pilowsky.me - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

The thing about me and my science is that I'm always running tens of thousands of simulations, and I would like each one to take 10 milliseconds or less. For me this has mostly meant using C++ and #Rcpp, but it increasingly means using #JuliaLang.

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

Very likely the next package I create will be a #JuliaLang package. But R package maintenance is a never-ending job, so: poems 1.3.2 is up on CRAN. We're now hitting five years of poems bringing you spatially-explicit, process-explicit population models. globalecologylab.github.io/poems/

submitted 1 day ago • 1 comment

The Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases NSF program has been archived. Huge loss. Does anyone know if the current proposals in the queue for funding will not be reviewed or are panels still happening?

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

Interesting work by van der Meersch et al. out in Ecology Letters, nicely illustrating that process-based models are more robust than correlative models for predicting species distributions under novel climatic conditions doi.org/10.1111/ele....

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Ursula le Guin, on the accusation that fantasy is an escape from reality

submitted 3 days ago • 55 comments

Legendary larpwright Nina Runa Essendrop can now be supported on patreon!!

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

I want to see every scientific society going into emergency mode. This is a good example of how an organization can flex its specific power in a time of great need. What else is possible?

submitted 4 days ago • 6 comments

I have updated my larp designer website with a new version of Desaparecides, now with a poem I translated as an epigraph, and two new characters. larp.pilowsky.me/project/desa...

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

How does Positron compare to RStudio at this stage of development?

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

Smart surveillance really coming into its own. Air, water, and surface sampling in bird markets w NGS can outperform traditional swab based approaches in detecting in a diversity of viruses, including avian influenza. Amazing work by @E_A_Karlsson + team 👉 www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-5...

submitted 6 days ago • 0 comments

“For the last 75 yrs, the NIH has been the biggest funder of biomedical research in the world. Most advances in medicine were seeded by NIH funding. When we became scientists, we just bought into this system. This is how it works. — @tuthill.bsky.social 🧵 www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

submitted 7 days ago • 7 comments

Of course many federal workers can just “find another job”. But the point is that the jobs we do are done for the public good. There are no private sector corollaries. We do things that are largely not profitable and that is on purpose. We do work that benefits everyone, if sometimes indirectly.

submitted 8 days ago • 3 comments

I’m quoted in this article talking about the experiences of transgender scientists in the US at this time. We are in the crosshairs because we defy the MAGA lie that transgender people don’t understand biology and don’t have access to truth itself. Science is a path to the truth.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Join us! Science Homecoming helps scientists reconnect with communities by writing about the importance of science funding in their hometown newspapers. We’ve mapped every small newspaper in the U.S. and provide resources to get you started. Help science get back home 🧪🔬🧬 🏠 sciencehomecoming.com

submitted 8 days ago • 44 comments

My research in graduate school was funded by an NSF GRFP. They invested in me to study the microbes of paper wasps of all things- the most basic and fundamental of sciences. Ten years later, this research led to patented brewing technology commercialized across the world. ... #NSF

submitted 8 days ago • 1 comment

New preprint: a toolkit for species distribution modelling, in #JuliaLang. The result of many years of work with fantastic people including @gabdans.bsky.social and @mdcatchen.bsky.social - a quick thread 🧪🌏 ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...

submitted 8 days ago • 4 comments

National Science Foundation is being gutted today. Please support these folks and make some noise about this. 🧪

submitted 9 days ago • 9 comments

Times are bleak, it’s true. But people are still out here doing incredible work now, when it matters most. Activists in KY bought land slated for a new prison, and will now fill it with native plants and use it as an intertribal gathering location. 🌱🌎🧪🌿

submitted 10 days ago • 7 comments

The Finnish Museum of Games has an exhibition on this year on Odysseus, the blockbuster BSG-themed volunteer-run larp! More of this please!!

submitted 12 days ago • 0 comments

Prize for my #Rstats ugly plot contest. The iris cutting board!

submitted 12 days ago • 1 comment

#FishADay Branchiostegus sanae Mononoke Tilefish. A newly-described deepwater tilefish from the South China Sea. Named for San, the heroine of Studio Ghibli classic Princess Mononoke, due to the species' striking undereye stripes. www.bbc.com/news/article...

submitted 13 days ago • 0 comments

🧪 Science Poem 🖋️ Research published in @science.org has found that urban rat populations are increasing in most major cities - driven by climate warming and urbanisation. Here's my poetic interpretation: thepoetryofscience.scienceblog.com/4114/ruins-v... #SciComm 🍎 🐡 #Poetry #ClimateChange

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

I have an idea for a larp submission to Make a Scene 2025 and maybe you could come up with one too! (This is a photo of me playing the larp "Dude, the Head Shop's Closed" by Evan Torner.)

