Nistara Randhawa, PhD

I started making this R package 6 years ago. I finally have it in a state I'm happy with, thanks to Claude Code #Rstats github.com/MattCowgill/...

Hunted and sold to tourists, even as their numbers are low in the wild. Not many people are aware of the ornamental trade of bats...please spread the word about this harmful practice that's contributing to the decline of the painted woolly bat and others 🦇🦇🦇

Introduction (Subtleties of Color, Part 1 of 6) - NASA Science The purpose of data visualization—any data visualization—is to illuminate data. To show patterns and relationships that are otherwise hidden in an impenetrable mass of numbers.

Looks like my full series on using color in #dataviz finally made the migration to the new NASA science website: science.nasa.gov/blogs/earth-...

If you’re new to visualization, or just want a refresher, it covers the basics of color theory, how to build a palette, plus some tips & tricks.

Nipah in the news: why it’s essential to follow the facts, not the fiction Doherty Institute's Dr Danielle Anderson shares the latest insights on Nipah virus reemergence in India, with two recent confirmed cases in West Bengal.

Fabulous piece by Dani Anderson from the @thedohertyinst.bsky.social about the dangers of the media inflating the risk of small, well contained Nipah virus outbreaks.

Do yourself a favour and take a read.

www.doherty.edu.au/news-events/...

I've been in SF for four days and on each day I've had multiple conversations where people (self included) express deep feelings, fear, wonder and worry about their skills being replaced or (this is less named explicitly but an assumed driver I think) no longer valued by others. Big threats to feel

dplyr 1.2.0 dplyr 1.2.0 fills in some important gaps in dplyr's API: we've added a new complement to `filter()` focused on dropping rows, and we've expanded the `case_when()` family with three new recoding and re...

dplyr 1.2.0 is out now and we are SO excited!

- `filter_out()` for dropping rows

- `recode_values()`, `replace_values()`, and `replace_when()` that join `case_when()` as a complete family of recoding/replacing tools

These are huge quality of life wins for #rstats!

tidyverse.org/blog/2026/02...

Rift Valley Fever continues to spread among humans, livestock, & wildlife throughout west Africa. Learn more about the wide-ranging impacts of this disease at an upcoming webinar on Jan 20 hosted by @buceid.bsky.social & @onehealthinstitute.bsky.social VISTA program.
bostonu.zoom.us/webinar/regi...

And we're live, Lecture A1 is online. Introduction to Bayesian workflow, generative models, estimands, estimators, estimates, error checking, beginnings of probability theory and Bayesian updating. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztbY...

Springer Nature retracts, removes nearly 40 publications The dataset contains images of children’s faces downloaded from websites about autism, which sparked concerns at Springer Nature about consent and reliability.

Springer Nature retracting papers based on bonkers dataset
www.thetransmitter.org/retraction/e... Good. #autism

Sharks and Rays Gain Sweeping Protections From Wildlife Trade

From @nytimes.com: Sharks and Rays Gain Sweeping Protections From Wildlife Trade

These represent the first time there’s been recognition that some sharks and rays are wildlife, just like elephants or rhinos, WCS’s @lukedavid301.bsky.social tells the paper.

🌎 www.nytimes.com/2025/12/02/s...

Sea anemones and hermit crabs form a mutualistic relationship in Japan Japanese researchers have described a new species of sea anemone that appears to share a mutually beneficial relationship with hermit crabs. The pale pink sea anemones, now named Paracalliactis…

Japanese researchers have described a new species of sea anemone that appears to share a mutually beneficial relationship with hermit crabs.

The pale pink sea anemones, now named Paracalliactis tsukisome, were found attached to the shells of hermit crabs.

[Scene is a kitchen - a middle aged woman called JANET is boiling peas at the stove. A younger more colourfully dressed woman named LIZ approached her.] JANET: Ugh... LIZ: What's up? JANET: I am so bored of cooking peas! LIZ: Have you tried... AI peas? JANET: AI peas? LIZ: They're peas with AI! [Liz holds up to us a packet of peas labelled: Pea-i AI - Peas with AI]. LIZ: Al-powered peas harness the potential of your peas JANET: What LIZ [Now a voiceover as we cut to a whizzy technology diagram of peas all connected by meaningless dotted lines] Why not take your peas to the next level with Al Peas' new Al tools to power your peas? [Show a techno diagram of a pea with a label reading 'AI' pointing to a random zone in it] LIZ: Each pea has Al in a way we haven't quite worked out yet but it's fine [Show Janet and Liz now in a Matrix-style world of peas] LIZ: With Al peas you can supercharge productivity and make AI work for your peas! JANET: What LIZ: Shut up LIZ: Our game-changing Pea-Al gives you the freedom to unlock the potential of the power of the future of your peas workflow From opening the bag of peas to boiling the peas to eating the peas To spending millions on adding Al to the peas and then having to work out what that even means. JANET: Is it really necessary to- LIZ [Grabbing Janet by the collar]: THE PEAS HAVE GOT AI, JANET [Cut to an advert ending screen, with the bag of peas and the slogan: AI PEAS: Just 'Peas' for god's sake buy the AI peas. [Ends]

Every ad now

Please take some time to read about the origin of the 1.5C target. It didn't originate from naivety or stupidity. Those who put it forward certainly didn't see it as "pointless" then, and would probably still not.

