A friend of mine posts on his blog “lay summaries” of papers he writes, which I’ve always thought is a good use for a blog, though I’ve never gotten around to doing it. One of my graduate students will defend his Ph.D. in a few days, and so this seems like a good opportunity to … Continue reading Dancing Membranes
There’s been an flurry of papers and essays in the past few years on scientific studies being wrong, arguing that the number of incorrect conclusions is disturbingly large, and symptomatic of poor practice, misplaced incentives, and other factors. Perhaps the most widely seen views on this theme graced the cover of The Economist a … Continue reading If I keep writing, maybe this post will become significant
I like graphs. At their best they are useful, elegant, and thought-provoking. At their worst, they’re infuriating. Modern systems-ish biology seems to have an abundance of awful graphs, even in good papers (as noted earlier, for example), perhaps because the complex statistical procedures it often uses are hard to make sense of. There’s no excuse … Continue reading (Another) bad graph
I finished a stint on a National Science Foundation grant review panel this afternoon — my eighth, I think, and the second in which I was a “virtual panelist,” joining by videoconference a panel physically held in Washington, D.C. Thinking of the pros and cons of being a virtual panelist brings up the broader questions … Continue reading I think of the ones I consider my favorites / I think of the people that are working for me
A few weeks ago, following a post on Steve Hsu’s blog, I read an interesting essay by Steven Pinker on science and the humanities: “Science Is Not Your Enemy An impassioned plea to neglected novelists, embattled professors, and tenure-less historians.” It seems these days there’s a deluge of text on the state of the humanities, … Continue reading On how impractical cuisine can save the humanities
When I was an undergrad at Berkeley, aside from doing radio astronomy, I worked in Paul McEuen’s lab examining electronic transport in nanostructures, working especially with a great postdoc named David Cobden. Looking through the contents of last week’s Nature, it was a fun surprise to see pieces by both of these people: one paper, … Continue reading Books + Berkeley
Being on the academic, rather than the athletic, side of the University of Oregon, I’m not gifted with my own private hydrotherapy pool, hand-woven Nepali rugs in my office, or the use of a barbershop with imported Milanese utensils — all appallingly featured in the University’s new football center that has attracted lots of much-deserved … Continue reading It wasn’t a rock / It was a rock lobster!
UPDATE: The really amazing media coverage of this is: http://www.theonion.com/articles/scientists-create-microscopic-mona-lisa,33423/ The Onion! I’m very impressed. My friend Jennifer Curtis at Georgia Tech has a paper out featuring a clever nanolithography technique, in which heating an atomic force microscope tip generates a temperature gradient that guides chemical reactions at a surface. Controlling the position and temperature … Continue reading The Mini Lisa
One of the motivations for improving STEM education that I’ve briefly noted before (e.g. here and here) is the expectation of lots of future jobs requiring STEM skills. This is important, though I think it’s less important than conveying an appreciation of nature that a scientific perspective brings, and imparting skills that allow thinking “scientifically” … Continue reading “China needs workers…”
Since I’m a physicist who works on biological systems and cares about education, what could be better than a special issue of CBE Life Sciences Education on “Educational Initiatives and Research at the Intersection of Physics and Biology?” (OK, lots of things — I’m not that boring a person — but humor me.) I’ve read … Continue reading Physics, Biology, and STEM education
The Eighteenth Elephant 