Dr. Vaskar Nepal
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nepalvaskar.bsky.social
Dr. Vaskar Nepal
@nepalvaskar.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Biology at Western Illinois University; Research and teaching on aquatic animals; fish-lover; #Rstats; Dad x2
Reposted by Dr. Vaskar Nepal
Any published papers in the wild with a declared use of AI for analyzing the data yet? We know people are doing it. Probably quite often. So there must be one where use was declared?
November 9, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Reposted by Dr. Vaskar Nepal
Native Americans used gar scales as arrowheads, native Carribeans used gar skin as breastplates, and early colonizers wrapped gar skin around their plow blades. In other words, it's really hard to get through gar skin
5/8
November 7, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Reposted by Dr. Vaskar Nepal
The gar swim bladder functions as a lung and they must surface periodically to gulp air. Studies have shown that gar switch between breathing air and breathing water based on temperature. Warm water holds less oxygen, so they breathe air more in warm temps
6/8
November 7, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Yikes. I talk about this every time I teach my students about DNA structure.
Scientific breakthroughs are rarely unique; someone else would’ve made them soon enough. But when prominent scientists cause harm, that harm isn’t inevitable; the world might simply have been better had the harm not been inflicted.
liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/j...
James Watson in his own words
“Some anti-Semitism is justified” “Whenever you interview fat people, you feel bad, because you know you’re not going to hire them” “Japan should be bombed for d…
liorpachter.wordpress.com
November 8, 2025 at 8:08 PM
Reposted by Dr. Vaskar Nepal
Scientists filmed bats to see how they communicate while swarming. They found a surprise: In urban settings, rats attack bats. What are the implications for bats ... and virus spread to humans? n.pr/3WNy2KL
Wait, what? A RAT caught and ate a BAT? And there's video! What does it portend?
Scientists filmed bats to see how they communicate while swarming. They found a surprise: In urban settings, rats attack bats. What are the implications for bats ... and virus spread to humans?
n.pr
November 8, 2025 at 5:15 PM
I read through a few lectures, and I am very impressed with how clear this is. This should be very useful for beginners. I may refer my students to this as a resource.
November 8, 2025 at 1:06 AM
Reposted by Dr. Vaskar Nepal
Metric Tip

xkcd.com/3164/
November 6, 2025 at 11:33 PM
Nice story. Should read.
"Is Molly here?"

This morning, I dropped my 3-year-old at daycare—usually my wife's routine, but today was different.
November 7, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Reposted by Dr. Vaskar Nepal
Hey we all blunder into doing hard things, and some of us reluctantly do hard things on purpose, but none of us do them because they’re hard.
November 7, 2025 at 2:14 AM
Reposted by Dr. Vaskar Nepal
Personally, I do things not because they’re easy, but because I incorrectly thought they’d be easy
November 6, 2025 at 9:24 PM
Reposted by Dr. Vaskar Nepal
deep cut! `fortunes::fortune("dog")`: "Firstly, don't call your matrix 'matrix'. Would you call your dog 'dog'?
Anyway, it might clash with the function 'matrix'." -- Barry Rowlingson, R-help (October 2004)
November 7, 2025 at 3:06 AM
Reposted by Dr. Vaskar Nepal
Do you teach #rstats? Do your students complain about how lame and old-fashioned dplyr is? Don't worry: I have the solution for you: github.com/hadley/genzp....

genzplyr is dplyr, but bussin fr fr no cap.
GitHub - hadley/genzplyr: dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap
dplyr but make it bussin fr fr no cap. Contribute to hadley/genzplyr development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
November 6, 2025 at 11:25 PM
Reposted by Dr. Vaskar Nepal
Another #GarWeek spotlight species is the Bowfin. Check out this young of the year bowfin from a Green Bay coastal wetland. #GreatLakes
November 6, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Reposted by Dr. Vaskar Nepal
Read about the Bowfin, the gar’s closest living relative. #GarWeek
November 6, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Hey Gar (and other toothy fish) enthusiasts, my lab group is looking for length, weight and location data for alligator gar and emerald/eyetail bowfin from across their range for a study. If you have any, can you share? #GarWeek
November 5, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Dr. Vaskar Nepal
Oxygen supersaturation has been reported to protect aquatic animals from heat waves. We tested this in a large collaborative experiment on many species of fish and crustaceans. Our new paper in @plosbiology.org shows that the effect of hyperoxia on thermal tolerance is negligible. Unfortunately.
November 5, 2025 at 10:34 AM
New to Bluesky. Let's see if this is better than the garbage I have to wade through in X.
October 31, 2025 at 5:17 PM