Stephan Peischl's group is running an ethics-approved study. Learn more at: peischllab.github.io/MEEW.html Contact [email protected] to receive the survey link.

I’ve been in Toronto at the #astmh meeting these past few days and last night some very good news was presented here: A new malaria drug has proven efficacious in a large trial and could soon be approved.🧪 My story in @science.org (and 🧵on why it's important to come): www.science.org/content/arti...

New blog post: open-source software packages have surprising problems with the way they calculate weighted medians and other quantiles. www.practicalsignificance.com/posts/weight... #rstats #julialang

Now I'm also looking for a research software engineer to implement a pile of research results to R packages loo, posterior, bayesplot, projpred, priorsense, brms or/and Python packages ArviZ, Bambi and Kulprit. Apply by email with no specific deadline (see contact info at users.aalto.fi/~ave/)

I've a vague memory of seeing recently (in the last week? month?) that due to changes in ggplot2_+/or plotly, ggplotly might not be viable/supported long-term. ('twould be a terrible shame, although I guess I could learn `ggiraph::plot_labels` ?) Can anyone confirm/deny/point me to a source? #rstats

Version 2.0.0 of emmeans is out! Notable changes: new look to the plots, qdrg() now an S3 method, and new maintainer (me, Russ still highly involved). cran.r-project.org/package=emme...

Editor's Choice article in our latest issue: "The genetic basis of natural variation in sociability " by Arteen Torabi-Marashi, Dania Daanish, Andrew M Scott, Reuven Dukas, & Ian Dworkin. academic.oup.com/evolut/artic... @idworkin.bsky.social

When the Hapsburgs find out corn does inbreeding better they’re really gonna take it on the chin.

PhD position (Any of 5 cities in Canada) ACCDMi's members at 5 universities are soliciting expressions of interest. with @amyhurford.bsky.social at Memorial U., U. of New Brunswick, Dalhousie U., U. of Prince Edward Island, or Mount... More details: http://iddjobs.org/jobs/2374

Very proud of this paper in BioScience : « Too cute to be wild: what teddy bears reveal about our disconnection from nature » 🧸 are more than toys, they shape among our first emotional connections to nature. But their design may also distort how we see wildlife ! 👉 doi.org/10.1093/bios... 🧪🦤

Like to develop spatio-temporal models? Interested in Arctic marine mammals 🦭🐳 and their susceptibility to oil spills? You may be the postdoctoral fellow Dr. Mariane Marcoux and I are looking for! See the details in the job ad: tinyurl.com/spatiostatamm

Recently attended a workshop using allisonhorst.github.io/palmerpengui... for examples but it's hard to use for mixed models (3 species/3 islands isn't enough for MMs). With a little help from Claude → Tobias et al doi.org/10.1111/ele.... and extracted the penguins: github.com/bbolker/bbmi...

My lab is going to be imminently looking for a computer scientist or a biologist with deep understanding of R to develop and give bioinformatic education to postdocs. This is perfect for someone who likes teaching. You'd need to be in the Pittsburgh area. Feel free to reach out with questions.

Are there any active #rstats groups/meetups in #Boston area? (I'm fine with hosting one but wanted to check)

Many bugfixes and updates later... This will probably happen a few times. I've also added a propto() structure, which can be combined with a correlation matrix for random effects, forming a kronecker covariance structure where the column matrix is fixed.

super-random #rstats/VSCode question. VSCode > hosted Linux virtual machine > Windows remote desktop > Firefox tab > Ubuntu (don't ask ...). Standard extensions AFAICT (R 2.8.6, R Syntax 0.1.3). It is magically converting "<" to ">" on entry ... very frustrating. Anyone seen this?

