Rod Page
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rdmpage.bsky.social
Rod Page
@rdmpage.bsky.social
Expat Kiwi, Professor of Taxonomy at Glasgow University, inclined to say that something sucks at every available opportunity. Biodiversity informatics, phylogeny, knowledge graphs. I also run the @evoldir.bsky.social bot.
Reposted by Rod Page
🎄 Celebrating Christmas Eve's #InsectAdvent order: #Strepsiptera, bizarre & brilliant parasites, and RES mascot since 1833.

Their morphology & history mean they’re rarely seen. Many entomologists describe them as one of the strangest insect orders.

🔗 buff.ly/U7pmiwX
Classification of Insects - Strepsiptera
Strepsiptera (c) Hallvard Elven Artsdatabanken
www.royensoc.co.uk
December 24, 2025 at 12:01 PM
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[blogged] Why Ghost References Still Haunt Us in 2025—And Why It's Not Just About LLMs aarontay.substack.com/p/why-ghost-...
Why Ghost References Still Haunt Us in 2025—And Why It's Not Just About LLMs
Ghost references existed long before LLMs. This post examines how Google Scholar's [CITATION] mechanism and web pollution may undermine RAG verification.
aarontay.substack.com
December 23, 2025 at 3:48 PM
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🐨 2025 has been a big one! We’ll be taking a short break to rest, reflect and recharge 💚

Thank you to our amazing GBIF community including nodes, data publishers, data users, volunteers, committee members and staff for an incredible year. Here’s to an exciting 2026 ahead! ⭐
December 23, 2025 at 8:00 AM
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UVM is hiring a Planetary Health Postdoctoral Fellow for interdisciplinary research in infectious disease and ecology. Apply by Feb. 2, 2026. Salary starts at $61K. More info: https://www.uvm.edu/planetaryhealthinitiative #postdoc
Planetary Health Initiative | The University of Vermont
What is Planetary Health? It is the understanding that human health and human civilization depend on flourishing natural systems and the wise stewardship of those natural systems.
www.uvm.edu
December 19, 2025 at 4:25 PM
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Postdoc position available for statistical analysis of evolutionary time series in fossil stickleback fish. Requires a Master/PhD in relevant fields. Apply here: https://www.careers.luc.edu/postings/34284 #postdoc
Post-Doctoral Researcher in Evolutionary Time Series
Loyola University Chicago (LUC), College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Biology invites Applications for a full-time Post-Doctoral Researcher with experience in the area of the statistical analysis of multivariate evolutionary time series or related topics. The Position is in the Lab of Dr. Yoel Stuart, and the duration is approximately 1.5 years and may be extended, contingent on Grant Funding. We have a funded Project to study microevolution in a 20,000-year-long sequence of the fossil stickleback fish, Gasterosteus doryssus. You can read about Dr. Stuart’s research at stuartlabloyola.org. Duties and ResponsibilitiesThe Postdoctoral Researcher in Evolutionary Time Series incumbent will be responsible for (i) analyzing and interpreting a complete phenotypic and paleoecological dataset from the fossil fish sequence; (ii) preparing and publishing manuscripts; (iii) assisting with data curation and archival; and (iv) supervising Undergraduate Researchers assisting with the Project. The Post Doctoral Researcher could have the opportunity to learn fossil preparation and conduct collection, if needed to augment analysis and writing. The  Position is classified as a Teaching Post-Doctoral, and they may teach courses as an Instructor of Record depending on research requirements, funding, interest, and career goals. Special Instructions to ApplicantsSubmit a letter of intent that describes their experiences and fit to the Position, as well as a current Curriculum Vitae. Please provide the names and email addresses of three individuals who are qualified to speak to the Applicant’s qualifications for this Position. For more information, please contact Dr. Stuart (ystuart@luc.edu).
www.careers.luc.edu
December 19, 2025 at 4:25 PM
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It's the longest day of the year for Aotearoa ☀️

The summer solstice occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun, giving us the longest period between sunrise and sunset for the year. This year it was at 4:03am, Monday 22 December.

Learn more on your favourite website ⬇️
Summer solstice - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
December 22, 2025 at 12:04 AM
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🧵1️⃣ How do you visualize & explore millions of archived web pages?

@InternetArchive.EU partnered with software engineers & the Internet Archive to make a navigable mosaic you can explore with a joystick, buttons, or voice.

Learn more ⤵️
blog.archive.org/2025/12/16/f...
December 18, 2025 at 4:01 PM
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Join the free "Telling Stories Through Data" virtual workshop, Jan 20 - Feb 26, 2026. Focus on bioinformatics & science communication. Apply by Jan 10: https://forms.gle/dvvWxhi7YU2ATZx58. More info: https://bit.ly/TSTD2026. #workshop
GitHub - BikLab/Stories-Thru-Data-Workshops-Virtual
Contribute to BikLab/Stories-Thru-Data-Workshops-Virtual development by creating an account on GitHub.
bit.ly
December 19, 2025 at 4:26 PM
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From fruit flies that bite to a tiny mouse opossum and a feathered dinosaur preserved with the remains of its last meal, more than 70 new species were described this year by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History

phys.org/news/2025-12... #globalmuseum #museums
December 20, 2025 at 5:18 PM
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I think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite
December 19, 2025 at 7:01 PM
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Thank you @gbif.org for the shout out! 😍 So proud of being part of this team 🥰. Send us a message if you want to mobilize your collections using #Symbiota 💚 ➡️ www.gbif.org/publisher/96... @kunhm.bsky.social
December 19, 2025 at 4:53 PM
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All the inscrutable, embarrassing hits are here, including such standards as Autism Bicycle and Oversized Rat Genitalia
I have become a slop collector. 😮‍💨 Dirty job, but someone has to do it.

