@bradly-alicea
Director of research and content @Orthogonal_Lab. Scientific Advisory Board @ Active Inference Institute. Lecturer, iSchool @ UIUC. Developmental biology @openworm. Bike enthusiast. End internal combustion. #tsundoku afficionado.
Another fun thing I learned yesterday is that global vegetable oil prices and crude oil prices are themselves much more correlated than they used to be due to 21st century biofuel policies
Fun thing to think about very briefly: who currently has better lawyers, the United States or Nintendo
Also that recession never happened and there were no mea culpas from those who predicted it
Now is the moment for GM to introduce an electric Geo Tracker and sell a million units this year
Must read on Chinese open source from Kevin Xu with the very similarly named substack (story for another time)
interconnect.substack.com/p/chinese-op...
I suppose the idea that our current government is run by a religious doomsday cult helps to square how they don’t believe they’re bound by laws. If I was certain the world was about to end, my relationship with consequences might also be a little different.
🚨 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 🧪
Can contractile forces that internalize cells and rearrange tissues cause harm? They can, if not mitigated. We show that built-in high stretchability of the extraembryonic cells protects gastrulating Drosophila embryo from being ripped apart. (1/9) doi.org/10.64898/202...
The DevoWorm meeting (🪱💻🥚💊🐣) for March 2 is now available on YouTube youtu.be/MzTCzQPT0Js
Just assuming the epic fury at Biden for the tragic American deaths withdrawing from a war will not be matched for starting one.
The NYT style guide
I just made an account and voted for this biology laboratory made of LEGO to "promote biological research and inspire more people into the world of biology". They need 10K votes. Reposting and/or voting below would be helpful. 🤗
beta.ideas.lego.com/product-idea...
yet another use case for “AI”, ruining open source projects with what’s essentially accidental DDoS attacks
www.theregister.com/2026/02/28/o...
A study in Nature shows that the single-celled form of a tiny, aquatic organism can turn into a multicellular version by three different routes. The discovery adds insight to the possible origins of multicellular life, suggesting a previously unrecognized degree of flexibility. 🧪
Molecular #evolution of animal #aging:
A field perspective explores the impact of evolution on aging and offers a multi-angle view on longevity variation across model organisms and environments
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
“None of the people I interviewed for this story advocated for the outright destruction of Flock equipment, but it’s not uncommon. Last October, vandals chopped down three Flock cameras in Eugene, Oregon. “Hahaha get wrecked ya surveilling fucks,” said a sticker affixed to one of the metal stumps. The same month, 41-year-old Jeffrey Sovern was arrested after allegedly disassembling 13 Flock license plate readers around Suffolk, Virginia. “MY ABSOLUTE HERO!” a woman commented on Facebook, under a link to his mug shot. “I don’t know anything else about him, but I would support a GiveSendGo for his legal fees just because he destroyed a dozen unconstitutional Flock cameras!””
I’d like to know where I can get this sticker.
Dorsey and his peers think that the recent attempts by tech workers to salvage even the barest modicum of human dignity are signs of "woke culture" that must be cruelly stamped out, ultimately through destroying their livelihoods. And they are playing for *keeps*. www.anildash.com/2026/01/06/5...
Here's a new #BulletinMathBio paper by Qiang Zhang and Mike Steel on Counting Rankings of Tree-Child Networks.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Fascinating new research paper asks: why did Biden receive so little political credit for his enormous investments in manufacturing? Turns out people give all the credit to governors (ironically, in this case, mostly red-state governors who were hostile to the policy!).
Using data from Table1(*), here are the contributions of each discipline to bioRxiv over time.
Evolutionary biologists used to be leaders in preprint use, but were displaced, and now neuroscientists are by far the greatest contributers of preprints to bioRxiv
Henceforth, I will be describing the way that U.S. men’s hockey spectacularly squandered good will, brand recognition, and fan loyalty as “pulled a Target.”
They pulled a Target.
It is DEEPLY humiliating. As a state. As a nation. We are in this position because racists prefer the company of pedophiles to immigrants or people with dark skin. Because some men would cede power to pedophiles so they can enslave women and children.
This is all happening because cis people have decided they are more in communion with pedophiles than their trans neighbors.
Civil rights are a kitchen-table issue.
Interested in using my textbook, Modeling Social Behavior, but wishing code was in a more general programming language than NetLogo? The incomparable Ben Fried has translated all modeling code into JULIA, utilizing the excellent Agents.jl package. github.com/BenjaFried/m...
There's our big dying prune. There he is. Hair looking shittier than ever somehow, walking all decrepit, looking like a big old human shit. There he is kissing his mutants. Okay let's hear what new slurs he's come up with.
1. Kevin Gross and I just posted a new science-of-science preprint.
This one explores the looming peer review crisis. As many of you know, it's becoming significantly more difficult for journal editors to find scholars willing to serve as peer reviewers for submitted manuscripts.
This was such a fun collaboration with @analog-ashley.bsky.social and team, including some of our own @sciencebanshee.bsky.social and @shen4brains.bsky.social And h/t to Alana McPherson for the infographic!
dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...
here is a comprehensive history of the use of agar in microbiology by corrado nai 👇
🙏 thx for pointing this out @microbingle.bsky.social
earlier, corrado told the story of fanny angelina hesse in STC.
#MicroSky
