Letters Remain

Tag: science

  • The Principles of Edward Tufte

    The problem: “presenting large amounts of information in a way that is compact, accurate, adequate for the purpose, and easy to understand”. The solution: Edward Tufte (actually, the solution is “to develop a consistent approach to the display of graphics which enhances its dissemination, accuracy, and ease of comprehension”… but that’s not as catchy). Yes,…

  • The Story of Big Numbers

    Physicist Albert Bartlett is quoted as saying that “the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function”. Starting with a thought experiment in which two competitors are challenged to come up with the bigger finite number, Scott Aaronson has written an accessible and fact-filled essay about large numbers, touching on topics…

  • The Scientific Scoreboard

    After becoming disillusioned by the seemingly elitist system of publishing in scientific journals, Jorge Hirsch devised the h-index; a system to quantify the scientific impact of a researcher’s publications (regardless of journal) and thus the scientific impact (importance) of the researcher. There’s a clear pecking order [for scientific journals], established and reinforced by several independent rating…

  • The Genetic Gap

    I can’t write a better leading sentence than David already has: “In an article encouraging us not to use genetic tendencies for racist ends, William Saletan offers a possible genetic answer [to the question, Why are there so many black athletes?]” One example is the RR variant of ACTN3, a gene that affects fast generation of muscular…

  • The Extinction of the Dinosaurs

    Was the Chicxulub impact really the K–T extinction event that caused the extinction of (non-avian) dinosaurs? Well… probably, yes. However, if you don’t know the background you can do a lot worse than Ethan Siegel’s comprehensive yet succinct account of what wiped out the dinosaurs. via Seed

  • Interpreting Hybrid Images

    Remember how the Mona Lisa’s famous smile was painted in low spatial frequencies, hence why we interpret the face differently depending on where we look? Now, Mo of Neurophilosophy takes an in-depth look at how our brains interpret hybrid images and complex visual scenes, shedding more light on this effective imaging technique. He also links…

  • The Art of Sand

    I initially passed over this Discover gallery but decided to take a look once @mocost linked to it. Who would have thought that sand had such diversity and beauty? Evidently Gary Greenberg did when he compiled these microscopic photographs of sand for his book, A Grain of Sand. Composed of the remnants of volcanic explosions, eroded mountains, dead…

  • Making a Significant Contribution

    Why do so few scientists make significant contributions and so many are forgotten in the long run? That was the question the noted mathematician and computer scientist Richard Hamming (he of Hamming Codes fame) asked and tried to answer in a talk he gave at Bell Labs in 1986. However his educational and inspiring talk,…

  • 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”.…

  • Physiognomy and Looking Creditworthy

    Using data from the person-to-person lending company Propser.com, research is starting to show that—when it comes to analysing creditworthyness—the once discredited science of physiognomy may be valid. In other words, people may be able to tell if we are actually trustworthy just from looking at our facial features. Science proceeds by trial and error. The successes…