@climatehome.bsky.social

www.climatechangenews.com/2015/12/10/a...

Painted bats belong alive in the wild — not dead on walls. Tell Amazon to stop selling painted woolly bats so their populations can again flourish in the wild — where they belong.

Painted woolly bats are listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List. Ornamental trade is the top threat they face, and several lines of evidence point to steep declines in at least some populations.

We are doing everything we can to stop the trade.

act.biologicaldiversity.org/_M_d3tlOQ0G4...

Fredston Lab: Postdoctoral Scholar University of California, Santa Cruz is hiring. Apply now!

POSTDOC JOB AD: I'm hiring a Bayesian ecologist to build a (IMO, extremely fun) model of humpback whale spatiotemporal dynamics in California

2-year position starting fall 2026. in-person in Santa Cruz; collab w with Mevin Hooten's lab at UT Austin.

ask me Qs or apply: recruit.ucsc.edu/JPF02003

A national recognition; but science and open source are bitter victories I have recently been awarded France’s national order of merit, for my career, in science, in open source, and around AI. The speech that I gave carries messages important to me (French below;...

A speech about what drives me, how science and open source are bitter victories, unable to make improve the world if society does not embrace them for the better:
gael-varoquaux.info/personnal/a-...

If you've ever wanted to learn how to make beautiful websites with #QuartoPub and #rstats , check out this workshop I'm giving in a couple weeks! It'll be a blast (and we're covering Quarto's brand new _brand dot yaml system!)

Here is a note we have just had published in Oryx Conservation News, in support of the proposal to list African hornbills in CITES Appendix II. Please share this far and wide!

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

tl;dr Collinearity is a form of lack of information that is appropriately reflected in the output of your statistical model. When collinearity is associated with interpretational difficulties, these difficulties aren’t caused by the collinearity itself. Rather, they reveal that the model was poorly specified (in that it answers a question different to the one of interest), that the analyst overly focuses on significance rather than estimates and the uncertainty about them or that the analyst took a mental shortcut in interpreting the model that could’ve also led them astray in the absence of collinearity. If you do decide to “deal with” collinearity, make sure you can still answer the question of interest.

Was asked about collinearity again, so here's Vahove's 2019 post on why it isn't a problem that needs a solution. Design the model(s) to answer a formal question and free your mind janhove.github.io/posts/2019-0...

A graphic showing the concept of mapply in R, with multiple input vectors being paired and processed by a function returning a single output vector.

Just published my new R article: 'Mapply: When You Need to Iterate Over Multiple Inputs'! 🚀 If `sapply` doesn't quite cut it for your multi-variable iterations, `mapply` is your friend. Learn to pair inputs beautifully. #RStats #Mapply
https://drmo.site/bhXeDb

Thank you @gaborcsardi.org

Been loving its cli_progress_along() function lately. Super helpful package!

#rstats #cli

I read "Some of your monsters will be like this" and then wondered why...

a table about lemurs

a table about students and schools

a table about wines

{tinytable} 0.14.0 for #RStats makes it super easy to draw tables in html, tex, docx, typ, md & png.

There are only a few functions to learn, but don't be fooled! Small 📦s can still be powerful.

Check out the new gallery page for fun case studies.

vincentarelbundock.github.io/tinytable/vi...

Whoa—my book is up for pre-order!

𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐨 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭 & 𝐌𝐋 𝐌𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐬 𝐢𝐧 #Rstats 𝐚𝐧𝐝 #PyData

The book presents an ultra-simple and powerful workflow to make sense of ± any model you fit

The web version will stay free forever and my proceeds go to charity.

tinyurl.com/4fk56fc8

New global collaboration uses experts and AI to spot the next pandemic | CEPI Combining AI programmes and disease knowledge can help more accurately rank the viruses that have the potential to cause the next pandemic.

We've joined UC Davis Grand Challenges and UC Davis Health to partner with @cepi.net and @bostonu.bsky.social's BEACON project to integrate #AI with expert knowledge for ranking #viruses with the pandemic potential.

cepi.net/new-global-c...

Specimen Inactivation Methods for Proteomics─Comparisons of Irradiation, Chemical, and Heat Treatments on Downstream Serum Analyses Multiomic techniques, including proteomics, can provide novel insights for both pathogen detection and assessment of host responses to infection. Numerous studies have described the efficacy of heat i...

Specimen Inactivation Methods for Proteomics─Comparisons of Irradiation, Chemical, and Heat Treatments on Downstream Serum Analyses #JProteomeRes #MassSpec pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Aww thank you, and the pleasure was all mine as I've said before 😊 Look forward to seeing more great work from you!

Congratulations on getting your first chapter out @brookegenovese.bsky.social!! What a special milestone and such great work!

Screenshot from https://posit.co/conf-pricing-2025/ showing the posit conf virtual ticket pricing. $99 for standard virtual ticket, $49 for Government and Non-profit employees, and Free for students, academics, and needs-based attendees. There are hand-drawn doodles by Libby that highlight each option and one note says "Plus, Virtual Day!"

People keep telling me they can't afford to attend #PositConf2025 next week, so I need to make a public service announcement: attending virtually is very affordable (or free!) & is amazing! Get registered & hangout with me on the Discord server!! #databs #rstats #python