Mathematics and Statistics

Applied Mathematics, Geometry and Topology, Analysis, Mathematical Modeling, Statistical Modeling, Game Theory, Operations, Biostatistics, Epidemiology, GIS, Image Processing

A month in papers: mostly philosophy of biology

Theory, Evolution, and Games Group bloggers Biology and Life Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics, Technology and Engineering
I’ve seen a number of people that have aimed for reading one paper a day for every day of the year. Unfortunately, I am not great at new years resolutions, and would never be able to keep pace for all 365 days. Instead, in April I tried a one paper a day challenge for the month. I still came up short, only finishing 24 of 30 papers. But I guess that is enough for one…

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Token vs type fitness and abstraction in evolutionary biology

Theory, Evolution, and Games Group bloggers Biology and Life Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics, Technology and Engineering
There are only twenty-six letters in the English alphabet, and yet there are more than twenty-six letters in this sentence. How do we make sense of this? Ever since I first started collaborating with David Basanta and Jacob Scott back in 2012/13, a certain tension about evolutionary games has been gnawing at me. A feeling that a couple of different concepts are being swept up under the rug of a single name.[1] This feeling became…

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Interview at Forecast

Kaitlin Alexander Environmental and Earth Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics
I’ve just given an interview at the Forecast podcast, hosted by Nature’s climate change editor, Michael White. Head over to the Forecast website to check it out. What I love about Forecast is that it interviews climate scientists as fully-rounded human beings, rather than fact-generating robots. The humanisation of scientists is so important for science communication. If the audience feels like they can relate to a scientist, they’re more likely to trust them and take…

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Reflections on long hours in the laboratory, and working for results

Marc Leger Chemistry, Mathematics and Statistics
A recent Twitter discussion on long work weeks by academics caused me to reflect on my previous life in academia – that decade where I completed my MSc and PhD in chemistry, postdoctoral studies, and four years as an assistant professor of chemistry in two different universities. The Twitter discussion began in earnest when, In response to this tweet about the distribution of work hours for “average” professors: The average #professor works over 60 hours…

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At the library

Kaitlin Alexander Environmental and Earth Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics
The DOI system is great and all, and I love being able to access nearly the entire scientific literature without having to leave my desk. But there’s something wonderful about looking up a textbook with no full-text access online, and instead walking down to the uni library with a Dewey decimal number scrawled on a sticky note. Pacing through the shelves of books, finding the one I want, taking it down, and smelling it.

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The biennial athletic pursuit for group 11 elements has begun!

Marc Leger Chemistry, Mathematics and Statistics
When I first saw a periodic table of the elements, I observed that the three Olympic medals – gold, silver and copper, the largest component of bronze – were the three group 11 elements. The order of these elements from lightest to heaviest – copper (Cu), then silver (Ag), then gold (Au) – follow the order of the medals in ascending value. (In 1994, a fourth group 11 element was discovered. With a half-life of…

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Deadlock & Leader as deformations of Prisoner’s dilemma & Hawk-Dove games

Theory, Evolution, and Games Group bloggers Biology and Life Sciences, Mathematics and Statistics, Technology and Engineering
Recently, I’ve been working on revisions for our paper on measuring the games that cancer plays. One of the concerns raised by the editor is that we don’t spend enough time introducing game theory and in particular the Deadlock and Leader games that we observed. This is in large part due to the fact that these are not the most exciting games and not much theoretic efforts have been spent on them in the past.…

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Why the Golden Age of Cinema was its most dangerous

Marc Leger Chemistry, Mathematics and Statistics
Going to the movies in the first half of the 20th century was dangerous.  The movie theatre projection room was a hazardous place to work.  And while the source of the danger was well understood, it took several decades for filmmakers to finally offer moviegoers and projectionists a safer environment to enjoy Hollywood’s finest works. Before looking at the dangerous chemistry of early film, let us remember how motion pictures work.  The video portion of…

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