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Nicholas Mancuso

@nmancuso.bsky.social
1.7K followers 1.3K following 2.1K posts

Associate Professor at USC. Statistical genetics of gene regulation and complex traits. Genetics/Stats/ML. Husband and father. GA➡️CA. He/him. Views are mine. www.mancusolab.com

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Reposted by Nicholas Mancuso
Sasha Gusev @sashagusevposts.bsky.social · 4h
A searchable mapping between NIH study sections and program officers that doesn't suck. (Claude one-shot) sashagusev.github.io/po-study-sec...
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Nicholas Mancuso @nmancuso.bsky.social · 9h
a statistician you say?
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Rob Patro @robp.bsky.social · 9h
blog.google/innovation-a... "Large Scale Codebase Migrations and Optimizations: Argon agents are working on migrating C/C++ codebases to Rust across Google—scaling from tens of thousands of lines ... up to 800K+ lines for the Fuchsia OS Zircon kernel." You love to see it!
blog.google
Gemini 4 Argon: our next era of frontier intelligence
Announcing Gemini 4 Argon, our frontier model for real-world coding, enterprise knowledge work, and cyber defense, rolling out soon.
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GOLIKEHELLMACHINE @golikehellmachine.com · 11h
this is a man who knows he’s getting canned or impeached after the election and who is trying to set up a future political career
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Eugene Vinitsky 🍒 @eugenevinitsky.bsky.social · 11h
In our Nature paper, we introduce the first superhuman Stratego AI, which we built using general techniques that we developed for RL & test-time compute under imperfect information. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
Scalable decision-making for games of imperfect information - Nature
Ataraxos, an AI for the board wargame Stratego, establishes a design pattern for reinforcement learning and search that is effective under large amounts of hidden information, a longstanding desiderat...
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Arnaud Martin @evolvwing.bsky.social · 12h
Cell Press giving a rather biased, pro-eugenics platform to self-proclaimed "Biotech Barbie", former a Thiel Fellow who briefly married He Jiankui, and fails to properly frame the debate on germline editing. Partly bonkers, partly important, check out this thread 🤯
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Joe Hanly @hanliconius.bsky.social · 12h
@cellpress.bsky.social has just released an.... interesting new 'short review' on pre-implantation gene editing, in which author Cathy Tie argues for the ethical imperative of pushing for this technology. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... There are, to put it mildly, a few issues here. 1/
Medicine has a responsibility to develop interventions that safely reduce human suffering. Therapeutic germline gene editing should be judged by the scientific evidence supporting it, not by the history of the field. If rigorous clinical evaluation demonstrates that it is safe and effective, continued prohibition would itself require ethical justification.
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Chris Smith @chriscrsmith.bsky.social · 12h
I'm hiring a postdoc in population and evolutionary genetics at Indiana University Bloomington! We're a computational lab working on spatial demographic inference using genomic data and machine learning. You can apply here: indiana.peopleadmin.com/postings/34508
indiana.peopleadmin.com
Indiana University Academic Positions
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Ariel Edwards-Levy @aedwardslevy.bsky.social · 12h
There is a lot of "oh dear" to go around in the results of this very thorough Pew study on the issues with synthetic samples, but this strikes me as particularly "oh dear" www.pewresearch.org/data-labs/20...
AI polling results can lean on racial or partisan stereotypes

In many cases, our AI poll took beliefs or attitudes that are reasonably common among a particular subgroup and portrayed them as nearly ubiquitous. For example, our AI poll would indicate that:

