Alejandro Montenegro
@aemonten.bsky.social
Molecular Biologist (aemonten.github.io) 丨Chief Editor @ CSH Protocols (cshprotocols.cshlp.org) 丨Head of the Integrity in Publishing Group at CSHL Press 丨Chair "Molecular Biosystems Conference" (molbiosystems.com) 丨(Oxford) Comma King 丨Central Dogma Police
Pinned
🚀 Another edition of the Molecular Biosystems Conference is in the books! #mbiosys25
Thank you to our amazing speakers, participants, and sponsors, including ICGEB and @unubiolac.bsky.social, for making Puerto Varas a hub of exciting discussions on gene regulation and functional genomics. 🔽
Thank you to our amazing speakers, participants, and sponsors, including ICGEB and @unubiolac.bsky.social, for making Puerto Varas a hub of exciting discussions on gene regulation and functional genomics. 🔽
Thank you all. And we hope to see you again in 2027 for the premier conference on gene regulation in Latin America!
As James Butcher wrote, "Humans have used brands and perceived reputation — for people and for products — as heuristics for millennia. That’s unlikely to change any time soon, as much as we might want it to"
substack.com/redirect/c58...
substack.com/redirect/c58...
Journal impact factors still exert ‘undue influence’
‘Lack of alternatives’ blamed as majority of researchers admit they rely on journal prestige metrics to make decisions on grants and hiring
substack.com
February 10, 2026 at 6:02 PM
As James Butcher wrote, "Humans have used brands and perceived reputation — for people and for products — as heuristics for millennia. That’s unlikely to change any time soon, as much as we might want it to"
substack.com/redirect/c58...
substack.com/redirect/c58...
Today, in news that shock nobody:
"We found that none of the tested language models were ready for deployment in direct patient care. Despite strong performance from the LLMs alone, both on existing benchmarks and on our scenarios, medical expertise was insufficient for effective patient care"
"We found that none of the tested language models were ready for deployment in direct patient care. Despite strong performance from the LLMs alone, both on existing benchmarks and on our scenarios, medical expertise was insufficient for effective patient care"
Reliability of LLMs as medical assistants for the general public: a randomized preregistered study - Nature Medicine
In a randomized controlled study involving 1,298 participants from a general sample, performance of humans when assisted by a large language model (LLM) was sensibly inferior to that of the LLM alone ...
www.nature.com
February 9, 2026 at 5:20 PM
Today, in news that shock nobody:
"We found that none of the tested language models were ready for deployment in direct patient care. Despite strong performance from the LLMs alone, both on existing benchmarks and on our scenarios, medical expertise was insufficient for effective patient care"
"We found that none of the tested language models were ready for deployment in direct patient care. Despite strong performance from the LLMs alone, both on existing benchmarks and on our scenarios, medical expertise was insufficient for effective patient care"
The Patriots QB is terrible
February 9, 2026 at 2:22 AM
The Patriots QB is terrible
He is close...
February 8, 2026 at 3:24 PM
He is close...
Absolutely.
Different journals have, among other things, different target audiences and, thus, this impacts how the information should be presented and the argument, outlined.
Different journals have, among other things, different target audiences and, thus, this impacts how the information should be presented and the argument, outlined.
February 8, 2026 at 2:50 PM
Absolutely.
Different journals have, among other things, different target audiences and, thus, this impacts how the information should be presented and the argument, outlined.
Different journals have, among other things, different target audiences and, thus, this impacts how the information should be presented and the argument, outlined.
"Similarly, although respondents generally support open practices (e.g. pre-registration), they noted situations in which they were not appropriate or necessary for education research"
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...
‘Don’t hate the players, hate the game’: qualitative insights from education researchers on questionable and open research practices
Abstract. Both questionable (e.g. p-hacking) and open (e.g. pre-registration) research practices are prevalent in education research. We sought to understa
royalsocietypublishing.org
February 8, 2026 at 2:45 PM
"Similarly, although respondents generally support open practices (e.g. pre-registration), they noted situations in which they were not appropriate or necessary for education research"
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...
