Stephen Turner
@stephenturner.us
Associate Professor and Research Dean at UVA School of Data Science, #Rstats enthusiast, dad, runner, guitar noise-maker. Views my own.
Web: https://datascience.virginia.edu/people/stephen-turner
Newsletter: https://blog.stephenturner.us
Web: https://datascience.virginia.edu/people/stephen-turner
Newsletter: https://blog.stephenturner.us
Pinned
Stephen Turner
@stephenturner.us
· Jan 1
Staying Current in Data Science and Computational Biology: 2026 Edition
Part 3 in a series of posts going back 14 years
doi.org
Staying Current in Data Science and Computational Biology: 2026 Edition. Part 3 in a series of posts going back 14 years. doi.org/10.59350/2na...
Tiered Access for AIxBio Governance doi.org/10.59350/svd...
Tiered Access for AIxBio Governance
Parallel proposals target training data and model access to reduce biosecurity risk
doi.org
February 9, 2026 at 11:30 PM
Tiered Access for AIxBio Governance doi.org/10.59350/svd...
AI-Enabled Biological Design and the Risks of Synthetic Biology doi.org/10.59350/bfw... Blog post on Chapter 3 of the National Academies report on AIxBio: #Biosecurity implications for what AI can and can't do in biology today.
AI-Enabled Biological Design and the Risks of Synthetic Biology
Chapter 3 of the National Academies report on AIxBio: Biosecurity implications for what AI can and can't do in biology today.
doi.org
February 9, 2026 at 10:23 PM
AI-Enabled Biological Design and the Risks of Synthetic Biology doi.org/10.59350/bfw... Blog post on Chapter 3 of the National Academies report on AIxBio: #Biosecurity implications for what AI can and can't do in biology today.
Heritability of intrinsic human life span is about 50% when confounding factors are addressed www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
February 9, 2026 at 9:01 PM
Heritability of intrinsic human life span is about 50% when confounding factors are addressed www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Multiple protein structure alignment at scale with FoldMason www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧬💻🧪
February 9, 2026 at 7:03 PM
Multiple protein structure alignment at scale with FoldMason www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... 🧬💻🧪
Improving atlas-scale single-cell annotation models with hierarchical cross-entropy loss www.nature.com/articles/s43... 🧬💻🧪 github.com/microsoft/hc...
February 9, 2026 at 5:06 PM
Improving atlas-scale single-cell annotation models with hierarchical cross-entropy loss www.nature.com/articles/s43... 🧬💻🧪 github.com/microsoft/hc...
DEPower: approximate power analysis with DESeq2 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧬💻🧪
February 9, 2026 at 3:00 PM
DEPower: approximate power analysis with DESeq2 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧬💻🧪
Blog post: Tiered Access for AIxBio Governance: Parallel proposals target training data and model access to reduce #biosecurity risk blog.stephenturner.us/p/tiered-acc...
February 9, 2026 at 2:45 PM
Blog post: Tiered Access for AIxBio Governance: Parallel proposals target training data and model access to reduce #biosecurity risk blog.stephenturner.us/p/tiered-acc...
If you're looking to pre-fill your summer reading list, my colleague here @monasloane.bsky.social has a new book available for pre-order: "Predicted: How AI Is Restructuring Social Life" www.ucpress.edu/books/predic.... Release date: May 12, 2026. You don't want to miss this one.
February 9, 2026 at 2:36 PM
If you're looking to pre-fill your summer reading list, my colleague here @monasloane.bsky.social has a new book available for pre-order: "Predicted: How AI Is Restructuring Social Life" www.ucpress.edu/books/predic.... Release date: May 12, 2026. You don't want to miss this one.
scTREND: An annotation-free single-cell time-resolved and condition-dependent hazard model www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧬💻🧪 github.com/R301Carbine/...
February 8, 2026 at 9:00 PM
scTREND: An annotation-free single-cell time-resolved and condition-dependent hazard model www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧬💻🧪 github.com/R301Carbine/...
A large language model for complex cardiology care www.nature.com/articles/s41...
February 8, 2026 at 5:01 PM
A large language model for complex cardiology care www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Tried out this “for you” feed here. Man what a tire fire. Hot takes, rage bait, about as bad as X. No thank you.
February 7, 2026 at 11:30 PM
Tried out this “for you” feed here. Man what a tire fire. Hot takes, rage bait, about as bad as X. No thank you.
"Human ergonomics matters less when humans aren’t the primary authors. […] I still love the language, but it seems clear that I and much of the industry will be writing less and less of it." wesmckinney.com/blog/agent-e...
From Human Ergonomics to Agent Ergonomics – Wes McKinney
Wes McKinney
wesmckinney.com
February 7, 2026 at 9:00 PM
"Human ergonomics matters less when humans aren’t the primary authors. […] I still love the language, but it seems clear that I and much of the industry will be writing less and less of it." wesmckinney.com/blog/agent-e...
AI-Enabled Biological Design and the Risks of Synthetic Biology: #Biosecurity implications for what AI can and can't do in biology today. blog.stephenturner.us/p/ai-enabled...
AI-Enabled Biological Design and the Risks of Synthetic Biology
Chapter 3 of the National Academies report on AIxBio: Biosecurity implications for what AI can and can't do in biology today.
blog.stephenturner.us
February 7, 2026 at 5:45 PM
AI-Enabled Biological Design and the Risks of Synthetic Biology: #Biosecurity implications for what AI can and can't do in biology today. blog.stephenturner.us/p/ai-enabled...
Attendance plummets at some science meetings. Travel bans. Gov Shutdowns. Funding. www.science.org/content/arti...
