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Choose Your Model

Walter Fontana, a Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard, reflects on models in biology:Models...

Morning Science Quote

I am convinced that we can discover, by means of purely mathematical constructions, those concepts...

Morning Science Quote

I saw that mathematics was split up into numerous specialties, each of which could easily absorb...

Can Biotech Companies Patent Your Genes?

The trial over gene patents, Association for Molecular Pathology, et al. v. U.S. Patent and Trademark...

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Michael WhiteRSS Feed of this column.

Welcome to Adaptive Complexity, where I write about genomics, systems biology, evolution, and the connection between science and literature, government, and society.

I'm a biochemist

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You're living as part of a small band of hunter-gatherers 30,000 years ago in what will later become France. How do you explain the fact that a stone, when dropped, falls to the earth? How do you even begin to think about gravity?

People sometimes wrinkle their noses when, in the context of explaining the meaning of the word 'theory' in science, you talk about the 'theory of gravity'. Gravity is a fact, isn't it? But from our 21st century perspective, we take too much of 2000 years of theoretical developments for granted. So try to imagine how you would even begin to think about gravity if you were living in a cave 30,000 years ago.

Aristotle


Go check out Carnival of Evolution # 20 at Skeptic Wonder. This month's issue includes a metagenomic analysis of the carnival submissions. (I get a fairly long phylogenetic branch of my own!)

Go check it out!

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The current system for allocating grant money favors senior investigators with established labs over junior faculty with smaller labs and shorter track records, and conservative projects that are almost guaranteed to work over high risk-high payoff projects that take a bigger step away from established knowledge.

This isn't news; it's an issue that's been debated over and over in the biomedical research community. Richard Klausner and David Baltimore have laid out some solutions (yes, I know this is old - I'm getting caught up on back issues of Nature):

Those of you who primarily follow this blog by RSS should come check out some of the remodeling done around here:

Hot Topics: Scientific Blogging has some outstanding writers, who are now coming together on a monthly basis to give you a slew of different perspectives on a current topic. The most recent topic is 2020 Science, and includes pieces on topics like home computing, particle physics, nanopore DNA sequencing, information filtering, and sustainability. Some of the best writing on this site goes up here.

This paper relates some neat work done at the University of Texas to understand signal processing by beta-adrenergic receptors:


In layman's terms:


In the end, we should all like [mathematical] models that wear their faults on their sleeves.

- Paul Wilmott, quoted in "Revenge of the Nerd", Newsweek June 8, 2009




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