Reposted by Alejandro Montenegro
I'll be in Europe in April & May, as part of my annual "European tour", where I visit institutions to give talks to students and postdocs about sci publishing & life as an editor, and meet w/PIs to discuss their work.
I'm always looking for places to visit, so if you'd like to host me, let's talk!😊
I'm always looking for places to visit, so if you'd like to host me, let's talk!😊
a poster with a plane and the word travel below it
ALT: a poster with a plane and the word travel below it
media.tenor.com
February 6, 2026 at 3:54 PM
I'll be in Europe in April & May, as part of my annual "European tour", where I visit institutions to give talks to students and postdocs about sci publishing & life as an editor, and meet w/PIs to discuss their work.
I'm always looking for places to visit, so if you'd like to host me, let's talk!😊
I'm always looking for places to visit, so if you'd like to host me, let's talk!😊
It's funny how we are now planning ways to make our content compatible with AI tools, instead of expecting for AI to adjust to how our content currently exists and works.
February 6, 2026 at 4:26 PM
It's funny how we are now planning ways to make our content compatible with AI tools, instead of expecting for AI to adjust to how our content currently exists and works.
"The paper miners will likely exploit whatever open data resources they can find until data custodians put more stringent controls in place, or journals and publishers push back. Some scientific data may be too open"
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Closing the paper mines
Scientific fakery is a centuries old problem. Twinned with the long history of hard-working scientists earning fame for genuine discoveries, runs a tawdry history of those who were willing fabricat...
www.tandfonline.com
February 6, 2026 at 3:59 PM
"The paper miners will likely exploit whatever open data resources they can find until data custodians put more stringent controls in place, or journals and publishers push back. Some scientific data may be too open"
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
I'll be in Europe in April & May, as part of my annual "European tour", where I visit institutions to give talks to students and postdocs about sci publishing & life as an editor, and meet w/PIs to discuss their work.
I'm always looking for places to visit, so if you'd like to host me, let's talk!😊
I'm always looking for places to visit, so if you'd like to host me, let's talk!😊
a poster with a plane and the word travel below it
ALT: a poster with a plane and the word travel below it
media.tenor.com
February 6, 2026 at 3:54 PM
I'll be in Europe in April & May, as part of my annual "European tour", where I visit institutions to give talks to students and postdocs about sci publishing & life as an editor, and meet w/PIs to discuss their work.
I'm always looking for places to visit, so if you'd like to host me, let's talk!😊
I'm always looking for places to visit, so if you'd like to host me, let's talk!😊
Is there a crappier piece of software than FortiClient VPN?
February 6, 2026 at 2:07 PM
Is there a crappier piece of software than FortiClient VPN?
😭
Artificial-intelligence agents have their own social-media platform and are publishing AI-generated research papers on their own preprint server.
go.nature.com/4tmsJRm
go.nature.com/4tmsJRm
OpenClaw AI chatbots are running amok — these scientists are listening in
Artificial-intelligence agents have their own social-media platform and are publishing AI-generated research papers on their own preprint server.
go.nature.com
February 6, 2026 at 1:19 PM
😭
"Contradicting the popular narrative, our cross-temporal analysis reveals no consistent decline in median review quality across venues and years"
arxiv.org/abs/2601.15172
arxiv.org/abs/2601.15172
Is Peer Review Really in Decline? Analyzing Review Quality across Venues and Time
Peer review is at the heart of modern science. As submission numbers rise and research communities grow, the decline in review quality is a popular narrative and a common concern. Yet, is it true? Rev...
arxiv.org
February 5, 2026 at 10:13 PM
"Contradicting the popular narrative, our cross-temporal analysis reveals no consistent decline in median review quality across venues and years"
arxiv.org/abs/2601.15172
arxiv.org/abs/2601.15172
A new issue of CSH Protocols is out!
@cshlpress.bsky.social
The cover image highlights the work by Gonzales, Cowling, and @diorkelley.bsky.social, who describe a rolled towel assay-based protocol to phenotype maize seedling responses to chemicals of interest.
