Rui Borges
Lecturer in Statistics at the University of St Andrews. Interested in statistical/computational population genetics and phylogenetics. Math enthusiast. He/him. 🇵🇹🇱🇻🇬🇧 mrborges23.github.io/mypage/
- If only I wee a candle in the dark.
- Glad to share my work on phylogenetic inference for wee, tiny organisms (or highly diverse): the infered topologies seem largely unaffected by unaccounted recurrent mutations, but branch lengths, and mutation-selection usage biases, are significantly impacted. #eseb #eseb2025
- @janekay27.bsky.social presenting her work on merging time scales of evolution to infer adaptive evolution. Great talk! #eseb #fwf
- This might sound naive, but I once genuinely believed that the European Union stood firmly for freedom, the rule of law, and human rights.
- This is amongst the most impactful two minutes of broadcasting I’ve ever seen. By Emma Murphy, International Editor, ITV News. #Gaza
- I love engaging in outreach activities with math-enthusiastic students, and I always take the opportunity to introduce them to stochastic processes. One process I particularly enjoy teaching is the Gambler’s Ruin. @uniofstandrews.bsky.social #standrews #smmb #statistics #maths
- In our session today, we wrapped up the activity by simulating the Gambler’s Ruin in R, using a popular scratchcard game as the example. The game costs £5 per card and has a win probability of roughly 1 in 3.3. One of the photos shows one of these simulations.
- The students absolutely nailed it, and I was genuinely surprised by how financially literate they were in interpreting the simulation results. People often forget how mathematics can be a tremendous help in making better, more informed decisions in everyday life!
- Reposted by Rui BorgesHappy to share a PhD opportunity in my new lab at the University of Zurich! Application deadline: June 30. Do not hesitate to contact me for any questions!
- Reposted by Rui BorgesAre university lectures on the way out? It seems to me we have to rethink what their purpose is, if any. Because an increasing number of students seem to place relatively little value on them, at least as a real-time experience. www.varsity.co.uk/comment/29679
- Reposted by Rui BorgesNew study from the Lab! Jinyang Liang assesses the possibility of inferring ancestral alleles (aka allele polarization) without outgroup sequence, using the ancestral recombination graph (ARG) alone. Here are some of our findings. (1/5)
- Polarizing SNPs without outgroup biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…
- Reposted by Rui BorgesNow accepting applicants for 25-26 intake of our #StatisticalEcology MSc: bit.ly/3ooHNyc. A unique opportunity to develop skills at the interface of #statistics and #ecology (some partial scholarships available too). Please help me share!
- Glad to see this out today in MEE! The rarity of mutations and the inflation of bacterial effective population sizes besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... #popgen #populationgenetics #evolution #bacteriagenomics #bacteria #microsky #statsstandrews @uniofstandrews.bsky.social
- 1/8 Mutations are fundamental for evolution, and their mathematical modelling in population genetics heavily relies on our perception of their frequency and the timescale over which they occur.
- 2/8 A common assumption is that mutations are infrequent, so when a new mutation arises, the previous one has either become fixed or lost. This assumption implies that mutations occur exclusively at fixed sites and is referred to as the boundary mutation model (BM).
-
View full thread8/8 This study emphasizes the importance of considering recurrent mutations in highly diverse species for accurate population genetics inference. (Abstract also available in European Portuguese).
- Glad to present my work on the implications of different mutation models in #popgen and #phylo inference at #PopGroup58 in Sheffield (even tried my hand at cèilidh dancing). Kudos to the organizers for this excellent meeting! #statsstandrews
- Reposted by Rui BorgesGenome Biology and Evolution is excited to now be on Bluesky. Please help us by recommending accounts and feeds for us to follow!
- Super proud of @janekay27.bsky.social for receiving an OEAW grant to continue their PhD work on codon evolution for another two years 🥳 It was a pity I couldn't be there in person for the award ceremony, but @bio-diogo.bsky.social did a fantastic job stepping in and capturing some great photos:
- Reposted by Rui BorgesUpdate on our latest research featured in PNAS! 🐴 ✨ We used Y chromosome to explain the legacy of Oriental horses, embedded in a 1,500-year-old Crown lineage 👑 spread across continents and centuries! 🌍 Check it out 😊
- Reposted by Rui BorgesScientists, when do we start lobbying for #Bluesky to implement native LaTeX support? #science #physics #mathematics 🧪⚛️
- Reposted by Rui Borgesgo.bsky.app/NiaWN5i I'm happy to receive suggestions for this.at://did:plc:gtifezj4vdssuxqjq4m2tvya/app.bsky.graph.starterpack/3lamlijfwtn2l
- Reposted by Rui BorgesHere's a starter pack for early career researchers in evolutionary biology. I prioritized the most-junior folks, and this list quickly filled up with undergrads, grad students, and postdocs. Might do another list later, but I'm tired. Have fun everyone! 🐒 #evobio go.bsky.app/MzND7nXat://did:plc:lqntypahtulzsssbj3slomy7/app.bsky.graph.starterpack/3lb5nxrqajy2n
- 1/9 I’ve seen many posts here asking whether Bluesky is an echo chamber. I don’t think so, and I’d argue that the very fact we’re questioning it is already an indication that it’s not. I’d like to bring up Nguyen’s paper on the differences between epistemic bubbles and echo chambers:
- 2/9 Nguyen contrasts epistemic bubbles and echo chambers: an epistemic bubble is a social epistemic structure where relevant voices are left out (perhaps accidentally). In contrast, an echo chamber is a social epistemic structure where other relevant voices are actively excluded and discredited.
- 3/9 So, is X an echo chamber? Speaking from my experience: when I joined Twitter, I chose to exclusively follow scientists and avoided following any politicians from any side. My goal was to create a purely scientific feed.
-
View full thread9/9 The real challenge is how scientists can foster trust in the scientific community. This is a big problem in itself, but it pales in comparison to what politicians face: rebuilding trust in democratic institutions as a whole. I am totally clueless here though.
- Reposted by Rui BorgesI'm building a Starter Pack of Early Career Evolutionary Biologists. It's hard to gather usernames using the search tool. Please add your name to this thread if you want to be added!
