Andres Legarra
alegarra.bsky.social
Andres Legarra
@alegarra.bsky.social
things: books, geek, genetics, cattle, ardiak, fromage
langs: Spanish > French \approx English > Italian >> Basque
sites: uscdcb.com; https://alegarra.github.io/
Reposted by Andres Legarra
This certainly aligns with my perceptions after talking with people who use these tools.
metr.org METR @metr.org · Jul 10
We ran a randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers.

The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.
July 10, 2025 at 9:57 PM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
How can we reform science? I have some ideas. But I am not sure you’ll like them, because they don’t promise much. elevanth.org/blog/2025/07...
Which Kind of Science Reform
What hope is there for science reform, if we can't agree on what to reform? Right now, principles are more important than practices.
elevanth.org
July 9, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
Can you hit repost? Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't want you to know the name of her opponent but will try every desperate attempt to save her seat.

My name is Shawn Harris. I am a Democrat, husband, father, Retired Brigadier General, farmer, and I'm running against MTG. Can you share and follow me?
July 5, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
Happy birthday to Bill Watterson, the creator of Calvin and Hobbes! Born on July 5, 1958.
July 5, 2025 at 3:57 AM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
Springer-Nature launched a series of "Discover" journals that closely mimic MDPI titles -- sharing *identical* journal names, and likely similar business model.

What is going on, and why researcher will - as always - fall for it?

A 🧵

the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io/website/post...
Springer Nature Discovers MDPI – The Strain on Scientific Publishing
Home page for the paper ‘The Strain on Scientific Publishing’ by Mark A Hanson, Dan Brockington, Paolo Crosetto and Pablo Gomez Barreiro
the-strain-on-scientific-publishing.github.io
June 15, 2025 at 2:21 PM
the talks from Ignacy Misztal's symposium at UGA on the future of Animal Breeding & Genetics are there: nce.ads.uga.edu/wiki/doku.ph...
a_single-step_toward_the_future [BLUPF90]
General information There will be 30-minute invited talks. We will host a poster session on the evening of April 8. There is no abstract submission. Just bring your poster so you can have a nice time discussing your work with other participants.
nce.ads.uga.edu
June 6, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
This is a must-read. Csaba Szabó, the author of Unreliable, was approached by a paper mill, and he decided to conduct a sting operation. He documented how paper mills operate.

forbetterscience.com/2025/05/19/a...
A Sting Inside a Papermill
“It’s clear that any academically corrupt individual — particularly one with editorial connections — could easily “place” dozens of these Anzen products into indexed journals and collect a ha…
forbetterscience.com
May 19, 2025 at 6:06 AM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
I enjoyed this article a lot. I'm hoping the Moneyball analogy will finally get dairy cow genetics mentioned on an episode of the @shutdownfullcast.bsky.social.
April 23, 2025 at 8:11 PM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
Sharing for a friend.
Job opening, Université de Montréal, Institut de recherche en biologie végétale (IRBV).
Assistant Prof in Quantitative Genetics. #PlantSci
www.nature.com/naturecareer...
Apply by March 9.
Should speak French or be willing to learn!
Assistant Professor in Quantitative Genetics - IRBV is located in the Montreal Botanical Garden, one of the largest in North America. job with Université de Montréal / IRBV | 12835129
Tenure-track Assistant Professor position to develop a research program related to quantitative genetics of plants or plant-associated systems.
www.nature.com
January 24, 2025 at 10:54 AM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
New pre-print: “Leveraging ancestral recombination graphs for quantitative genetic analysis of rice yield in indica and japonica subspecies” by Ines Rebollo, Jana Obsteter, Daniel Tolhurst, Juan Rosas, and me www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Leveraging ancestral recombination graphs for quantitative genetic analysis of rice yield in indica and japonica subspecies
Rice (Oryza sativa L.) has two main subspecies, indica and japonica , which coexist in many regions but are often treated separately during breeding. Combining both subspecies in quantitative genetic ...
www.biorxiv.org
January 23, 2025 at 7:32 AM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
Also worth reading the reviews of the original article. Obviously these reflect past versions of the article. It would be interesting to read the first submission to see how extreme a position the first submission took.

