Blog
Science is an art
2012 May 16
Fiction author Elizabeth Gilbert ponders the emotional risks of creativity – and how to mitigate them. As scientists, why do we keep torturing ourselves with the idea that science is somehow different?
On the joys of interdisciplinary collaborations.
2012 May 14
Then, I witnessed, astonished, how chaos took over.
Life: A Net
2012 May 10
Having children enables one to experience childhood again, including the insatiable curiosity - "Why is the sky blue?" "What is life?" My standard answer to this question has changed in recent years. -- Meilin Huang
Learning to fly
2012 May 04
I study systems biology using the fruit fly as my model organism. I recently attended my first "fly meeting," a conference of others who study Drosophila melanogaster. Here are thoughts on studying the fly in general, and my impressions of that event in particular. --Nicolas Pelaez
A short traveler's guide to moving abroad
2012 April 24
What is it about changing to a new environment that frightens but excites us at the same time? Is it the sense of discovery of a new place? The fear of going into the unknown? Of leaving and completely losing sight of your comfort zone?
Minority Report in real life: Predicting crime using data instead of psychics
2012 April 06
The weather was quite warm on the evening of March 22. It had been a particularly pleasant walk from the train station to the bar in Lakeview--a pretty decent neighborhood in Chicago. As I was sipping my gin and tonic, I was listening to Brett Goldstein, the Chief Data Officer ... read more
Who should hold the reins?
2012 March 29
Recently I went to my first meetup (just a group activity amongst strangers that is facilitated through the meetup website) that focused on Data Science in Chicago and was organized by Mike Stringer from Datascope Analytics. At this meeting Brett Goldstein, the Chief Data Officer of Chicago, was presenting and I have to say it was a wonderful talk and experience.
SOPA: A war between Hollywood and Silicon Valley
2012 March 27
I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me... An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of ***CENSORED*** comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! - Aragorn, in The L*** of the R****: The R***** of the K***
On Writing Well
2012 March 19
Good writing is exceedingly difficult, and we in the science and engineering disciplines do not do enough to teach our students how to write. Yet for me, two of the most important skills that I lacked as a newly minted Bachelor of Science can be taught in Engineering curriculum instead of the English classrom. -- David Mertens
Scientific publishing in an open access world
2012 March 02
This week, congress officially shelved the 'Research Works Act'. This bill was proposed late last year and its main point was banning federal agencies from mandating that federally funded research be made publicly available. This bill stands in direct opposition to the recent trend of open access publications and prior ... read more
Simple or simplistic?
2012 February 20
I very much appreciate the effort, but I just don't agree with a model for human interactions based on the maximization of a utility function, nor with the restriction of human responses to a very limited set of discrete, fixed-no-matter-what strategies.
Marked to Model
2012 February 20
I recently watched Moneyball, a movie that is based on the true story of the Oakland Athletics and how they used statistical analysis and modeling (sabermetrics) to put together a team of “misfits” that eventually won a record 20 consecutive games. Sabermetricians take the rich statistical information that is kept ... read more
The Wired Generation
2012 February 05
At this present moment, as I am writing this, I am among the most connected human beings in all of history. If you wanted to, you could send me a Facebook message, email me, send me a Gchat message (all of which I get both on my laptop and my ... read more
The Egocentrism's Dilemma
2012 February 03
As children, we all go through a stage during which we claim whatever interesting object we see as “Mine!” We eventually outgrow this extreme egocentrism, more or less. Such evolution takes many iterative cycles of fitting our current mental model to the new information from experience. As part of our ... read more
Behind the screen
2012 January 25
Blink is a wonderful book. So wonderful that I tend to think that every good story I ever read about bias, decision making and a number of other topics must have been in there. I just spent several hours trying to find one of those stories. Unfortunately, I couldn't - ... read more
The Probability of a Psychic Octopus
2012 January 24
You remember Paul, he was world-renown as the most successful prognosticator of the World Cup. He successfully predicted the results of all of Germany's games, and he correctly picked Spain as the winner in the final. Paul was the sensation of the year, with hundreds of articles written and TV reports made acclaiming his amazing soccer intuition. Also, he was an octopus.
Review of Packing for Mars
2012 January 20
Life in space sounds utterly unappealing in Mary Roach's new book, Packing for Mars. The book’s anecdotes primarily revolve around the troubles of vomit, body odor, and poop in a zero gravity environment. The discomforts of a space station it seems, far outweigh the small joys of floating.
Roach’s ... read more
Nicolás Peláez awarded HHMI International Student Research Fellowship
2012 January 20
Nicolás Peláez, a Colombian born graduate student jointly advised by Luis Amaral and Rich Carthew, was one of 48 international students working at U.S. institutions awarded the prestigious "HHMI International Student Research Fellowship":http://www.hhmi.org/annualreport2011/people-and-financials/fellowship-and-grants.html. Sean B. Carroll, HHMI’s vice-president for science education, noted that the ""applicant pool was spectacular":http://www.hhmi.org/annualreport2011/year-in-science-education/international-student-research-fellows-announced.html" and that ... read more
Diffusion in complex system: is the anomalous usual?
2012 January 11
A brief history of anomalous diffusion as it relates to complex systems. -- Haroldo Ribeiro
Movie science, science fantasies and real science for Ph.D. students
2012 January 10
I love movies. Especially when they show cool scientists doing crazy science. It doesn't matter if it would take 500 million times the energy of all nuclear weapons on Earth combined to stop the rotation of the Earth's core. When scientists in a movie tell me that it "just stopped ... read more