Nicholas Landry

Graph of award probability of R35 and R01 from NIH factbook as a function of review rank percentile. As is apparent, 2025 is a significant departure, with lower award probabilities at all scores <40 and significant departures from norm, where even being in the top 10% is no longer a nearly certain indicator of success. Data source: https://report.nih.gov/nihdatabook/report/302

The data is in: the NIH goalposts have shifted.

What were once almost certain fundable scores have become coin flips and what used to be likely grants have become aspirational, leading to fewer awards.

Another manifestation of how HHS policies have led to fewer awards and less science.

Looking for something ✨network-y ✨ to do the Sunday before NetSci 2026 starts? How about 𝗔 𝗛𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗲𝗿-𝗢𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗿 𝗛𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗮𝘁𝗵𝗼𝗻? We'll explore the Bluesky starter pack dataset from 𝘼 𝘽𝙡𝙪𝙚 𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩 (doi.org/10.3886/ICPS...).
🚨Fill out this form by March 13🚨 tinyurl.com/26warr3n

tinyurl.com/ytzfhc74

Should biology put complexity first? The dictum “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler” poses a problem for biology. How simply can it be told without doing dama…

Great perspective by @philipcball.bsky.social.

Elementary genetics teaching (HS/college) focuses on Mendelian traits (single gene => single trait). However, it is now clear that polygenicity and pleiotropy are the norm. Curriculum must change accordingly.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Joshua Weitz giving a talk titled, "Confronting Covid's Wake: Quantitative Approaches for Prevention and Control of (Re)emerging Pathogens"

@joshuasweitz.bsky.social giving a great talk at @uvabio.bsky.social! Lots of cool stuff related to asymptomaticity, breakthrough infections, heterogeneity, and science communication. Definitely gave me a lot to think about!

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya on His Mission to Rebuild Public Trust in the NIH and CDC He discusses "DEI" research, campus funding freezes, ACIP, and the path forward for the nation's public health infrastructure

OK. Buckle up. Here goes...

Here is the video and the transcript.

substack.com/home/post/p-...

1/n

Call it "ouroborous"?

Being an assistant professor these days is like trying to build a house while it's on fire.

I created a tool, snaketail, a snakemake wrapper that fixes workflow and restarts itself automatically when failed.

The idea—feeding the tail (error log) to the head (system input) to self-heal—has practical values to create robust automation system!

skojaku.github.io/snaketail.html

Then, you'll have the opportunity to try some cool analytical techniques on this dataset, and we'll share what we learned with fellow participants at the end of the day. In short, you won't want to miss this!

We'll hear from invited speakers @allisonwan.bsky.social, @captainkirk1041.bsky.social, @tslarock.bsky.social, and Yanna Kraakman on different network science methods that we can apply to this dataset.

We will be leveraging the "A Blue Start" dataset (doi.org/10.3886/ICPS...), which is a huge (anonymized!) social media dataset from Bluesky (yes, this post is meta).

🚨🚨🚨 NetSci Hackathon PSA!!!

Are you at NetSci this year? Wanna come a day early and hack on a cool new dataset? Join our hackathon which will take place on May 31.

We have limited space, so please indicate your interest through our application form by Mar 13: www.philchodrow.prof/higher-order...

Help us develop new guidelines for reporting network research! ⬇️

Be involved in the future of network science through this cool initiative! It'll be...GRAND 😉

We'll be sending a new round of invitations later this week ⏱️. Use the link below to register your interest in getting involved.

Want to promote transparency and clarity in network research by helping develop 𝐆𝐮𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐃𝐚𝐭𝐚 (𝐆𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐃)?

Sign up to get involved here: tinyurl.com/help-with-GR...

▪️ All career stages welcome
▪️ All fields welcome
▪️ Be compensated for your time

Dataset here: doi.org/10.3886/ICPS...

All user IDs/starter packs are still anonymized, yet provide enough metadata to answer some really interesting questions about community detection, network formation, correspondence between higher-order and pairwise network structure, etc.

Revision now posted on the ArXiv! We collated and cleaned EVEN MORE DATA. 39M accounts, 365K starter packs, and 2.4B following relationships. All accounts, follows, and starter packs now have timestamps! Check it out at arxiv.org/abs/2505.11608.

Network map of Bluesky users Theo Sanderson visualized the network of 3.4 million Bluesky users, placed by follow patterns. It is searchable and interactive. If you zoom in close enough, you can find our tiny pocket of data vi…

Network map of Bluesky users flowingdata.com/2026/02/11/n...

1/ ProPublica collected handwritten letters in mid-January from children held at the Dilley Immigration Processing Center, the same facility where 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was taken.

Hundreds of kids are still detained.

We’ll let the children’s words speak for themselves. 🧵

gradient.horse Draw a horse, watch it run!

omg everybody go draw a horse this is what the internet was made for

gradient.horse

I had the most wholesome moment today---I requested @psmaldino.bsky.social's book from the library, and when I picked it up today, someone had left me a little note inside, saying that they'd love to meet to talk about it. Yay :)

AI and Society Workshop The vision of the University at Buffalo&rsquo;s new Department of AI and Society (AIS) is to create a future world where AI systems are built by society for society. We believe this is only possible b...

In a bit of personal news, I have now moved to the new AI and Society Department at UB! We're hosing a workshop on Feb 26-27 and registration is FREE. Spread the word and come see the new and exciting things happening at the intersection of AI and Society!
engineering.buffalo.edu/ai-society/n...

Wow, big congrats!!! Seems like you have some really cool colleagues as well!

Great to meet you and welcome to UVA!!

a drawing of franz kafka’s the metamorphosis, gregor waking up as a beetle, with the words new year new you

Wikipedia is truly one of the greatest things on the Internet. It is absolutely incredible, and must be preserved at all costs.

A person holding a temperature blanket

Closing out 2025 with my biggest accomplishment of the year: a temperature blanket of Charlottesville.

The 2025 Headline of the Year Nominees

🧵