Letters Remain

Category: science

  • Map of Science

    By crunching data from more than a billion user interactions on scholarly databases, Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers produced a high-resolution map of the relationships between different fields of science. That’s from Wired where they display the ‘Map of Science‘ that was produced, in part, to “help researchers frame discipline-hopping questions and identify neglected cooperative opportunities”.…

  • Get Your Own Eponymous Law

    Always wanted to achieve intellectual immortality? Now it’s possible thanks to Samuel Arbesman—a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School—who shows us how to get a theorem, formula or law named after yourself, in a few easy steps. Of course, before you go out and begin to grace the world with your newly minted eponymous idea,…

  • Genomics and Determinism

    In 2008 Stephen Pinker’s genome was sequenced and publicly released as part of the Personal Genome Project. In light of this, Pinker argues that even though our genes greatly influence our behaviour, they don’t determine who we are, concluding that “even when the effect of some gene is indubitable, the sheer complexity of the self will…

  • Evolutionary Gems

    Given that the concepts and realities of Darwinian evolution are still challenged, albeit rarely by biologists, a succinct briefing on why evolution by natural selection is an empirically validated principle is useful for people to have to hand. That’s from the introduction to 15 Evolutionary Gems (pdf): a document produced by the scientific journal Nature to…

  • Darwin on Creationism

    Last week the news that Sir David Attenborough receives hate mail for failing to credit God in his documentaries was everywhere you looked. If you would like a recap, I previously discussed Attenborough’s rather graphic reason for disbelieving in a deity in Attenborough on Creationism back in November. One thing has come to light since, however: Charles…

  • A Sampling of Mathematical Folk Humour

    Browsing through the Wikipedia entry for mathematical jokes, I noticed a reference to the intriguingly titled Foolproof: A Sampling of Mathematical Folk Humor (pdf) that appeared in Notices of the American Mathematical Society back in 2004. Many English-language mathematical jokes are based on word play involving standard mathematical concepts and terminology. In fact, many of the jokes…

  • Geckos’ Toes, Wan der Waal’s and Walking on Ceilings

    Only having seen one gecko in my life I’ve given them little thought. One thing I am sure of, however, is that I didn’t expect the answer to how geckos manage to navigate walls and ceilings so dextrously to be as awesome as it is. The bottoms of a gecko’s feet are […] covered with millions…

  • Books on Molecular Gastronomy

    Molecular gastronomy is defined as the “scientific discipline involving the study of physical and chemical processes that occur in cooking”. Following on from a conversation I had with Andrew this past weekend—and after reading this great article from The New York Times—I decided to compile a shortlist of the best books on molecular gastronomy (according to me):…

  • Blogging the Origin of Species

    2009 marks not only the bicentenary of Charles Darwin’s birth, but the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, a work that needs no introduction. To honour this occasion, evolutionary biologist John Whitfield (who has surprisingly never read Origin) will be blogging Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of…

  • Misunderstanding and Rethinking Expertise

    The public’s distrust of scientific experts has been growing in recent years, as is worryingly evident with subjects such as Creationism and particle physics (think: the LHC)—but why is this happening? Harry Collins and Robert Evans, sociologists at my alma mater, Cardiff University, believe it has to do with a “misunderstanding of expertise itself”. They talk…