via Ph.D Comics
Continue reading "Priorities"!
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Monday, September 29, 2008
Tuesday morning links - 9/30/08
I promise I'll start posting more than links. Until then, here are some interesting ones.
Snow on Mars!
Why calories taste good.
Rainbow compression wave from a jet caught on film.
Why can't we divide by zero?
A syllabus from one of the late David Foster Wallace's Pomona College classes.
Lighting up the brain to illuminate its secrets.
Are disposals green? Related - this site shows water consumption and drought conditions all over the country, in case you were wondering.
Hubble has a problem.
Can animals feel pain?
Order this kit and you can have your DNA lineage mapped. And here, you can have a DNA portrait made.
Continue reading "Tuesday morning links - 9/30/08"!
Snow on Mars!
Why calories taste good.
Rainbow compression wave from a jet caught on film.
Why can't we divide by zero?
A syllabus from one of the late David Foster Wallace's Pomona College classes.
Lighting up the brain to illuminate its secrets.
Are disposals green? Related - this site shows water consumption and drought conditions all over the country, in case you were wondering.
Hubble has a problem.
Can animals feel pain?
Order this kit and you can have your DNA lineage mapped. And here, you can have a DNA portrait made.
Continue reading "Tuesday morning links - 9/30/08"!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Science on Charlie Rose
Below is a video of James Watson and E.O. Wilson being interviewed by Charlie Rose. They discuss the influence of Charles Darwin on biology. Watson is a wanker, but his contribution to science is great, so I can listen to his perspective on that.
Continue reading "Science on Charlie Rose"!
Continue reading "Science on Charlie Rose"!
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Tuesday morning links - 9/8/08
The semester has started. I'm (more) busy again. Tuesday is my one day without any scheduled obligations, so I'll take the opportunity to pass along some Internet fodder.
WATER BEARS FROM OUTER SPACE!
NASA chief Mike Griffin laments Bush administration dissin' his space missions.
Stem cells for the troops.
Harvard biologists get closer to building synthetic life.
Ten things you didn't know about the Earth.
The science of religion (via Nick).
UK former chief scientist Sir David King calls on "brilliant minds" to tackle climate crisis.
Thai prime minister ousted after appearing on cooking show, receiving money.
Roger Ebert's favorite movie.
Diddy needs gas. (Amazing)
Continue reading "Tuesday morning links - 9/8/08"!
WATER BEARS FROM OUTER SPACE!
NASA chief Mike Griffin laments Bush administration dissin' his space missions.
Stem cells for the troops.
Harvard biologists get closer to building synthetic life.
Ten things you didn't know about the Earth.
The science of religion (via Nick).
UK former chief scientist Sir David King calls on "brilliant minds" to tackle climate crisis.
Thai prime minister ousted after appearing on cooking show, receiving money.
Roger Ebert's favorite movie.
Diddy needs gas. (Amazing)
Continue reading "Tuesday morning links - 9/8/08"!
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Spore and artificial life
Spore, the latest game from Sims/SimCity creator Will Wright, comes out this Friday. The Creature Creator for the game has been out for a couple months, and over three million creatures have been created (one of mine is here). Today's NY Times science section has an article about the game that nicely summarizes Will Wright's creative intention - to make a fun game loosely based on evolutionary principles - while correctly pointing out some of the scientific caveats. Wright spent a lot of time talking with scientists to really understand how the diversity of life arises from simple systems. It looks like a lot of fun, I'm happy it will be available for my Mac.
Some Spore creatures interacting
The article points out another interesting video-game like application of evolutionary principles, this one much more useful for research. Scientists often use computer simulations to model population dynamics - how large groups of a species interact, mate, survive, and spread their genes. Avida is a software program developed by researchers at Caltech and Michigan State that imposes a digital version of natural selection (the mechanism of evolution) on a collection computer programs designed to behave like simple organisms. Each little program has it's own virtual CPU and isolated memory, allowing it to run at different speeds. The programs can mate, mutate, replicate, compete for digital resources and, over time, evolve into slightly new programs, with slightly different code (analogous to mutations and changes in DNA that correspond to the evolution of real organisms).
The simulations are totally computer based, so it's possible to examine evolution at extremely large time scales. This offers great insight into how simple organisms behave and evolve over time, and it allows scientists to test real-life events (such as mass extinctions, the introduction of new species, etc) that would normally only play out over millions of years. They can also test various mating and survival strategies and a whole slew of other interesting questions. This article entitled "Digital Evolution" offers a lot more information about simulating evolution in a computer, and one of this group's original scientific papers can be found here.
Thinking more about this, how much research is going to be conducted as a simulation in 50 years? There are limitations now, of course, we are nowhere near adequate simulation of complex organisms - that still requires grunt work out in meatspace - but if one day you could build a computer and run software over the weekend to collect data instead of observing some natural phenomenon for several years, that's going to be a game-changer.
Continue reading "Spore and artificial life"!
