Trying to GAIN an edge on ‘superbugs’
April 3, 2012
During a hockey game last Saturday, the Boston Bruins defenseman, Dennis Seidenberg, took a skate blade to his leg, slicing it open. By Thursday, the cut was infected, sidelining Seidenberg, who was now on a course of antibiotics. Three days later, Seidenberg was good as new, even scoring a goal in a win over the New York Rangers.
Google, please help improve the mean
February 28, 2012
The data revolution is coming. While online marketing is getting fat off trillions of cookies, biology is exploding with DNA sequences, sports teams are selecting players who are undervalued by traditional metrics and public health researchers are mining queries to Google and posts on Facebook and Twitter to follow and predict disease outbreaks. Even disciplines typically devoid of data dumps, like the humanities, are getting in on the action: e-book libraries allow literary critics to follow specific words over time.
Negative data is still data
January 31, 2012
I am exceedingly good at failing. Even though I’m getting my Ph.D. in one of the best immunology departments in the world, the common thread running through my graduate school career has not been success, but failure. I’m not an anomaly, however. I am simply a scientist.
Sounding off on the Cloud
April 6, 2011
Just over a week ago, Amazon.com announced its foray into the music streaming business with its new Cloud Music Player. While it’s true that the Amazon rainforest is almost always cloud covered, the name of the new player is more of a reference to the underpinning technology: Cloud computing. Cloud computing is not quite as nebulous as it sounds — except that when sound (i.e., record companies) is involved, the legality is far from clear.
Girls, get gaming
March 2, 2011
In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Kay S. Hymowitz decries the slacker-slob male prototype she claims is increasingly common in society. In the provocatively titled “Where Have The Good Men Gone?”, Hymowitz believes she has identified a cultural trend afflicting today’s young men: they “hang out in a novel sort of limbo, a hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance,” which, she says, does not endear them easily to members of the opposite sex. While few can dispute her statements when applied to popular culture (the seemingly ubiquitous on-screen “man-boy,” to borrow a phrase from a female friend, is typified by Seth Rogan’s character, Ben, in Judd Apatow’s 2007 movie “Knocked Up”), it’s less clear she has anything to say about reality. In fact, these “man-boys,” whose hobbies include playing lots of video games, may have something to teach men and women alike.
Science and Technology Columnist at Yale Daily News (2010-2012)
A selection of columns written for Yale University's primary student newspaper. Topics have included science policy issues, emerging personal technologies, and STEM education.
A complete archive is available here.
