Tid Bits

I've been so busy. But I have 15 minutes to spare and so I'll attempt to give a quit session of Tid Bits (including a mention of The Daily Transcript in ... Nature!):

Others seek more of a balance, such as the cell-biologist postdoc author of The Daily Transcript (http://scienceblogs.com/transcript), who mentions other blogs that detail "the woes of postdoc-hood" as well as what it takes to be a pioneering scientist. Apart from linking to both, the blog expands on the second, discussing the "fine line between doggedness and dogma".

(Thanks Tara for the heads up.)

So what else is out there ...

First off, there's a great March Madness parody on The World's Fair:

My pick is the Buckner funnel. You've got until tonight to enter.

Moving along ... There's a great image in the latest issue of Seed (link):

And here's what it's all about:

This map was constructed by sorting roughly 800,000 published papers into 776 different scientific paradigms (shown as pale circular nodes) based on how often the papers were cited together by authors of other papers. Links (curved black lines) were made between the paradigms that shared papers, then treated as rubber bands, holding similar paradigms nearer one another when a physical simulation forced every paradigm to repel every other; thus the layout derives directly from the data. Larger paradigms have more papers; node proximity and darker links indicate how many papers are shared between two paradigms. Flowing labels list common words unique to each paradigm, large labels general areas of scientific inquiry.

You'll also note that Cell Biology is right in the biggest mass of tangled lines:

Cell biology is basically studying the muck found inside cells. (Ironically many depict it as a tangled web.)

Speaking of the new issue of Seed, Douglas Hofstadter (of the famed Godel Escher Bach, one of the greatest books ever written, IMHO) has a little commentary on ... loops, self reference, consciousness and the incompleteness theorem. If you've read GEB, skip it, if you haven't read GEB, what are you waiting for? To be honest Hostadter's ideas are better presented in GEB so if the article intrigues you, go get the book. (Hmm, no link ... I guess you'll just have to get the latest issue of Seed yourself ... or I can scan it for you ... but don't tell my evil overlord ...)

And ... today is pi day (3/14) and Einstein's birthday ... but lets talk about prime numbers. The NY Times has a nice peice on Terence Tao of UCLA. Tao is all about prime numbers. Here's the article.

(And did you know that any owner of a .edu email can access the NYTimes website for free?)

Before we get off of the topic of mathematics, what is the sum of all positive integers? Yes, the answer is ... -1/12?

I just don't get it. It's nonsensical.

I actually went through the proof with one of the crystallography guys and we couldn't find any problem with it. If you don't like the sound of this, blame Euler.

Last but not least, I am hosting the next edition of Mendel's Garden, so send in you latest treatises on the wonderful world of genetics. Click here to read the last issue.

(I'll be sending more reminders out - email me your entries before April 1st - I'll post the full carnival on April 2nd.)