The price we have to pay for better science

6.10.2008 admin

A paper by Young / Ioannidis / Al-Ubaydli attacks the oligopoly of biomedical journals (just as I have done here many times including also the idea of a winner’s curse). From the press release

The current system of publishing medical and scientific research provides “a distorted view of the reality of scientific data that are generated in the laboratory and clinic,” says a team of researchers in this week’s PLoS Medicine […]
There is an “extreme imbalance,” they say, between the abundance of supply (the output of basic science laboratories and clinical investigations) and the increasingly limited venues for publication (journals with sufficiently high impact). Continue reading The price we have to pay for better science →

Philosophy, Software

Basic instinct for math?

2.10.2008 admin

It seems that there are two numbering systems in humans – a general sense of numbers for some quick and dirty estimates and some more genuine computation skills of showing the result of (2327)^2. At least the first capacity seems to be inborn (and an important survival skill). According a recent SZ article (29th Sept 2008) a host of new studies now show that

the two number systems, the bestial and celestial, may be profoundly related, an insight with potentially broad implications for math education

and as I believe – for science in general as most science fields are being dominated by the Fermi problem. Continue reading Basic instinct for math? →

Philosophy

Journals under Threat

30.09.2008 admin

Under the headline â€Journals under Threat: A Joint Response from HSTM Editorsâ€ the editors of some of the leading international journals for history and philosophy of science and social studies of science have issued a joint declaration that I received by email and that I am reprinting here to give it a larger audience.

We live in an age of metrics. All around us, things are being standardized,
quantified, measured. Scholars concerned with the work of science and
technology must regard this as a fascinating and crucial practical, Continue reading Journals under Threat →

Genetics, Philosophy

Invention is the mother of necessity

30.09.2008 admin

Nature magazine has a collection of interesting opinions about future developments of science. My favorite contribution is open content management Continue reading Invention is the mother of necessity →

Genetics

9,69

30.09.2008 admin

What is the fastest acceleration in Nature? It seems that high-speed spore discharge mechanisms are winning the race. From a PLoS press release Continue reading 9,69 →

Philosophy

Beer lets humans settle down

29.09.2008 admin

Occasionally, I am taking up a topic that directed a google search to my site. Anyway, I have doubts if this is really a big scientific question as highlighted in an interview and a new book of a Munich professor. With the Neolithic Age farming was raising – and usually thought as a response to famine. Reichholf believes that humans put down roots by drinking beer. Is that a good joke right to Octoberfest this year? Cheers.

Philosophy, Theology

Science magazine on bible references

29.09.2008 admin

Yes, a somewhat unusual topic, but a HONORABLE MENTION in the “2008 Visualization Challenge“shows an

illustrated Bible with a modern twist. Römhild started with a list of verses in different versions of both the Old and New Testaments that referred to figures or ideas from earlier passages, then combed through both books for additional examples. Using a custom-built computer program, Harrison translated the trove of data into “Visualizing the Bible.” … “It almost looks like one monolithic volume”.

true observation or wishful thinking?

Allergy

How to restore a Windows XP system in 30 minutes

25.09.2008 admin

Some hard disk crashes took me longer than that but here is my 3 step method:

The Slipstreamer will create a boot CD from an existing Windows installation.
Update it with Service Pack 3 or look for xpsp3_5512.080413-2113_usa_x86fre_spcd.iso
Restore any more volumes with Drivesnapshot from any image on an USB drive.

Hopefully you are not reading this too late…

Genetics

Will current SNP chips unintentionally diagnose Huntington?

19.09.2008 admin

I wondered if Chorea Huntington may be unintentionally diagnosed by current SNP chips used in research projects of other diseases. On a first glance, this seems to be unlikely – we are dealing with repeated CAG repeats in huntingtin located on chromosome 4p16.3 that are not easily accessible by SNP panels. Continue reading Will current SNP chips unintentionally diagnose Huntington? →

Allergy, Genetics

Asthma is a iatrogenic disease

19.09.2008 admin 1 Comment

The new Lancet has a paper from our own group as well as another one from ISAAC. We have already suggested earlier that asthma is a iatrogenic disease- the ISAAC paper now confirms at least the long suspected association with paracetamol use – gratulations to my London friend who had been working so long on this hypothesis. The accompanying editorial puts in into context:

Furthermore, although many important potential confounders were included in multivariate analyses, confounding by underlying respiratory disease, differences in hygiene, and use of other antipyretics might also explain the findings.

To put it more on a general level – more iatrogenic factors cannot be excluded, yea, yea.

Philosophy

Gödel’s proof

18.09.2008 admin

A recent opinion article (Nature, Aug 14) has an interesting retrospective look on Gödel’s proof, the 1958 secondhand description of Gödel’s 1931 finding that rules of logic for quoting axioms eg. substituting variables and formulating deductions are themselves mathematical operations – pretty much the same of todays object oriented programming Continue reading Gödel’s proof →

Philosophy

Dealing with noise

17.09.2008 admin

Public Rambling discusses post-publication journals:

These ideas of sorting based on measures of usage is already being tested by the new Frontiers journals. These are a series of open access journals published by an international not-for-profit foundation based in Switzerland. As PLoS ONE, these journals aim to separate the peer-review process of quality and scientific soundness from the more subjective impact evaluation. In practice they are doing this by publishing research in a tiered system with articles submitted to a set of specialty journals.

I am already in favor Continue reading Dealing with noise →

Philosophy, Theology

The logic of science?

16.09.2008 admin

Edge has a wonderful article about statistics:

… statistical and applied probabilistic knowledge is the core of knowledge; statistics is what tells you if something is true, false, or merely anecdotal; it is the “logic of science”; it is the instrument of risk-taking; it is the applied tools of epistemology [and epidemiology Continue reading The logic of science? →

Philosophy, Software

Bench (marks) to bedside

15.09.2008 admin

For the first time, I found some data about “bench to bedside” transit times. Of 101 promising claims between 1979 and 1983, there have been only 5 clinical interventions in 2003 and only 1 had extensive clinical used; mean lag time 24 years, yea, yea.