    97% of Hispanic adults are at least somewhat likely to follow the World Cup (while the actual share is 43%).
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Masahiro Kanai @masakanai.bsky.social · 13h
Multi-layered regulatory buffering reconciles the paradox and explains why chromatin captures disease risk that expression misses. At constrained genes, caQTLs colocalize with GWAS more than eQTLs (71% vs 28%). caQTLs mediate 79% of immune disease heritability, eQTLs 25%.
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Masahiro Kanai @masakanai.bsky.social · 13h
Our single-nucleus immune multiome atlas is now out in @nature.com! 🧬 10M PBMCs from 1,108 @finngen.bsky.social donors recruited by Finnish Blood Service, profiled at @broadinstitute.org with chromatin accessibility and gene expression in the same nuclei, to trace how disease variants act 🧵👇
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Mitch Wolfe @whrwlfthrwlf85v.bsky.social · 19h
Nader wanted Bush to win so that he could spend the rest of his life saying “I told you so” to Democrats, and sanctimoniously claiming that Al Gore and Democrats had to earn his voters, as if they were God’s chosen that needed catered to instead of the spoiled and flaky assholes they were.
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angela zhou @angelamczhou.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I love Jev. Jev is an example of what will be the next "frontier": compiling intelligence to cheaper and more structured outputs. Thinking of running my new AI evals class on Jev or open-source alternatives bc my institution keeps asking us to do AI stuff without additional resources to do so
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Data & Society @datasociety.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Speaking to @politico.com, D&S board member @geomblog.bsky.social has some advice for lawmakers: "Stop worrying about superintelligence, and start making companies pay for putting out unreliable and error-prone systems that could and have harmed people." www.politico.com/newsletters/...
politico.com
5 Questions for Suresh Venkatasubramanian
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Philippe Batut @philippebatut.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
🧬🔬 Why are enhancers transcribed and how does that impact gene regulation? I’m really excited to share our new paper in @science.org showing that noncoding RNAs control the timing of gene activation in embryos. With Mike Levine #ScienceResearch @columbiamed.bsky.social A few highlights below... 🧵👇
science.org
Noncoding transcription controls the developmental dynamics of long-range gene regulation
The genomic regions regulating gene expression are often themselves transcribed into a variety of noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs). However, the regulatory roles of this noncoding transcription remain largely ...
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Ellie Armstrong @elliecat.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
If you saw me talk at PEQG or PAG and want to try out a new method for assembling sex chromosomes, our paper and pipeline are live! Biggest shoutout to @scarey.bsky.social for pioneering this method and happy to have played a part in its application and deployment!
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The A.V. Club @avclub.com · 29/09/2026
Meta's adorable AI is, predictably, a security nightmare
avclub.com
Meta's adorable AI is, predictably, a security nightmare
Meta's adorable AI is, predictably, a security nightmare The cutesy Muse avatar, Jolly, lulls users into a false sense of security as the AI gives their address out to Facebook users. 
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Jeremy Van Cleve @vancleve.theoretical.bio · 29/09/2026
My group is recruiting a Ph.D student for Fall 2027! We're a friendly group of mathematically-minded and computationally-inspired biologists studying topics including social evolution, host-pathogen interactions, genetics, and demography. See vancleve.theoretical.bio for more info!
vancleve.theoretical.bio
van cleve research group
Van Cleve Research Group – theoretical evolution & ecology at the University of Kentucky
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Theodore Grunewald @tedgrunewald.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
JCO for the win.
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Rasmus Pagh @rasmuspagh.net · 29/09/2026
Very interesting report about AI and theoretical computer science, based on a recent meeting at @simonsinstitute.bsky.social simons.berkeley.edu/ai-tcs-worki... These are times of change, but I am optimistic that there will always be a valuable place for humans who seek to understand.
simons.berkeley.edu
AI + TCS Working Group
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Stephanie Hicks @stephaniehicks.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Excited to share that @jhubiostat.bsky.social is hiring for postdoctoral fellows and tenure-track Assistant Professors! Details below and committees will start reviewing for both on Oct 1! 🎉
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Nicholas Mancuso @nmancuso.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
As an example of this, a pet hypothesis of mine is that GxG is nonsensical for cis-regulatory variation. Cross gamete interactions dont make sense wrt local chromatin state (to me at least), and thus any interactions should be within the same gamete/haplotype, or HxH.
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Nicholas Mancuso @nmancuso.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I thought the A24 release of Backrooms was just ok? The performances were solid and the concept really interesting but felt the message kind of tripped over itself nearing the end?
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Needhi Bhalla 💅🏽 @needhibhalla.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
“I believe that science derives its authority from…interactions within a community of people trained to interrogate evidence and answer for the conclusions they draw from it. And it is time to formalize what this means, and which sorts of human judgment cannot (or should not) be offloaded to AI.”
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Nicholas Mancuso @nmancuso.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
"And it is time to formalize what this means, and which sorts of human judgment cannot (or should not) be offloaded to AI." Excellent article and I think one that underscores much of my own thoughts on AI, as someone who uses it!
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C. Brandon Ogbunu @cbo.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
In my latest for @undark.org, I compare AI adoption in science to the Ship of Theseus: "If you swap out every wooden plank on a ship over time, is it still the same vessel?" I argue that science derives authority from something more than data generation + publication. undark.org/2026/09/25/o...
undark.org
AI Presents Science with a ‘Ship of Theseus’ Problem
Opinion | AI can replace each part of the scientific process, leaving the enterprise recognizable but devoid of human judgment.
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Carly Goodman @carlygoodman.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Congratulations, we have created a world where teenagers cannot exist with each other in space, where we use “safety” to destroy sociality, youth, and development.
Screenshot of themocoshow instagram account 