#rstats Retro: This is when I implemented SVG animated textures in ggplot2

A quick update re NIH and NSF terminated grant tracking: Grant Watch has a new name! We're now called **Grant Witness** You can find us at grant-witness.us Please update your bookmarks and spread the word! 🙏 (And no, this wasn't our preference, but trademarks are a thing. 🤦‍♂️🤷‍♂️)

Choose your bedroom (Art by @dimda_)

random Friday night R goofing: tabulate the ending strings of chemical elements. gist.github.com/bbolker/2046... "ium"=79;"other"=13;"on"=9;"e"=7;"en"=4;"um"=4;"er"=2

July Editor's Choice article: "Parental care drives the evolution of male reproductive accessory glands across ray-finned fishes" Lucas Eckert, Jessica S Miller, John L Fitzpatrick, Sigal Balshine, Benjamin M Bolker academic.oup.com/evolut/artic... @lucaseckert.bsky.social @bbolker.bsky.social

suddenly curious, for no good reason, if there is data available on the relative usage (e.g. annual sales totals) of screw drive types by country (I was thinking about a Canadian using an analogy like "[thing X] is the Robertson screw of [country Y]") en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...

Are you a PhD student, have an offer, or have had an offer recently rescinded from a US university? If so, Western (in London, ON, Canada) has a new scholarship program for you! Check out this news story. I can vouch for this university! You will love it. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

I'm running a seminar in the fall for senior undergrads in Evolutionary Ecology. I'm hoping to curate a reading list mixing classic and new papers that illustrate how combining ecological and evolutionary perspectives can lead to new insights. Do you have a favorite I should consider?

What ? www.tweag.io/blog/2015-09... #rstats #Haskell

Some possibly interesting/useful refs on socioeconomic barriers to success in academia ... comments welcome. McClain 2025 doi.org/10.1371/jour...; Morgan et al. 2022 doi.org/10.1038/s415...; Arbuckle et al 2025 doi.org/10.1111/jzo....; Wanelik et al 2020 doi.org/10.1002/ece3....

I will soon open up calls for a PhD student (free choice of topic as long as it fits to our group) and a scientific programmer / ecological data scientist. If you know what we are doing and would like to join our team, feel free to get in touch.

congratulations to the internet’s biggest perverts for being so horny they caused an integer overflow deeply proud of all of you

'The New American Gothic', Oil on Canvas by Criselda Vásquez

Any #rstats users in Calgary, Canada?

Earlier this season we said goodbye to GBB. Born in 2014, she was one of the oldest and most productive females in our population: 35 nests, 80 eggs, 47 chicks fledged, 35 reached independence, 24 grandkids. This female below has now taken over her territory. Big 🐾 to fill! #SFW_ANU #birds #ecology

Resolution of Respect: Margaret Bryan Davis (1931–2024) - Hotchkiss - 2025 - The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America - Wiley Online Library esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Why did bees become haplodiploid & birds didn't? And why are stick insects perfect just the way they are? This is probably the coolest paper from @koraklein.bsky.social‬ 's PhD thesis (though there's Colias butterfly work in the pipeline which I shouldn't diss...) academic.oup.com/evolut/advan...

🚨 Recruiting! I’m looking for two graduate students (MSc or PhD) already based in Canada to join my lab and work on biodiversity research - broadly defined. Based at Concordia University (Montreal) - competitive stipends will be offered. communityandquantitativeecology.weebly.com

#rstats #accidentalaRt I don't think that's what I meant to plot ... ???

sadly, Tom Lehrer's back catalogue continues to be relevant: back then (1965) it was "to the shores of Tripoli, but not to MIssissippoli" tomlehrersongs.com/wp-content/u...

Hello Fly Folks. quick note FlyBase is under duress due to termination NIH$ to Harvard and intl collabs. The hardworking folks @flybase.bsky.social are doing their darndest to ensure access to current data. For US, there will soon be a new site to donate. Please spread the word, ideas and support 🪰💪

We close the day by many people thanking Susan Holmes for helping them with their data sets, loving the data, losing their fear of statistics, and her great teaching. Susan thanks everyone for them actually listening and doing what she told them to do 😀

Code's not perfect but this looks nice and pride-ful ... gist.github.com/bbolker/30bc... (inspired by Cindy Greenwood's en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cindy_G... plenary talk on stochastic processes and EEG spectra at last week's Stats Society of Canada meeting ...)