The Natural Earth Project The Natural Earth Project provides high quality public domain geographic data with all sorts of incredible detail, at three resolutions: high (1:10m), medium (1:50m), and low (1:110m). I use their data all the time in my own work and research, and the {rnaturalearth} package makes it really easy to get their data into R for immediate mapping. I mean, look at this!

Discovering the Captivating Deep-Sea Creature The ocean is a mysterious realm, teeming with enigmatic and rare creatures that continue to fascinate scientists and nature enthusiasts alike. Among these captivating entities is a rare deep-sea animal renowned for its enormous jaws and striking pink glow. Recently, researchers have gained more insight into this remarkable species, prompting a surge of interest and curiosity.

Two weeks ago, the Beilstein Institute announced Bioschemas support in their journals: The idea is far from new and has been around for two decades. But the two Beilstein journals (both diamond Open Access), actually integrated into their active publishing model. That has been trialed and put in action before.

webmockr v2 is here. You can find the source at https://github.com/ropensci/webmockr, and the docs at https://docs.ropensci.org/webmockr. There’s some big changes in this version; most importantly a breaking change, thus the major version change this time. Here’s a run down of the important items in this release.

I had a problem with my Tor relay last night. For some reason, the application (daemon) started but then after about 5 seconds it stopped listening. The Tor Metrics site was displaying a red button saying my node was unreachable and when I did “sudo ss -ltp” I got nothing. The application literally wasn’t “listening” (in network socket terms). The answer was actually embarrassingly simple.

En la última entrada sobre ChrysoCollate repasé algunas alternativas para reducir la cantidad y la longitud de las entradas del aparato crítico. Cubrí entonces las opciones de configuración de variantes de lengua y de configuración de las entradas del aparato crítico. Dejé pendiente la última opción de esta ventana de configuración, que realmente no sirve para reducir el tamaño del aparato, sino para alterar su comportamiento.

Worldwide, science is under attack by anti-scientific movements. The new US administration has thrown the entire academy into chaos, threatening global health. This article is a call for the open science community to practice what it preaches and lead by example in defending science.

Virtual Reality (VR) und Augmented Reality (AR) bieten immersive Erlebnisse, die Nutzer tief in digitale Welten eintauchen lassen oder virtuelle Elemente in die reale Umgebung einfügen. Die Technologien eröffnen neue Möglichkeiten in der Unterhaltungsindustrie, im Bildungsbereich und in der Medizin – gleichzeitig sind auch urheberrechtliche Punkte zu beachten.

I’ll be sending this letter to the Royal Society, but I also want it out there in public, because I hope that more people will follow the lead set by Dorothy Bishop and Stephen Curry in putting pressure on the Royal Society to grow a backbone. Dear Royal Society of London, You exist to support the advancement of science.

Among the works of fiction in the feminist canon, few are as celebrated as Charlotte Perkins-Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper”. This short story, or novella, depending on how you want to define those categories, details the abuse suffered by a woman in the supposed name of mental health, at the whim of her male “carers”. The story is now, as Catherine J. Golden notes, “among the most studied texts in the English-speaking world”. In this piece I

Update (17:00 03 Mar): all members of the UK or international scientific community were invited to indicate their support by signing the letter. The opportunity to do so closed at 17:00 UK time on 03 March. The final tally of signatories was 3494 (please see bottom of post for the full list).  Earlier today, I sent the letter below to Professor Adrian Smith, President of the Royal Society.