I’m compiling gen A.I. images in academic journals. This is an ongoing project, and version 1 is here:

doi.org/10.6084/m9.f...

Version 2 in January with at least three 3️⃣ new illustrations.

#AcademicChatter
Pulled From the Trough: Slop Images in Academic Journals
This project collects images created using generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) that have appeared in academic journals.If you run across examples of gen AI images in journals or books - whethe...
doi.org
December 19, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Made the mistake of playing with IIIF @iiif.bsky.social again, with a view to exploring BHL @biodivlibrary.bsky.social using @latest.allmaps.org. Got manifest to work in some IIIF viewers e.g. projectmirador.org/embed/?iiif-... and codh.rois.ac.jp/software/iii...
but not, of course, Allmaps 😣
Mirador
projectmirador.org
December 19, 2025 at 1:38 PM
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BHL is growing! We’re thrilled to welcome University of South Florida Libraries @usflibraries.bsky.social: the 1st of the new BHL Members joining us during our transition to independence. blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2025/12/anno... More support news coming soon! #BHLTransition #GiveBHLWings 🧪 📖 🌏
December 19, 2025 at 2:16 AM
Reposted by Rod Page
Very happy to introduce a new tool, BookReconciler!

You can take spreadsheets with book data and add subject headings, descriptions, ISBNs, HathiTrust IDs, & more. You can also cluster editions & variations of the same "Work."

Led by @thisismattmiller.com and supported by @post45data.bsky.social.
December 17, 2025 at 9:37 PM
Reposted by Rod Page
Should scientific data be published as copyleft or just CC-BY or equivalent? Asking for community input.

My stance is copyleft, as it enforces a duty of care towards the community which is missing in CC-BY or CC0 licenses (which are not data licenses but that's another thing).

#academicchatter […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
December 18, 2025 at 10:09 PM
Reposted by Rod Page
Our preprint on predicting drug resistance in bacteria is now out in @plosbiology.org. We show ignoring phylogenetic structure in genome collections leads to overly optimistic evaluations of machine learning methods for AMR prediction. Work from @yanyingyu.bsky.social with @nwheeler443.bsky.social.
Biased sampling driven by bacterial population structure confounds machine learning prediction of antimicrobial resistance
Machine learning methods have emerged as promising tools to predict antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and uncover resistance determinants from genomic data. This study shows that sampling biases driven b...
journals.plos.org
December 17, 2025 at 2:55 PM
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Through the power of digitisation, this work can be carried out at an unprecedented level.

Over 7 million of Kew's plant and fungal specimens have now stepped out of the archives and into the hands of the world 🌿

Dive into our datal, and tell us what you find!

www.kew.org/read-and-wat...
How herbarium specimens hold the key to combating climate change
Many see them as dried, perhaps useless plant specimens of little purpose - but did you know that our specimens are actively being used to combat climate change?
www.kew.org
December 17, 2025 at 3:32 PM
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December 18, 2025 at 11:12 AM
One thing I wasn't aware of are the numerous @stmassoc.bsky.social licenses, used by publishers see stm-assoc.org/what-we-do/s... This feels like an extensive list of all the different ways to say "you can't share this work" 🙁
Playing with Claude AI and a triple store Im building for @boldsystems.bsky.social DNA barcodes and associated literature. Lots of different licenses used in barcoding papers (91 at last count). Claude helpfully summarises the top 10.
December 18, 2025 at 10:32 AM
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EMBL-EBI seeks a postdoc in 'pandemic-scale phylodynamics' with expertise in statistical/computational genomic epidemiology. Expected to contribute to large-scale simulations. Details soon: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-023-01368-0. #postdoc
Maximum likelihood pandemic-scale phylogenetics | Nature Genetics
Maximum likelihood pandemic-scale phylogenetics | Nature Genetics
www.nature.com
December 17, 2025 at 5:51 PM
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Join the ECOTROP summer field course in Gabon focused on tropical ecology and conservation. Open to U.S. students, it includes mentorship and a stipend. Applications due by Feb 1, 2026. More info: www.ecotropgabon.org. #course
ECOTROP GABON
The ECOTROP field school is an innovative training program for African, European, and, more recently, American students, which has been held in Central Africa (Cameroon and Gabon) since 2010. It aims...
www.ecotropgabon.org
December 17, 2025 at 5:52 PM
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🎓 PhD scholarship

We are recruiting a PhD student to develop new methods for analysing spatial omics data at the University of Sydney, cosupervised by @shazanfar.bsky.social and me. Ideal for students with backgrounds in statistics, data science, computer science or bioinformatics

Apply by 18 Jan
ARC Postgraduate Research Scholarship
A $40,109 per annum stipend scholarship for research students within the Faculty of Science.
www.sydney.edu.au
December 17, 2025 at 11:32 PM