Archive for December, 2014

Programming tools: Adventures with R

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

Programming tools: Adventures with #R http://www.nature.com/news/programming-tools-adventures-with-r-1.16609 Overview of available science packages & their increase in popularity over time

QT:{{"
Not every scientist is enthusiastic about learning the necessary programming — even though, says Ram, R is less intimidating than languages such as Python (let alone Perl or C). “There are going to be far more scientists that will be comfortable with click-and-drop interfaces than will ever learn to program at any time,” Muenchen says. Geneticist Rabih Murr, for example, took the same R course as Royo when he was a postdoc, but he did not invest as much time in practising. To get started and develop research-specific skills in R definitely requires a commitment: “It’s a matter of priorities,” he says. But after becoming a lab head at the University of Geneva in Switzerland this year, he is planning to hire someone with R experience.
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Charles Yerkes: Conquistador of Metroland | The Economist

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

Charles Yerkes: Conquistador of Metroland http://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21636509-how-vision-and-cunning-unknown-american-changed-shape A Robert Moses for #London, albeit for trains not cars, was actually a NYer

Cereal killer: Are you eating too much iron? – health – 04 December 2014 – Test – New Scientist

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

Cereal killer: Are you eating too much iron? http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429980.500-cereal-killer-are-you-eating-too-much-iron.html Too much from vitamins is potentially linked to heart disease, cancer &c

The two cultures of mathematics and biology | Bits of DNA

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

http://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2014/12/30/the-two-cultures-of-mathematics-and-biology/

Do I Really Need Regular Checkups at the Dentist and Doctor?

Tuesday, December 30th, 2014

x

http://lifehacker.com/do-i-really-need-regular-checkups-at-the-dentist-and-do-1491777950

Reality distortion field – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tuesday, December 30th, 2014

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reality_distortion_field

Neuroscience, Ethics, and National Security: The State of the Art

Tuesday, December 30th, 2014

#Neuroscience, Ethics & National Security http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001289
Interrogations w/ oxytocin truth serum, No-lie fMRI & p300 waves. Scary!

QT:{{"
National security agencies are also mining neuroscience for ways to advance interrogation methods and the detection of deception. The increasing sophistication of brain-reading neurotechnologies has led many to investigate their potential applications for lie detection. Deception has long been associated with empirically measurable correlates, arguably originating nearly a century ago with research into blood pressure [24]. Yet blood pressure, among other modern bases for polygraphy like heart and breathing rates, indicates the presence of a proxy for deception: stress. Although the polygraph performs better than chance, it does not reliably and accurately indicate the presence of deception, and it is susceptible to counter measures. ….

“Brain fingerprinting” utilizes EEG to detect the P300 wave, an event-related potential (ERP) associated with the perception of a recognized, meaningful stimulus, and it is thought to hold potential for confirming the presence of “concealed information” [25]. The technology is marketed for a number of uses: “national security, medical diagnostics, advertising, insurance fraud and in the criminal justice system” [26]. Similarly, fMRI-based lie detection services are currently offered by several companies, including No Lie MRI [27] and Cephos [28]. DARPA funded the pioneering research that showed how deception involves a more complex array of neurological processes than truth-telling, and that fMRI arguably can detect the difference between the two [29]. No Lie MRI also has ties to national security: they market their services to the DoD, Department of Homeland Security, and the intelligence community, among other potential customers [30].


In addition to questions of scientific validity, these technologies raise legal and ethical issues. Legally required brain scans arguably violate “the guarantee against self-incrimination” because they differ from acceptable forms of bodily evidence, such as fingerprints or blood samples, in an important way: they are not simply physical, hard evidence, but evidence that is intimately linked to the defendant’s mind [32]. Under US law, brain-scanning technologies might also raise implications for the Fourth Amendment, calling into question whether they constitute an unreasonable search and seizure [33].”

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osx – Fastest and safest way to copy massive data from one external drive to another – Ask Different

Tuesday, December 30th, 2014

rsync too
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/117465/fastest-and-safest-way-to-copy-massive-data-from-one-external-drive-to-another

relative_abundance.jpg (3038×2414)

Tuesday, December 30th, 2014

Periodic Table, scaled to abundance on Earth http://bit.ly/1rlyfSx pic.twitter.com/n9Xbfoe8x1 Illustrates importance of 1st row HT @pickover

http://www.meta-synthesis.com/webbook/35_pt/relative_abundance.jpg

What Was the Best Book You Read in 2014? – Speakeasy – WSJ

Tuesday, December 30th, 2014

What Was the #BestBook You Read in ’14?
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/12/12/what-was-the-best-book-you-read-in-2014 For me, responding just before 12/31, it was @WalterIsaacson’s The Innovators