February 7, 2026 at 5:03 PM
Attendance plummets at some science meetings. Travel bans. Gov Shutdowns. Funding. www.science.org/content/arti...
International AI Safety Report 2026 internationalaisafetyreport.org/publication/...
February 6, 2026 at 9:01 PM
International AI Safety Report 2026 internationalaisafetyreport.org/publication/...
GPT-5 lowers the cost of cell-free protein synthesis openai.com/index/gpt-5-...
Paper (OpenAI + Ginkgo Bioworks): Using a GPT-5-driven autonomous lab to optimize the cost and titer of cell-free protein synthesis (pdf) cdn.openai.com/pdf/5a12a3bc...
Paper (OpenAI + Ginkgo Bioworks): Using a GPT-5-driven autonomous lab to optimize the cost and titer of cell-free protein synthesis (pdf) cdn.openai.com/pdf/5a12a3bc...
February 6, 2026 at 7:01 PM
GPT-5 lowers the cost of cell-free protein synthesis openai.com/index/gpt-5-...
Paper (OpenAI + Ginkgo Bioworks): Using a GPT-5-driven autonomous lab to optimize the cost and titer of cell-free protein synthesis (pdf) cdn.openai.com/pdf/5a12a3bc...
Paper (OpenAI + Ginkgo Bioworks): Using a GPT-5-driven autonomous lab to optimize the cost and titer of cell-free protein synthesis (pdf) cdn.openai.com/pdf/5a12a3bc...
Started poking around with the paper-2-web Claude skill. Uploaded a PDF of one of my recent papers. "Make it a website". 5 minutes later: genome-engineering-biodiversity.netlify.app
February 6, 2026 at 5:01 PM
Started poking around with the paper-2-web Claude skill. Uploaded a PDF of one of my recent papers. "Make it a website". 5 minutes later: genome-engineering-biodiversity.netlify.app
Reposted by Stephen Turner
No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.
Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology
She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.
www.nature.com
February 6, 2026 at 9:09 AM
No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.
Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Navigating ethical, legal and social implications in genomic newborn screening rdcu.be/e2Gu7
February 6, 2026 at 3:00 PM
Navigating ethical, legal and social implications in genomic newborn screening rdcu.be/e2Gu7
Weekly Recap (February 6, 2026): Positron + Jupyter, Claude Opus 4.6, Vicki Boykis at AMLC, Emily Riederer, Wes McKinney, Codex, CC for science, #Rstats updates (R Data Scientist, R Works, R Weekly, R-Ladies, rOpenSci), AlphaGenome blog.stephenturner.us/p/weekly-rec... 🧬💻🧪
Weekly Recap (February 6, 2026)
Positron + Jupyter, Claude Opus 4.6, Vicki Boykis at AMLC, Emily Riederer, Wes McKinney, Codex, CC for science, R updates (R Data Scientist, R Works, R Weekly, R-Ladies, rOpenSci), AlphaGenome, ...
blog.stephenturner.us
February 6, 2026 at 11:04 AM
Weekly Recap (February 6, 2026): Positron + Jupyter, Claude Opus 4.6, Vicki Boykis at AMLC, Emily Riederer, Wes McKinney, Codex, CC for science, #Rstats updates (R Data Scientist, R Works, R Weekly, R-Ladies, rOpenSci), AlphaGenome blog.stephenturner.us/p/weekly-rec... 🧬💻🧪
Alternative headline: "Faculty recruitment and retention is failing at most of Oklahoma's public colleges, governor says"
Breaking, from me: An executive order from Oklahoma's governor directs most of the state's public colleges to "phase out tenure." #AcademicSky #HigherEd @chronicle.com
www.chronicle.com/article/tenu...
www.chronicle.com/article/tenu...
Tenure Will Be Eliminated at Most of Oklahoma’s Public Colleges, Governor Says
Gov. Kevin Stitt, a Republican, directed the state’s two-dozen regional universities and community colleges to phase out the practice. Existing faculty members will be grandfathered in.
www.chronicle.com
February 6, 2026 at 10:25 AM
Alternative headline: "Faculty recruitment and retention is failing at most of Oklahoma's public colleges, governor says"
I see that @wjakethompson.com updated the #Rstats {taylor} package with lyrics from Showgirl. taylor.wjakethompson.com.
Let's do a little text mining...
Let's do a little text mining...
February 6, 2026 at 9:57 AM
I see that @wjakethompson.com updated the #Rstats {taylor} package with lyrics from Showgirl. taylor.wjakethompson.com.
Let's do a little text mining...
Let's do a little text mining...
Biological data governance in an age of AI www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #biosecurity
February 6, 2026 at 9:30 AM
Biological data governance in an age of AI www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #biosecurity
I appreciate the choice here - more AI features are coming to Firefox, but Firefox gives you the ability to turn any or all of them off. blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/a...
AI controls are coming to Firefox | The Mozilla Blog
AI is changing the web, and people want very different things from it. We’ve heard from many who want nothing to do with AI. We’ve also heard from
blog.mozilla.org
February 5, 2026 at 9:01 PM
I appreciate the choice here - more AI features are coming to Firefox, but Firefox gives you the ability to turn any or all of them off. blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/a...
How we’re helping preserve the genetic information of endangered species with AI blog.google/innovation-a...
How we’re helping preserve the genetic information of endangered species with AI
Scientists are working to sequence the genome of every known species on Earth.
blog.google
February 5, 2026 at 7:02 PM
How we’re helping preserve the genetic information of endangered species with AI blog.google/innovation-a...