The expert mind

In the latest issue of Scientific American, Philip E. Ross presents an overview of what we know about the Expert Mind, culled from decades of research on chess (which he calls the Drosophila of cognitive science). Here are some of the key conclusions:

The better players did not examine more possibilities, only better ones…

… [T]he expert [...]

Just how competitive can scientists get?

Put yourself in the shoes of a young, hot-shot post-doc who has got several offers for a faculty position, including one from a Great University in your field. Naturally, you are keen on joining GU, except for one small glitch. GU also has a leading senior researcher — a Nobel laureate, no less! — with [...]

An explosive commentary on the status of women in science

When I was 14 years old, I had an unusually talented maths teacher. One day after school, I excitedly pointed him out to my mother. To my amazement, she looked at him with shock and said with disgust: “You never told me that he wasblack”. I looked over at my teacher and, for the first [...]

Time is too short …

… to post excerpts. Here are the links anyway:

FT’s review of Yochai Benkler’s Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom”

Tyler Cowen’s latest NYTimes column on gastronomical economics.

Daniel Gross on why businesspeople love to quote Chinese proverbs.

Tim Harford on why some people cheat, and others don’t.

Stuart Jeffries on why happiness is overrated.

Happiness

There’s a wonderful survey article in the New York Magazine on happiness. It features the research of such key figures as Martin Seligman (Authentic Happiness), Daniel Gilbert (Stumbling on Happiness) and Barry Schwartz (Paradox of Choice). Some excerpts:

Smarter people aren’t any happier, but those who drink in moderation are. Attractive people are slightly happier than [...]

Nikola Tesla

Couturnix has a great post — no, make that an absolutely great post — on Nikola Tesla in celebration of the latter’s 150th birthday on July 10. You’ve got to check out that post to see why I’m amazed …

Still, at least the first two commenters on that post were left rather underwhelmed by Couturnix’s [...]

Los Alamos

It has been quite a while since I noted the Los Alamos scientists’ revolt (through a blog!) that forced the then director to resign. The Economist updates us on what’s happening at Los Alamos.

… At the beginning of June the University of California, which had run Los Alamos since the days of the Manhattan Project, [...]

Nature’s experiment with ‘open’ peer review

Nature, a leading science journal, is conducting an interesting experiment wherein a paper’s authors can have it reviewed ‘openly’ — like comments in a blog! This would be in addition to the regular (anonymous) review process.

While I haven’t given it much thought, others have. Arunn Narasimhan (Mechanical Engineering, IIT-Madras) has a link-ful post examining [...]

Diet Coke fountains

Why do Mentos and Diet Coke produce such a wonderful effect? The short answer is surface tension and nucleation. For a long answer, go read David Biello’s post over at the SciAm Observations.

Nature’s list of top 50 science blogs

Nature has published a list of the top 50 science blogs by academics; the ranking is based on Technorati ratings. It also has reactions from the bloggers behind the top five blogs.

The top 50 list features quite a few that I read regularly: Pharyngula (1), Cosmic Variance (4), Adventures in Science and Ethics (10), Uncertain [...]

Nanotech research in India

[Even] with the NSTI [the Nano Science and Technology Initiative] in place, the level of funding has been sub-critical as compared to China with which India inevitably tends to be compared. In 2002, for example, compared to China’s $200 million, India spent a mere Rs.15 crores. Over the four and a half years of [...]

Annals of academic put-downs

Prayer may not be very efficient when compared to celestial mechanics, but it surely holds its own vis-a-vis some parts of economics. — Paul Feyerabend

Quote taken from this post by John Horgan, who reads Philip Ball’s Nature article on econophysics, and asks “can economics ever be like physics?” Horgan is convinced that the answer is [...]

Academic put-downs

When it comes to put-downs (often good-natured, and sometimes nasty) about other people and their calling, and sometimes, about the human condition itself, academics are certainly among the best! Here is a partial list. If you happen to know of other such put-downs, do please let me know through your comments.

Study Materials Science: everything [...]

Hwang Woo Suk admits wrongdoing

Finally! Here’s the Guardian:

For a paper in the journal Science, Hwang said he had told researchers to make it look as if they were basing their results on 11 cloned embryonic stem cell lines, rather than the two lines he believed they had.

Here’s the Telegraph:

“I admit to the suspicion of fabrication,” he told prosecutors, who [...]

Sociophysics

After writing this post about economics, physics and econophysics, I was poking around the web, looking for Philip Ball’s articles. Ball is the author of the piece that I linked to in my post, and has written quite enthusiastically about “sociophysics” which seems, to me, to be mostly simulations in which independent entities (particles, [...]