⬇️Links below
@cshlpress.bsky.social
The cover image highlights the work by Gonzales, Cowling, and @diorkelley.bsky.social, who describe a rolled towel assay-based protocol to phenotype maize seedling responses to chemicals of interest.
⬇️Links below
February 5, 2026 at 5:22 PM
A new issue of CSH Protocols is out!
@cshlpress.bsky.social
The cover image highlights the work by Gonzales, Cowling, and @diorkelley.bsky.social, who describe a rolled towel assay-based protocol to phenotype maize seedling responses to chemicals of interest.
⬇️Links below
@cshlpress.bsky.social
The cover image highlights the work by Gonzales, Cowling, and @diorkelley.bsky.social, who describe a rolled towel assay-based protocol to phenotype maize seedling responses to chemicals of interest.
⬇️Links below
Reposted by Alejandro Montenegro
"Writing papers is rarely (probably never) the rate-limiting step in scientific research"
Important to remember this. However painful writing is, however much more efficient we can make it, for experimental work it's the research that takes the time.
www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
Important to remember this. However painful writing is, however much more efficient we can make it, for experimental work it's the research that takes the time.
www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗔𝗜 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗺—𝗮 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝗧𝗲𝗫 𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀.
But this isn't about LaTeX. And it's not about training data.
They could get… | Adam Hyde | 25 comments
𝗢𝗽𝗲𝗻𝗔𝗜 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗺—𝗮 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝗧𝗲𝗫 𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘀𝗰𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘀.
But this isn't about LaTeX. And it's not about training data.
They could get papers from arXiv or partner with Overleaf for that.
So w...
www.linkedin.com
February 4, 2026 at 2:55 PM
"Writing papers is rarely (probably never) the rate-limiting step in scientific research"
Important to remember this. However painful writing is, however much more efficient we can make it, for experimental work it's the research that takes the time.
www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
Important to remember this. However painful writing is, however much more efficient we can make it, for experimental work it's the research that takes the time.
www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
Ugh.
"we introduce PaperBanana, an agentic framework for automated generation of publication-ready academic illustrations"
arxiv.org/abs/2601.23265
"we introduce PaperBanana, an agentic framework for automated generation of publication-ready academic illustrations"
arxiv.org/abs/2601.23265
PaperBanana: Automating Academic Illustration for AI Scientists
Despite rapid advances in autonomous AI scientists powered by language models, generating publication-ready illustrations remains a labor-intensive bottleneck in the research workflow. To lift this bu...
arxiv.org
February 5, 2026 at 4:12 PM
Ugh.
"we introduce PaperBanana, an agentic framework for automated generation of publication-ready academic illustrations"
arxiv.org/abs/2601.23265
"we introduce PaperBanana, an agentic framework for automated generation of publication-ready academic illustrations"
arxiv.org/abs/2601.23265
Apparently, we can clear.... bones?!
February 5, 2026 at 1:03 PM
Apparently, we can clear.... bones?!
Circadian medicine.
"In summary, our study indicates that early Time-Of-Day immunochemotherapy substantially improves PFS and OS"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
"In summary, our study indicates that early Time-Of-Day immunochemotherapy substantially improves PFS and OS"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Time-of-day immunochemotherapy in nonsmall cell lung cancer: a randomized phase 3 trial - Nature Medicine
In this randomized phase 3 trial, patients with treatment-naive stage III–IV nonsmall cell lung cancer who received sintilimab or pembrolizumab in combination with chemotherapy early in the day (befor...
www.nature.com
February 5, 2026 at 12:58 PM
Circadian medicine.
"In summary, our study indicates that early Time-Of-Day immunochemotherapy substantially improves PFS and OS"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
"In summary, our study indicates that early Time-Of-Day immunochemotherapy substantially improves PFS and OS"
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
First Keynote Speaker for the 2027 edition of @molbiosystems.bsky.social is confirmed!
a man in a shirt and tie is screaming with his hands in the air .
ALT: a man in a shirt and tie is screaming with his hands in the air .
media.tenor.com
February 3, 2026 at 5:28 PM
First Keynote Speaker for the 2027 edition of @molbiosystems.bsky.social is confirmed!