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Showing posts from 2014

This is really interesting.

This is really interesting. It questions the generally held wisdom that correlation does not apply causation, at least in simple situations. In a simple two variable relationship the noise of the causing variable will have an effect on the other variable but the reverse would not be true.
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/cause-and-effect-the-revolutionary-new-statistical-test-that-can-tease-them-apart-ed84a988e
Huge congratulations to Niedzica Camacho who passed her PhD viva yesterday subject to minor corrections.

This is a good review of an interesting paper recently out on the new Oxford nanopore technology.

This is a good review of an interesting paper recently out on the new Oxford nanopore technology.  Some of the authors are within ear shot of where I work.
http://www.homolog.us/blogs/blog/2014/12/09/new-nanopore-paper-by-phil-ashton/

Celebrating science on google.co.uk


Originally shared by Google UK

Celebrating science on google.co.uk

Today our #GoogleDoodle  celebrates the 100th birthday of Jonas Salk, the American scientist who developed the first successful polio vaccine.

You can read more about the life and work of the scientist in this article from the Mirror newspaper → http://goo.gl/lffqpu

Discover #Doodles  from around the world in our official gallery → http://goo.gl/IAfzE0

Search on.

Interesting approach that we should be using re-sampling simulation rather than statistical tests to calculate...

Interesting approach  that we should be using re-sampling simulation rather than statistical tests to calculate significance as it is much easier to understand.  Sounds reasonable to me, but I suspect much harder to convince a reviewer about.


A more thorough examination of this can be found in this article: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6hb3k0nz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Dnw46eC-0o&feature=share

This seems to be a very reasonable approach to the Bayesian vs Frequentist debate that I agree with.

This seems to be a very reasonable approach to the Bayesian vs Frequentist debate that I agree with.
http://simplystatistics.org/2014/10/13/as-an-applied-statistician-i-find-the-frequentists-versus-bayesians-debate-completely-inconsequential/

This paper has been a long time coming, but I am pleased that it is finally done.

This paper has been a long time coming, but I am pleased that it is finally done.  It was based on work performed by a PhD student I helped supervise who successfully finished in 2008.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/15/880/abstract

Another article is out. I had a minor role in this one.

Another article is out.  I had a minor role in this one.

This is published in eLife which is a relatively new open access journal.  The big claim is that they make the process as quick as possible, with an initial decision within three days.  eLife is funded by three major research foundations: the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, and the Wellcome Trust.  Currently there is no publishing charges.
http://elifesciences.org/content/early/2014/09/30/eLife.02935

I only had a minor amount of involvement in this paper, but its still a Science publication so worth mentioning.

I only had a minor amount of involvement in this paper, but its still a Science publication so worth mentioning.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6196/1251343.long

Here comes the cycling


Here comes the cycling

Originally shared by Tour de France

24 hours left before the departure...

Plus que 24h avant le départ du Tour...

Le Tour De France is coming. ‪#‎TDF‬

Love this.

Love this.  Could play with this all day.  It could be improved if you could be more flexible with the categories e.g. houses with 3 or more bedrooms rather than just three bedrooms.
http://flowingdata.com/2014/06/26/detailed-uk-census-data-browser

Many thanks to the Big C

Many thanks to the Big C
https://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2014/June/Big_C_donation

This sounds pretty interesting

This sounds pretty interesting

Originally shared by Meshed Insights Ltd

New UK £1 coin will have built-in authentication mechanism
http://wmk.me/1lkilV4

"Don’t believe the hype – 10 persistent cancer myths debunked"

"Don’t believe the hype – 10 persistent cancer myths debunked"
http://feedly.com/e/tUPCIQZ3

Very interesting quote from Feynman:

Very interesting quote from Feynman:
"The easiest way to explain this idea is to contrast it, for example, with advertising. Last night I heard that Wesson oil doesn’t soak through food. Well, that’s true. It’s not dishonest; but the thing I’m talking about is not just a matter of not being dishonest; it’s a matter of scientific integrity, which is another level. The fact that should be added to that advertising statement is that no oils soak through food, if operated at a certain temperature. If operated at another temperature, they all will–including Wesson oil. So it’s the implication which has been conveyed, not the fact, which is true, and the difference is what we have to deal with.

I would like to add something that’s not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you’re talking as a scientist. I am not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you’re not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We’ll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I’m talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you’re maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.

For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of his work were. “Well,” I said, “there aren’t any.” He said, “Yes, but then we won’t get support for more research of this kind.” I think that’s kind of dishonest. If you’re representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you’re doing– and if they don’t support you under those circumstances, then that’s their decision.
One example of the principle is this: If you’ve made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish BOTH kinds of results.

I say that’s also important in giving certain types of government advice. Supposing a senator asked you for advice about whether drilling a hole should be done in his state; and you decide it would be better in some other state. If you don’t publish such a result, it seems to me you’re not giving scientific advice. You’re being used. If your answer happens to come out in the direction the government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don’t publish at all. That’s not giving scientific advice.

Other kinds of errors are more characteristic of poor science. When I was at Cornell, I often talked to the people in the psychology department. One of the students told me she wanted to do an experiment that went something like this–it had been found by others that under certain circumstances, X, rats did something, A. She was curious as to whether, if she changed the circumstances to Y, they would still do A. So her proposal was to do the experiment under circumstances Y and see if they still did A."
http://feedly.com/e/psR_lU-U

Oxford nanopore are taking an awfully long time to get their commercial machines out.

Oxford nanopore are taking an awfully long time to get their commercial machines out.
http://feedly.com/e/1yf4a8eU

This is a good article on the new CRISPR technologies that are coming out.

This is a good article on the new CRISPR technologies that are coming out.  Should make knock-out experiments much more effective.

Originally shared by Esther Wojcicki

Amazing...
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/health/a-powerful-new-way-to-edit-dna.html?smid=go-share

A list of drinks that should be drunk in different situations, such as for weight loss and illness.

A list of drinks that should be drunk in different situations, such as for weight loss and illness.  For each suggestion there are references to the scientific literature, which gives it a bit more credence.
http://greatist.com/health/drink-for-every-situation

Interesting internal search labels in gmail

Interesting internal search labels in gmail
http://blog.persistent.info/2014/01/finding-messages-explicitly-marked-as.html

This is pretty amazing.


This is pretty amazing.

Originally shared by Dan Milano

How humans grow other humans! Source: http://bit.ly/1jr6Fyn

Great explanation of Pythagoras.


Great explanation of Pythagoras.

Originally shared by Tom Eigelsbach

Demonstration of the Pythagorean Theorem
Not a proof, as it could have been just a close approximation, but it's what I call an "engineer's proof." For an actual visual proof:

https://plus.google.com/+TomEigelsbach/posts/Qu3t4YmkSb7

And see a more algebraic proof by (20th) President Garfield here:
Garfield's proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

(President Garfield said that this was the only claim he ever made that people in both parties and both houses of Congress could all agree upon was fact!) 

And a different visual proof, maybe my favorite: 
Pythagoras in 60 Seconds

And here's yet another one, also a fun one to watch:
Visual Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem

Backblaze, the large backup company, analyse the failure rate of the consumer level harddrives that they use.

Backblaze, the large backup company, analyse the failure rate of the consumer level harddrives that they use.  Seagate is the worst offender for failure and this agrees with the limited experiences I have had.
http://blog.backblaze.com/2014/01/21/what-hard-drive-should-i-buy

Illumina have announced two new sequencing machines, producing even more data per run. Scary stuff.

Illumina have announced two new sequencing machines, producing even more data per run. Scary stuff.
http://feedly.com/e/y4N5Kgxc