Some Spore creatures interacting
The article points out another interesting video-game like application of evolutionary principles, this one much more useful for research. Scientists often use computer simulations to model population dynamics - how large groups of a species interact, mate, survive, and spread their genes. Avida is a software program developed by researchers at Caltech and Michigan State that imposes a digital version of natural selection (the mechanism of evolution) on a collection computer programs designed to behave like simple organisms. Each little program has it's own virtual CPU and isolated memory, allowing it to run at different speeds. The programs can mate, mutate, replicate, compete for digital resources and, over time, evolve into slightly new programs, with slightly different code (analogous to mutations and changes in DNA that correspond to the evolution of real organisms).
The simulations are totally computer based, so it's possible to examine evolution at extremely large time scales. This offers great insight into how simple organisms behave and evolve over time, and it allows scientists to test real-life events (such as mass extinctions, the introduction of new species, etc) that would normally only play out over millions of years. They can also test various mating and survival strategies and a whole slew of other interesting questions. This article entitled "Digital Evolution" offers a lot more information about simulating evolution in a computer, and one of this group's original scientific papers can be found here.
Thinking more about this, how much research is going to be conducted as a simulation in 50 years? There are limitations now, of course, we are nowhere near adequate simulation of complex organisms - that still requires grunt work out in meatspace - but if one day you could build a computer and run software over the weekend to collect data instead of observing some natural phenomenon for several years, that's going to be a game-changer.
Continue reading "Spore and artificial life"!
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Tuesday morning links - 8/26/08
For your perusal:
Continue reading "Tuesday morning links - 8/26/08"!
Awesome space pictures from the Chandra Observatory.
Large-scale x-ray photography by Nick Veasey.
It's possible for humans to run faster than Usain Bolt, but his performance at the Beijing Olympics broke the mathematical model that has fit sprinters for 100 years.
Researchers using Google Earth have determined that cows tend to align their bodies with the North-South axis of the earth. No one is sure why.
An Indian film company is being sued by Warner Brothers for its production of a movie entitled Hari Putar.
Recent research sheds light on what it takes to increase the lifespan of your body's cells.
Continue reading "Tuesday morning links - 8/26/08"!
Friday, August 22, 2008
Visualizing science
This article from the Boston Globe on opening up science* pointed me to some really exciting online resources that are free and open for anyone to access. Most interesting is the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JOVE). This site publishes videos of experimental protocols submitted by researchers. Each is reviewed by a panel of experts, so quality and relevance are ensured. The videos range from basic wet-lab techniques and equipment-care tips to highly specialized imaging and brain recording methods. It's all free and open from the start, you don't even need an account.
This is extremely useful for other scientists, particularly those attempting to learn a technique for the first time. It's also a great example of transparency and camaraderie within the scientific community - a group that unfortunately, faced with trickling grant money and declining job prospects, are often forced to be quite competitive and opportunistic.
I see sites like this, however, as really important for educational purposes, for getting the word out on what scientists do day to day. Videos are especially useful for this because they get around technical learning curves that prevent most from comprehending scientific journal articles. You don't need to have an extensive background knowledge to understand what a scientist did in the methods section of a scholarly paper if you can see it. Ever wanted to know how scientists image individual neurons within a living brain? How stem cells are collected and analyzed? Now you have videos with pretty pictures to watch.
Any effort to remove some of the secrecy and mystery associated with research, to help the public see that science isn't just for stuffy Ph.Ds and nerds, but rather, can be an interactive, dynamic, and open exchange of ideas among researchers and everyday people, is worthwhile and necessary for progress.
*I plan to comment more about the open science movement. The linked article discusses some of the reservations old guard scientists and journal publishers have about giving everyone access to their data (so read that too), along with several web 2.0-esque science resources new to the internet. I think it's an interesting generational issue, sort of the Napster debate of science.
Continue reading "Visualizing science"!
This is extremely useful for other scientists, particularly those attempting to learn a technique for the first time. It's also a great example of transparency and camaraderie within the scientific community - a group that unfortunately, faced with trickling grant money and declining job prospects, are often forced to be quite competitive and opportunistic.
I see sites like this, however, as really important for educational purposes, for getting the word out on what scientists do day to day. Videos are especially useful for this because they get around technical learning curves that prevent most from comprehending scientific journal articles. You don't need to have an extensive background knowledge to understand what a scientist did in the methods section of a scholarly paper if you can see it. Ever wanted to know how scientists image individual neurons within a living brain? How stem cells are collected and analyzed? Now you have videos with pretty pictures to watch.
Any effort to remove some of the secrecy and mystery associated with research, to help the public see that science isn't just for stuffy Ph.Ds and nerds, but rather, can be an interactive, dynamic, and open exchange of ideas among researchers and everyday people, is worthwhile and necessary for progress.
*I plan to comment more about the open science movement. The linked article discusses some of the reservations old guard scientists and journal publishers have about giving everyone access to their data (so read that too), along with several web 2.0-esque science resources new to the internet. I think it's an interesting generational issue, sort of the Napster debate of science.
Continue reading "Visualizing science"!
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