Yesterday I wrote that I think we should keep our blog posts to five paragraphs. The five paragraph format is frequently derided. Today I explain why I advocate for it. — David Mertens
Lab blogging Part II - One audience, five paragraphs
One of the points of confusion for the lab blog is our audience. To whom shall we write? How sophisticated should our entries be? I believe that we should consider our own lab as our audience, and we should keep things simple. — David Mertens
Lab blogging Part I - We don't blog enough
One of my roles in the lab has been to encourage the members of the lab to write entries to the lab blog. How has that gone, you ask? In this first in a short series of blog posts, I simply want to state the obvious. We don’t write often enough for our own good. — David Mertens
Extraterrestrial Riches
A couple months ago I stumbled upon the website for a start-up company called Planetary Resources. On their site, they have a well-produced video explaining their goal of mining near-earth asteroids and bringing the resources back to earth.
A stress free career of course
As I get older I keep encountering the great discrepancy between theory/concept and reality in application. This comes to a head for me right now as I approach the twilight years of my graduate school career and have to answer people (read, strangers) as to what my career aspirations are. ...
Biologists hate math and other citation database stories
The conclusions reached by a study published in a recent issue of PNAS may not be entirely trustworthy. Well, maybe I need to be more specific so as to narrow it down to just one study. The paper I’m referring to is "Heavy use of equations impedes communication among biologists" ...
The astonishing power of group pressure
I recently (finally!) found a short video showing one the “classical” experiments performed by the social psychologist Solomon Asch. If this name does not ring any bell, please take two minutes of your precious time and watch this Youtube video: I promise you will not regret. Pretty funny, isn’t it? ...
The euro crisis – a portuguese perspective
We have a saying in Portugal: “things are bad, things are very bad”. It is something I have heard for as long as I can remember.
So how did you...?
There is almost always one question that I receive when someone finds out both what my research is and that my background is in biology. That is 'So when did you start programming?’, with implication that the answer should be when I was a child. The answer is really that ...
A little story of innovation
Sequoyah was an illiterate Cherokee silversmith who, in 1821, created a syllabary to write the spoken Cherokee language. This was the first and only time in human history that a single man created an entirely new writing system. Sequoyah got the idea while he was dealing as a silversmith with ...
Science is an art
Fiction author Elizabeth Gilbert ponders the emotional risks of creativity – and how to mitigate them. As scientists, why do we keep torturing ourselves with the idea that science is somehow different?
A short traveler's guide to moving abroad
What is it about changing to a new environment that frightens but excites us at the same time? Is it the sense of discovery of a new place? The fear of going into the unknown? Of leaving and completely losing sight of your comfort zone?
Who should hold the reins?
Recently I went to my first meetup (just a group activity amongst strangers that is facilitated through the meetup website) that focused on Data Science in Chicago and was organized by Mike Stringer from Datascope Analytics. At this meeting Brett Goldstein, the Chief Data Officer of Chicago, was presenting and I have to say it was a wonderful talk and experience.
SOPA: A war between Hollywood and Silicon Valley
I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me… An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of CENSORED comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! – Aragorn, in The L*** of the R****: The R***** of the K***
On Writing Well
Good writing is exceedingly difficult, and we in the science and engineering disciplines do not do enough to teach our students how to write. Yet for me, two of the most important skills that I lacked as a newly minted Bachelor of Science can be taught in Engineering curriculum instead of the English classrom. — David Mertens
Marked to Model
I recently watched Moneyball, a movie that is based on the true story of the Oakland Athletics and how they used statistical analysis and modeling (sabermetrics) to put together a team of “misfits” that eventually won a record 20 consecutive games. Sabermetricians take the rich statistical information that is kept ...
The Egocentrism's Dilemma
As children, we all go through a stage during which we claim whatever interesting object we see as “Mine!” We eventually outgrow this extreme egocentrism, more or less. Such evolution takes many iterative cycles of fitting our current mental model to the new information from experience. As part of our ...
Behind the screen
Blink is a wonderful book. So wonderful that I tend to think that every good story I ever read about bias, decision making and a number of other topics must have been in there. I just spent several hours trying to find one of those stories. Unfortunately, I couldn’t – ...
Review of Packing for Mars
Life in space sounds utterly unappealing in Mary Roach’s new book, Packing for Mars. The book’s anecdotes primarily revolve around the troubles of vomit, body odor, and poop in a zero gravity environment. The discomforts of a space station it seems, far outweigh the small joys of floating. Roach’s focus ...