Montgomery County, Maryland

New Under-18 Policy Begins Today at Westfield Montgomery and Westfield Wheaton

READ MORE

themocoshow A new Parental Guidance Policy begins today, Monday, September 28, at Westfield Wheaton and Westfield Montgomery malls, requiring visitors under 18 to be accompanied by a parent, legal guardian or chaperone age 21 or older after 3pm daily.
The policy will be in effect from 3pm until closing, seven days a week, and applies to interior and exterior common areas at both malls. According to signage now posted at the malls, one supervising adult age 21 or older may accompany no more than
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Ed @ed3d.net · 29/09/2026
I have something for this
youtube.com
AI hallucinations are a skill issue and I can prove it
YouTube video by ed3d dot net
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Carl Zimmer @carlzimmer.com · 27/09/2026
Four days ago, a scientist was surprised by the news that Anthropic discovered new virus genes for making DNA. He says he’s been studying them for years—and feeding his data to Anthropic’s AI as part of his own research. Coincidence? Here’s my story. nyti.ms/3VSWayc
nyti.ms
Did Anthropic’s A.I. Really Make a Scientific Discovery on Its Own? (Gift Article)
An expert at the University of Copenhagen said his team had been sharing its research with the company’s A.I. model, Claude, and that its new finding matched their work.
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 28/09/2026
i don’t care how much fancy math you can do, if you take open racism as a sign that someone is epistemologically sound then you are a fucking idiot
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Nicholas Mancuso @nmancuso.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Inyo National Forest is fantastic this time of year
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Arun Durvasula @arundurvasula.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
new manuscript!
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Nicholas Mancuso @nmancuso.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Switching is trivial! I switched months ago and haven't looked back.
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Nicholas Mancuso @nmancuso.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Time is a flat circle. If we managed to develop solutions in the past, we'll develop solutions to the current not at all new challenge
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Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I haven't looked at the press release, but FTEs and AI tokens cost $$. Open-weight models could help individual labs, but as with campaign finance laws, $$ and those who decide on their allocation have disproportionate control. P.S. Note that 1st & last author FTEs at Anthropic are Doudna alums.
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Hanbin Lee @epigenci.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Love this comparison to historical anecdotes.
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Nicholas Mancuso @nmancuso.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Americas bad boy
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Nicholas Mancuso @nmancuso.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
These chat bots have errors that are ineradicable by design! Anyways lemme fit a statistical to support my findings! 🤡
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James Pirruccello 🎃🦇🧹 @jamespirruccello.com · 23/09/2026
I highly encourage people not to give AI slop presentations. Just throw something bad on some slides, it will be much more compelling than a glossy content that you didn't produce. If we want Claude to present, we can generate that at home.
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James Pirruccello 🎃🦇🧹 @jamespirruccello.com · 23/09/2026
www.anthropic.com/news/claude-...
anthropic.com
Claude discovers a novel enzyme system with CRISPR-like repeats
Anthropic is an AI safety and research company that's working to build reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems.
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Piper Below @piperbelow.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Very excited to see these three important papers published. This News and Views provides a short summary, for those interest in this new transcriptomic resource for the prefrontal cortex! www.nature.com/articles/d41...
nature.com
Vast cellular gene-expression atlas could transform how scientists understand brain ageing and disease
Single-nucleus RNA sequencing captures molecular changes in the prefrontal cortex across the lifespan and in health and disease.
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Sam Power @spmontecarlo.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
A point which I continue revisiting in recent conversations about "what is to become of (mathematics) research?" is that there remains no scarcity of interesting things to wonder about, that many things should certainly still be written down, disseminated, and that this is "what it's all about".
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Nicholas Mancuso @nmancuso.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Today is day i overcome burnout
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Colin Carlson @colincarlson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
What's behind this tidal wave of epidemics? In the largest study ever conducted on emerging infectious diseases, we show that the popular explanation - "our relationship with nature is out of balance" - doesn't hold up. Out now in Nature, after half a decade of work: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
nature.com
The anthropogenic fingerprint on emerging infectious diseases - Nature
Emerging infectious disease outbreak risks are ubiquitous worldwide, and highest in landscapes where people, livestock and fragmented natural ecosystems coexist, but detection and data ...
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Los Angeles Times @latimes.com · 22/09/2026
Los Angeles needs more housing. But developers are increasingly walking away from apartment projects as the economics of building become more difficult. What’s behind the construction slowdown and what it means for the city’s housing crisis.
latimes.com
Why L.A. developers aren't building more apartments, despite epic housing shortage
L.A. needs more multifamily housing, but developers say it doesn't make sense to build apartments in the current market.
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ex-Lethality Jane @lethalityjane.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I am once again hypothesizing that they bonded over their mutually terrible taste in musical theater.
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hoffsbeefs.bsky.social @hoffsbeefs.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Something i'm concerned about that we need to be talking about. Many in our community are using agentic AI to improve cow breeding. These models are powerful. Perhaps too powerful. I call it P(moo).
a perfect cow standing bestride the earth
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Zamin Iqbal @zaminiqbal.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Careful implementation of Bayesian phylogenetics in Delphy allows huge speed gains and identical results to BEAST, but runs on your laptop browser www.nature.com/articles/s41... Amazing work from @pardissabeti.bsky.social , Patrick Varilly, @benfry.com and co.
Two plots showing tMRCA and support are incredibly tightly correlated between Delphy and BEAST
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jamelle @jamellebouie.net · 21/09/2026
one thing that is worth remember apropos this useful piece is that novel technologies do not necessarily require novel political solutions. americans have had to deal with fast-moving, disruptive technological change in the past, and they did so through collective, democratic action.
nytimes.com
Opinion | Bernie Sanders, Steve Case and Others on What Washington Should Do Now on A.I.
How can the government reel in the technology? Here are six ideas.
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Nicholas Mancuso @nmancuso.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Feels great to wake up seeing a mountain of responses from strangers calling into question one's ability to carry out research or mentor. Based on a single thread which doesn't even reflect my modal attitude about AI. Very fun. Very normal of folks.
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