R updates (R Data Scientist, R Weekly), AI accelerating wet lab bio research, Docker hardened images, LLMs in review, machinal bypass, science funding, new papers.

The beginning Every morning in the fall of 1997 I would wake up at 6AM and immediately jump out of bed.  I went straight to my Fujitsu laptop in the home office, leaving my then-girlfriend sleeping in the bedroom.  I didn’t have anywhere to be; nobody was paying me, and this wasn’t for a class.

(Previously: 2022, 2023, 2024.)

In case you missed it, I share information I earlier posted on other channels. The Comics Grid’s 15th volume, corresponding to 2025 has been wrapped. The Times They Are a-Changin’ We would like to express our heartfelt appreciation to all colleagues who submitted their work to us and showed patience and understanding throughout the editorial process.

Up and down

Ghost references existed long before LLMs. This post examines how Google Scholar's [CITATION] mechanism and web pollution may undermine RAG verification.

Zu den Ritualen rund um das Weihnachtsfest gehört für viele Menschen die Lektüre der Weihnachtsgeschichte von Charles Dickens. Der gedankliche Sprung zum internationalen Urheberrecht ist dann zum Greifen nahe, denn Charles Dickens befasste sich intensiv mit diesem Thema.

Dear student, Before you embark on your “career” as a statistician, you must purge yourself of a childish misconception: that our job is to seek truth. Truth is stubborn, unpredictable, and worst of all, often unpublishable . Scientists crave confidence, the journals crave significance, and we, if we are clever, can provide both without the nuisance of real rigor.

There has been a major furore in recent days on social media about the rise in AI citations that have been hallucinated. These citations appear in manuscripts sent out for peer review, and even in the published literature.

The "Machinal Bypass," when AI becomes a shortcut around the work that makes us human, and why some tasks should feel a little hard.

Chet Gottfried got in touch after he read Yet more lying necks: Backwards Birds edition, nearly two months ago now, with some more of his photos. Here they are, with his permission: What’s going on here? As I wrote the Chet, “Interesting that this degree of twisting is common in raptors.