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LATEST ARTICLES ( 295 )

• The Drake Equation and the Cambrian Explosion

  

  This summer billionaire Yuri Milner announced that he would spend upwards of 100 million dollars to search for extraterrestrial intelligent life (here is the Ne... Read more

  Posted on 30 September 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The Blurry Line Between Human and Ape

  Primate researcher extraordinaire, Frans de Waal, pens an excellent commentary in the New York Times on the recent discovery of Homo Naledi. His thesis that th... Read more

  Posted on 15 September 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Abraham Bers, 1930 – 2015

  I was saddened to hear that my PhD thesis advisor at MIT, Professor Abraham Bers, passed away last week at the age of 85. Abe was a fantastic physicist and... Read more

  Posted on 15 September 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Paper on the Effect of Food Intake Fluctuations on Body Weight

  Chow, C. C. Hall, K. D. Short and long-term energy intake patterns and their implications for human body weight regulation. Physiology Behavior 134:60-65... Read more

  Posted on 11 September 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• The World of Gary Taubes

  Science writer Gary Taubes has a recent New York Times commentary criticizing Kevin Hall's recent paper on the differential metabolic effects of low fat vs low... Read more

  Posted on 09 September 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Paper on New Myopia Associated Gene

  

  The prevalence of near sightedness or myopia has almost doubled in the past thirty years from about 25% to 44%. No one knows why but it is probably a... Read more

  Posted on 06 September 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Brave New World

  Read Steve Hsu's Nautilus article on Super-Intelligence. If so-called IQ-related genetic variants are truly additive then his estimates are probably correct. Hi... Read more

  Posted on 24 August 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Guest Post: On Proving Too Much in Scientific Data Analysis

  

  I asked Rick Gerkin to write a summary of his recent eLife paper commenting on a much hyped Science paper on how many odours we can discriminate. On Proving... Read more

  Posted on 13 August 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• A Calorie is a Calorie (more Or Less) After All

  Just out in Cell Metabolism is Kevin Hall's most recent paper that shows that low carb diets have no metabolic advantage over a low fat diet. In the... Read more

  Posted on 13 August 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• What is Wrong with Obesity Research

  This paper in Nature Communications 14-3-3ζ Coordinates Adipogenesis of Visceral Fat has garnered some attention in the popular press. It is also a perfec... Read more

  Posted on 10 August 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Cecil and the Hunter

  Like many others, I was first outraged when I heard about the death of the beloved lion in Zimbabwe at the hands of a hunter from Minnesota. But I then quickly... Read more

  Posted on 30 July 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Terry Tao in the Times

  There is a nice profile of mathematician Terence Tao in the New York Times magazine this week. Tao is astonishing in his breadth and depth. He could probably... Read more

  Posted on 25 July 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Have We Crossed Peak Food?

  The New York Times has an article today describing the decrease in food consumption over the past decade. Here is one primary reference. I used to joke that... Read more

  Posted on 24 July 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Heritability in Twins

  

  Tinca J C Polderman, Beben Benyamin, Christiaan A de Leeuw, Patrick F Sullivan, Arjen van Bochoven, Peter M Visscher Danielle Posthuma. Meta-analysis of the... Read more

  Posted on 06 July 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• New Paper on Global Obesity

  We have a new paper out in the World Health Organization Bulletin looking at the association between an increase in food supply and average weight gain: Stefani... Read more

  Posted on 04 July 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Hopfield on the Difference Between Physics and Biology

  Here is a short essay by theoretical physicist John Hopfield of the Hopfield net and kinetic proofreading fame among many other things (hat tip to Steve Hsu).... Read more

  Posted on 01 July 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Selection of the Week

  Here is the song “Let it go” from the Disney movie “Frozen” performed by Idina Menzel. This is not “classical music” per se, although there is a long tradition... Read more

  Posted on 27 June 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Sampling from a Probability Distribution

  

  When simulating any system with randomness, sampling from a probability distribution is necessary. Usually, you’ll just need to sample from a normal or uniform... Read more

  Posted on 21 June 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Selection of the Week

  American violinist Rachel Barton Pine playing Pietro Locatelli’s Sonata Op 6 No 12 for solo violin.  This piece was composed in 1737! Read more

  Posted on 19 June 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE

• Selection of the Week

  Hungarian pianist András Schiff plays a lost piece by Johannes Brahms composed in Göttingen in 1853.http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25463720Christopher... Read more

  Posted on 05 June 2015 BIOLOGY, SCIENCE