static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10...
static-content.springer.com
January 16, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
Thoughtful piece by Greg Gibson pushing strongly back on the "Heritable polygenic editing" article
genomestake.substack.com/p/genome-edi...
Genome Editing and Eugenics
The one hundred and third Take:
genomestake.substack.com
January 16, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
As part of a conference on the topic I wrote a commentary on why I was quite pessimistic about this approach, echoing some of the concerns lifted here. The proceedings are online: www.nibjournal.ed.ac.uk/article/view...
The Genetic Architecture of Economically Important Traits Provides Major Challenges for the Implementation of Gene Editing in Livestock | National Institutes of Bioscience Journal
www.nibjournal.ed.ac.uk
January 10, 2025 at 9:02 AM
More false expectations created. More public money wasted.
Important thread on the implausibility of polygenic gene editing to prevent human disease (or improve livestock and crops for that matter)
Peter Visscher is a luminary in human genetics, but in this case, he is completely wrong. Here's why 🧵

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
January 10, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
Breaking:
Cassava Sciences Topline Phase 3 Data Did Not Meet Co-Primary Endpoints

$SAVA CEO: "(T)he loss of cognition in the placebo group was less pronounced than ... in other placebo-controlled studies in AD. We are working to understand this better".

www.globenewswire.com/news-release...
Cassava Sciences Topline Phase 3 Data Did Not Meet Co-Primary Endpoints
Simufilam did not show a significant reduction in cognitive or functional decline versus placebo in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease in...
www.globenewswire.com
November 25, 2024 at 3:32 PM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
Quand Didier Raoult est dans le journal *Science* ce n'est pas en tant qu'auteur, c'est en tant que sujet de honte de la recherche française.

#JeSuisUnGrandChercheur

www.science.org/content/arti...
Unearthed university investigation found research ethics failings at French medical institute
Studies conducted by Didier Raoult and colleagues flouted French and international ethical standards, report concludes
www.science.org
November 22, 2024 at 9:39 PM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
28th retraction for the IHU.
24th for Didier Raoult.
doi.org/10.1186/s128...
November 20, 2024 at 10:38 AM
Last week in Ata, hiking to www.sanmigueldearalar.org
August 19, 2024 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
Wrote an R demo to plot sampling from a bivariate normal distribution gist.github.com/gregorgorjan...
July 26, 2024 at 7:35 AM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
July 27, 2024 at 2:01 PM
vive @elisabethbik.bsky.social et oublions Raoult au plus vite.
April 26, 2024 at 7:57 PM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
Please share: Exciting post for a Quantitative Genetics and Breeding scientist to
to develop and implement a breeding programme for artemia - a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between Aquanzo and Roslin Institute supported by KTN/KTP InnovateUK elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...
April 10, 2024 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
"the Cloud now has a greater carbon footprint than the airline industry. At 200 terawatt hours (TWh) annually, data centers collectively devour more energy than some nation-states." https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-staggering-ecological-impacts-of-computation-and-the-cloud/
The Staggering Ecological Impacts of Computation and the Cloud
Anthropologist Steven Gonzalez Monserrate draws on five years of research and ethnographic fieldwork in server farms to illustrate some of the diverse environmental impacts of data storage.
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
March 17, 2024 at 9:56 AM
Reposted by Andres Legarra
#TodayinHistory #datavis #Onthisday #OTD 📊
📅Mar 10, 1773 Pierre Simon Laplace introduced inverse probability, arguably the most influential paper in mathematical statistics before 1800
-> roots of modern Bayesian theory, asymptotic approx of posterior, ...
🔗https://www.jstor.org/stable/2245475
March 10, 2024 at 4:06 AM