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December 2, 2025

The R Data Scientist 02-12-2025

R community news, geospatial mapping, data culture, research methods

🌍 R Community & News

October 2025 Top 40 New CRAN Packages (rworks​.dev). R and CRAN: October 2025 top new packages spanning Data to Visualization, featuring AlgeriAPIs, CopernicusClimate, healthmotionR, localLLM, PanelSelect, and Tabler UI Kit

rOpenSci News Digest, November 2025 (ropensci​.org). rOpenSci shares November 2025 activities: LatinR partnership, Portuguese Dev Guide translation, Big Team Science talk, posit::conf(2025) recordings, and software peer review updates

Weekly Recap (Nov 26, 2025) (blog​.stephenturner​.us). Weekly tech recap covering R updates, Claude Opus, Genesis Mission, AI in science, Posit, biotech, and new papers across AI and bio

R Weekly 2025-W49 Custom GPS, testing, Tribal Councils (rweekly​.org). Custom GPS routing in R, testing with testthat, and community insights from R Weekly 2025-W49

Posit’s progress and renewed commitment to the Open Source Pledge (posit​.co). Posit reaffirms Open Source Pledge with over $750k to open-source, supporting R Markdown, pandoc, and core ecosystems for data science

Grupo de usuarios/as de R (bastianoleah​.netlify​.app). R users in Chile discuss, learn, and share insights using R in a relaxed, inclusive group setting

nlmixr2 is Becoming an R Consortium Working Group (r-consortium​.org). nlmixr2 joins the R Consortium as a Working Group to advance open-source nonlinear mixed-effects modeling in R for regulatory-ready pharmacometrics


🛠️ R Tools & IDEs

How the tables turned (rostrum​.blog). Public-sector data science tools: aftables and open-source reuse with R, OpenXML, and CRAN, led by the Analysis Function team

tisthemachinelearner: New Workflow with uv for R Integration of scikit-learn (thierrymoudiki​.github​.io). tisthemachinelearner integrates uv for seamless R and Python scikit-learn workflow in a lightweight interface

Revisiting Gitballs (nesbitt​.io). Explores storing package releases as git objects, deltas, and content-addressing with SWHIDs, referencing Gitballs experiments and Software Heritage

Recibe fotos de gatos o bendiciones automáticamente al abrir RStudio (bastianoleah​.netlify​.app). Automated cat photos or blessings on RStudio startup using R scripts and rstudioapi

Guides for migrating to Positron (posit​.co). Guides explain migrating to Positron from VS Code and RStudio, highlighting features for Python and R, with walkthroughs and migration tips


🗺️ Geospatial & Mapping

Visual summaries of population in Pacific islands (freerangestats​.info). R code visuals of Pacific population trends using UN WPP data via the Pacific Data Hub, with tidyverse, rsdmx, and SPC styling

30 Day Map Challenge 2025 (dosull​.github​.io). Explores mapping Wellington's City to Sea Walkway using R (dplyr, sf, terra), OpenStreetMap, lidar DEMs, and ggplot2

R for Geospatial Predictive Mapping: Takeaways from the Talk (jakubnowosad​.com). Geospatial predictive mapping workflows in R; comparing IDW, kriging, and random forests with kNNDM and AoA for domain-aware predictions

Railways (r​.iresmi​.net). Hexagonal mapping of France’s vanished railways using R, sf, osmdata, ggplot2, and 30DayMapChallenge techniques

Wealth boundaries (r​.iresmi​.net). Wealth boundaries in Europe shown via GDP per capita by NUTS 2 using R (sf, dplyr, ggplot2) and Eurostat/Natural Earth data


📊 Culture & Sports Data

The Rapidly Increasing Share of NBA Players Born After LeBron's Debut in 2003 (conormclaughlin​.net). LeBron's debut cohort fuels a growing generation of players born after 2003, analyzed with hoopR and tidyverse in R

The Böögg Cannot Predict Record Hot Summers (stevenponce​.netlify​.app). R setup in R with tidyverse; data from tidytuesdayR; analysis of Böögg burn duration and Zurich summer temps

Kids’ June 2025 Streaming Top 10 (stevenponce​.netlify​.app). Nielsen kids 6–17 June 2025 data analyzed in R with tidyverse, ggplot2, and custom themes by Steven Ponce


📐 Stats & Research Methods

When ecological complex rules are not distinguishable from chance (bartomeuslab​.com). Measuring chance in ecology using ELO rankings, null models, and context-dependent competition in R

Publication post-mortem (joshuamrosenberg​.substack​.com). Reflections on scholarly publishing, SAMR, tidyLPA, and TPACK via personal publication post-mortem and lessons learned

First Look at N-P Methods as Severe Tests: Water plant accident [Exhibit (i) from Excursion 3] (errorstatistics​.com). N-P severe-testing framework analyzes water plant data using 100-sample X ~ N(μ,1) with μ tests and severity functions

Issue 64: Forecasting with Foundation Models, the Ripper Project, New Tutorials (ramikrispin​.substack​.com). Forecasting with foundation models, the ripper Quarto extension, and new tutorials for Python, Databricks, and time-series forecasting

👋 Before you go...

I've got a big favor to ask - keeping Blaze running isn't expensive, but it does all add up, so I'm asking readers like you to help, if you can, by joining the Patreon page. Nothing flashy, just a way for folks who find value in these newsletters to chip in a little each month.

If you are getting value from blaze, checking this out would mean the absolute world. But if you can't contribute, no worries - the newsletters keep coming either way. Thanks for reading and being part of this nerdy corner of the internet. All the best for the coming week - Alastair.

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