submitted 14 days ago • 0 comments

This a summary of last part o my Ph.D. We investigated how temperature can affect the outcome of dengue infection. The study covers a 10y period in all five regions of Brasil and all sub-climates of the country We conclude that higher temperature makes risk of hospitalizations due dengue bigger!

submitted 16 days ago • 1 comment

Some higher ed organizations who are loudly circling the wagons against federal funding cuts were oddly silent or circumspect about the earlier attacks on CRT and DEI. I wish there was a better understanding that these attacks are coming because we failed to repel those.

submitted 16 days ago • 112 comments

“Your work is your rebellion” 💪 www.reddit.com/r/labrats/co...

submitted 16 days ago • 5 comments

We finally got a ChatGPT generated review on a manuscript. So I wrote about how we handle these reviews is a sign of whether we have given up on peer review altogether.

submitted 17 days ago • 8 comments

Huge analysis out as a preprint today! For every 9 years an animal spends in the wildlife trade, it shares an additional pathogen with humans. Clear long-term impacts based on 40 years of global trade data 🧪😷 biorxiv.org/content/earl...

submitted 17 days ago • 2 comments

Letter from the SSE/SSB/ASN councils on the scientific understanding of sex and gender, pls RT

submitted 19 days ago • 9 comments

This is the end of science as we know it if it stands—15% IDCs for all NIH Grants. grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

submitted 19 days ago • 6 comments

Here is what the censoring of data.cdc.gov looks like over time

submitted 19 days ago • 27 comments

A lesson I have learned in recent hard times is to strengthen ties with those you trust. Have a trans or immigrant friend? Someone at a US federal agency, or in science or health? Reach out and check in. It'll be worth a lot to both of you.

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

G is for Geosesarma. Popular pets, some species were/are exploited by the aquarium trade before being described. Each has a small range in SE Asia, traversing freshwater and land. They hatch as minicrabs instead of larvae, and the mom keeps them safe for a few weeks! #CrabAZ 🦀🧪🦑

submitted 20 days ago • 10 comments

I interrupt the stream of terrible science news to bring you: whales 🐋

submitted 20 days ago • 0 comments

"It is impossible to be a top-line manager and administrator and mentor and researcher and writer and outreach officer and IT expert and online instructor and pedagogical innovator and recruiter and teacher and marker and external examiner and press pundit and grant bidder and editor."

submitted 176 days ago • 11 comments

Really appreciate Jonathan Lambert pointing out that NSF grants are congressionally mandated to weigh how grants broaden participation in science, putting the administration's executive order against DEIA in conflict with, and potentially undermining, congressional legislation

submitted 27 days ago • 8 comments

Reviewers for NIH graduate student grants should stop work and allow no applications to proceed, since participating in this farce is, in the most literal way, upholding white supremacy.

submitted 20 days ago • 3 comments

As I think most of you have worked out already, X increasingly not the place for discussion of scientific papers…

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

after having months of work poured down the drain due to the compliance of the NIH w/ the DEI ban, i still don't want to see mass privatization of biomedical science. i want to do science for the people, i want to be held accountable knowing my work is funded by them. resistance is the only option

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

Parallelization just landed in the dev version of purrr: purrr.tidyverse.org/dev/referenc... Really pleased that the mirai framework makes this possible. Huge credit to the tidyverse maintainers @hadley.nz @lionelhenry.bsky.social and @davisvaughan.bsky.social ! #rstats #tidyverse

submitted 20 days ago • 7 comments

Megafauna disperse pathogens and ectoparasites. The End Pleistocene megafaunal extinctions led to an 85% reduction of pathogen dispersal, causing surviving species to become immunonaieve. This led to the rise of zoonotic disease and epizootics 🧪 nsojournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

submitted 21 days ago • 2 comments

The first many-analysts study in ecology is finally published! 🥳🙌 300+ coauthors and 5+ years, this was a massive effort by @elliotgould.bsky.social Hannah Fraser Tim Parker and co. Open access 👉 bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10....

submitted 20 days ago • 2 comments

New paper led by Rohan Simkin exploring global patterns of zoonotic hosts in the wildland-urban interface. WUIs are a complex and expanding contact zone with many potential host species that are likely to be consequential for spillover transmission on a rapidly urbanizing planet. bit.ly/WUI-zdx

submitted 20 days ago • 1 comment

I usually reserve this account for my personal views; but today I want to represent my position as President of @asn-amnat.bsky.social to post a message that will shortly go out to the membership of the American Society of Naturalists from the ASN Executive Council

submitted 20 days ago • 35 comments