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Melville on Science vs. Creation Myth

From Melville's under-appreciated Mardi: On a quest for his missing love Yillah, an AWOL sailor...

Non-coding DNA Function... Surprising?

The existence of functional, non-protein-coding DNA is all too frequently portrayed as a great...

Yep, This Should Get You Fired

An Ohio 8th-grade creationist science teacher with a habit of branding crosses on his students'...

No, There Are No Alien Bar Codes In Our Genomes

Even for a physicist, this is bad: Larry Moran, in preparation for the appropriate dose of ridicule...

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Michael WhiteRSS Feed of this column.

Welcome to Adaptive Complexity, where I write about genomics, systems biology, evolution, and the connection between science and literature, government, and society.

I'm a biochemist

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Sunday Science Book Club Revival

Sunday Science Book Club Revival

Sep 13 2009 | comment(s)

The monthly book club here at Adaptive Complexity has been on hiatus for the summer, and its revival is long overdue. Join me here on the second Sunday of each month to discuss a great (hopefully) science read. I don't limit my book reviews to Sundays or once per month, but the Sunday Science Book Club is set up so that you can read along and put in your thoughts, in the comments or on your own blog. So here is the schedule through December: October 11 - The Strangest Man, a new biography of physics giant Paul Dirac
The Science Of Scotch

The Science Of Scotch

Sep 10 2009 | comment(s)

If I could do it all over again, I would forget genomics and specialize in the chemistry of Scotch. You may scoff, dear reader, but there are employment opportunities out there (not to mention alcoholic fringe benefits), such as the Scotch Whisky Research Institute (SWRI). Few pleasures (note that it's few, not no pleasures - you know what I mean) are greater than the delicate, intricate taste and aroma of a good single malt Scotch, and the SWRI's mission is to scientifically understand the production and enjoyment of Scotch.


Here is the kind of excitement that you can find in a career in Scotch chemistry:
A Geek's-eye View of Snow Leopard

A Geek's-eye View of Snow Leopard

Sep 09 2009 | comment(s)

No, that Geek is not me, it's John Siracusa exhaustively reviewing (literally - the review is 23 pages long) Mac OS X 10.6 for Ars Technica:

A major operating system upgrade with "no new features" must play by a different set of rules. Every party involved expects some counterbalance to the lack of new features. In Snow Leopard, developers stand to reap the biggest benefits thanks to an impressive set of new technologies, many of which cover areas previously unaddressed in Mac OS X. Apple clearly feels that the future of the platform depends on much better utilization of computing resources, and is doing everything it can to make it easy for developers to move in this direction.
Morning Science Quote

Morning Science Quote

Sep 09 2009 | comment(s)

The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.

- Judge Holden, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, p. 199











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Math is Killing Economics

Math is Killing Economics

Sep 04 2009 | comment(s)

Not really, but Paul Krugman is laying out some criticism of economics that's in the same spirit of my recent criticisms of networks and computational biology.

"How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?":
Peer Review Blues

Peer Review Blues

Sep 04 2009 | comment(s)

Right now I'm asking myself why I spent 100+ hours carefully writing a grant proposal that was destined to not get a serious reading. Below are dueling comments from the same reviewer (for the sake of discretion, some details have been censored): #1. On a technology I proposed to develop:
The single cell technology is interesting but does not seem terribly “ground breaking”.
The second goal of designing an [X] method of doing single cell [X] studies would be terrific technological breakthrough.
#2. On a career development plan in which I propose to hone my mathematical and computational skills: