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Posts

July 04, 2015

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- Figures sans paroles / Les figures sans paroles

July 03, 2015

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Per trovare la soluzione a un problema è spesso importante sapere quali domande fare. The post Sapete risolvere questo problema? appeared first on Il Post.
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An analysis of over a million games predicts whether the leading side can be overtaken before the match ends
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The author of an article mapping the genome of an infectious bacterium is pulling the paper because — well, it wasn’t the bacterium she thought it was. Study author Celia Abolnik is retracting her paper in Genome Announcements because it didn’t actually map out the DNA of Mycoplasma meleagridis, a bacterium that typically infects turkeys but has recently been found in chickens. […] The post Misidentified genetic sequence causes retraction of pathogen paper one […]
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Fabienne Serriere wants to hack an industrial knitting machine to make cellular automata scarves, and you can back her project on Kickstarter. -- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
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The International Journal of Phytoremediation  has issued a retraction for a 2013 article suggesting algae could shield against gamma radiation better than lead. Sadly, such an innovation was not to be — the editors have pulled the paper, saying: We are now cognizant that there are issues with the data and determinations made within the manuscript […] The post Editors retract algae study, citing “issues with the data” appeared first on Retraction Watch.
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[In case you've forgotten about Ithuvania...]I'm working on a couple of Whole Foods related threads for the food blog, and I keep coming across these remarkable John Mackey facts. He isn't just your standard crazy CEO; he actually manages to be an ideological chimera, somehow combining the most annoying traits of the left and of the right.  A flaky new-ager and dyed-in-the-wool Randian (“The union is like having herpes. It doesn’t kill you, but it’s unpleasant and inconvenient, and […]
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This is an excerpt from friend of The Aperiodical, Matt Parker’s book, “Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension”, which is out now in paperback. There’s a lovely function in mathematics called the factorial function, which involves multiplying the input number by every number smaller than it. For example: $\operatorname{factorial}(5) = 5 \times 4 \times 3... Read more » + - Figures sans paroles / Les figures sans paroles + Défi du calendrier mathématique 2015 : petit problème à résoudre…. - Défis du Calendrier Mathématique / Actualité July 02, 2015 + JuliaCon, the annual gathering of the community focused on the Julia programming language, convened last week at MIT. I hung out there for a couple of days, learned a lot, and had a great time. I want to report back … Continue reading → + A line of dark spots across the dwarf planet's equator make it look like a pizza and have left researchers scratching their heads + There may be some deeply rooted issues in the work of high-profile plant biologist Olivier Voinnet, biology department research director at ETH in Zurich. Corrections have continued to pile up months after his work was hit with a barrage of criticism on PubPeer. We’ve tracked a total of seven corrections over the past five months (not including […] The post Corrections (and one EoC) propagate for distinguished plant biologist, Olivier Voinnet appeared first on Retraction Watch. + The Lancet Infectious Diseases has removed a cover illustration of the Buddha contemplating a mosquito from its June, 2015 issue — a complement to a paper about malaria treatment in Cambodia — after receiving emails from readers who protested the depiction of the statue in a non-religious context. After publishing the cover, the journal received […] The post Lancet journal removes Buddha cover art following protest appeared first on Retraction Watch. + Jack Dry Marcus du Sautoy talks about football, cryptography, and numbers. In this interview 17-year-old Jack Dry talks to Marcus du Sautoy, acclaimed mathematician and Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, about football, cryptography, and numbers. Jack Dry (left) with […] + Jobs, wages, labor-force participation and more. + Let's get real. If you're reading a blog originally called "Observational Epidemiology," the cool kids' boat has sailed.I've got a post up on the teaching blog on the case against axiomatic rigor in lower level classes, but the best part is probably this anecdote.A few years ago, when I was teaching math at a big state university, a colleague told me the following.She was comparing notes with a professor at a nearby school on how their respective real analysis courses were going. She told him […] + - Figures sans paroles / Les figures sans paroles + On this episode of Strongly Connected Components Samuel Hansen is joined by mathematician Katie Steckles. They discuss how ER influenced her to study mathematics, just what the word mathematician encompasses, and what a mathematician in residence does. Be sure to follow Katie on twitter, check out her work with Think Maths, and her other mathematical […] July 01, 2015 + A researcher who confessed to spiking rabbit blood samples to make the results of an HIV vaccine experiment look better has been sentenced to 57 months of prison time, according to The Des Moines Register. Dong-Pyou Han has also been ordered to repay more than$7 million to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and […] The post AIDS vaccine fraudster sentenced to nearly 5 years in prison and pay back $7 million appeared first on Retraction Watch. + The Journal of Applied Physiology has retracted a 2012 respiratory study after the authors found “inconsistent” data that “could not be traced to their source.” It’s the fourth retraction for two of the researchers, including Erin Potts-Kant, who was arrested in 2013 for embezzling more than$14,000 from Duke University. The study, “Effects of corticosteroid […] The post Duke University lung researchers cough up fourth retraction, due to “inconsistent” data […]
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Enough is enough, say the physicists who have come together to renew respect for experimental evidence and work on alternatives to ever more contrived theory
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I've already wasted way too much time following this exchange between Andrew Gelman and John Lott and reading up on the Lott saga. In retrospect, the man isn't that interesting and I doubt you can find an issue I care less about than gun rights/gun control. Nonetheless, I did notice something about Lott's defense and, having wasted the time following all of those links, I might as well get a post out of it.Lott was responding to a comparison Gelman drew between him and Michael LaCour. I'm […]
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One of Paolo Macchiarini’s co-authors on a 2011 Lancet paper describing an allegedly groundbreaking procedure to transplant an artificial trachea seeded with stem cells is objecting to a recent investigation that concluded Macchiarini had committed misconduct. Ola Hermanson, who studies neural stem cells at Karolinska Institutet, argued in a report dated June 29 that the […] The post Macchiarini co-author objects to investigation’s misconduct verdict appeared first on Retraction […]
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Yes, it does. And we have the maths to prove it. Yes, it does. And we're not just talking about that warm fuzzy feeling inside. Maths indicates that it pays in evolutionary terms too. The following articles introduce you to this topic and show you the wider range of applications of the maths of altruism. (And if you would like to get away from your computer or smart phone, […]
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- Figures sans paroles / Les figures sans paroles
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Les maths, c'est 15% du PIB français selon l'AMIES. Mais aussi ce mois-ci, un rapport houleux sur l'X, d'enthousiasmants salons et rallyes, les biographies d'Evariste et d'Alexandre, le rappel vivifiant de l'engagement de nos ainés, Léonid Pliouchtch et Maurice Audin. - Revue de presse / featured

June 30, 2015

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Today's number, 1, comes courtesy of the leap second.
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Nobody talks about the assumptions behind free markets better than Mark Thoma, who has a new piece on the subject.  It really should be required reading, because it sets the pattern of regulations that all society's develop in context and makes it hard to have an absolutist view on a lot of subjects. At the same time, it appropriately acknowledges just how powerful this process can be when the necessary preconditions exist.
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Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences have retracted a 2014 article after a review unearthed unresolved problems with the study’s control material. The retracted paper, “Effect of Temperature and Storage Time on Sorbitol Dehydrogenase Activity in Sprague-Dawley Rat Serum and Plasma,” looked to test the durability and stability of sorbitol dehydrogenase, an […] The post “Values were outside expected ranges”: Toxicology paper spiked after […]