Sequencing is a fast moving field with many competing technologies. The claim that the acquisition of Complete Genomics has national security implications is highly implausible. Earlier posts here and here.NYTimes: ... BGI-Shenzhen, said in a statement this weekend that its acquisition of Complete Genomics, based in Mountain View, Calif., had been cleared by the federal Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews the national security implications of foreign takeovers of American companies. The deal still requires antitrust...
Monday, 31 December 2012
Sunday, 30 December 2012
Wednesday, 26 December 2012
My Xmas present to you: The Universal Mind of Bill Evans ... Here is Evans, his hair slicked back, his terrible teeth uncapped, a cigarette waving in the air, in intense conversation with his composer brother Harry Evans (a professor of music at Louisiana State University) on the nature of creativity in jazz. This documentary features in-depth discussion of Evans' internal process of song interpretation, improvisation, and repertoire. Through demonstration on the piano, Bill uses the song 'Star Eyes' to illustrate his own conception of solo piano...
Tuesday, 25 December 2012
DNA Dreams -- a Dutch documentary about the BGI Cognitive Genomics Lab -- is now online. This version only has Dutch subtitles, although I've also seen an English version. Most of the dialog is in English, some in Mandarin. Bekijk de video in andere formaten. DNA Dreams (Translated from Dutch.) What would happen if the gene was found that IQ determines us? And when people and animals could be easily cloned? Wait there a new world...
Arnold Kling on the tension between macroeconomics and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (EMH). I'm surprised this isn't more often noticed by economists. But I suppose macro types don't tend to think deeply about finance (at least, not before the recent crisis; how many macro types actually understand Black-Scholes-Merton?) and vice versa. I was shocked at the beginning of the credit crisis to meet famous macroeconomists who didn't know what a credit default swap was, and I still often meet finance types who laugh at macro models.askblog: Consider...
Monday, 24 December 2012
For years, when asked what I wanted for Christmas, I've been replying: peace on earth, good will toward men :-)No one ever seems to recognize that this comes from the bible, Luke 2.14 to be precise!Linus said it best in A Charlie Brown Christmas:And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings...
The video below is the second in the series Brainwash, a Norwegian documentary on the science of nature and nurture. This episode concerns parental influence, and features a very clear explanation by Robert Plomin of heritability as determined by adoption studies (a bit after 15:45). (Note to experts: Plomin refers to his Colorado adoption study, but even larger studies have replicated the results, across multiple countries. He found that the effect of shared environment on cognitive ability was consistent with zero, but the actual value could...
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
NYTimes Room for Debate.Fears of an Asian Quota in the Ivy LeagueDetermined to use educational opportunities as a road to advancement, Asian-Americans have won a disproportionate number of spots at top high schools and colleges that base admission on objective standards. But some have questioned how affirmative action programs might hurt their chances for admission, or say that the most competitive schools do not want to have too many Asian students.Are top colleges deliberately limiting the number of Asian-Americans they admit?Only one side in...
Sunday, 16 December 2012
See earlier post James Salter.INTERVIEWERBut why a memoir? SALTERTo restore those years when one says, All this is mine—these cities, women, houses, days. INTERVIEWERWhat do you think is the ultimate impulse to write? SALTERTo write? Because all this is going to vanish. The only thing left will be the prose and poems, the books, what is written down. Man was very fortunate to have invented the book. Without it the past would completely vanish, and we would be left with nothing, we would be naked on ear...
Thursday, 13 December 2012
Tuesday, 11 December 2012
omicsmaps.com shows the locations of next-gen sequencing devices around the world. The map below is of Illumina HiSeqs -- note the 137 at BGI. As far as I can tell the other big concentration is 50 at the Broad Institute. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (Cambridge, UK) has 23. Click for larger version.Two more nice figures from MIT Technology Review. Click for larger versi...
Monday, 10 December 2012
Ron Unz seems to be getting some traction on Twitter with his observation that Harvard looks like a giant hedge fund ($30B AUM) attached to a smaller educational institution (annual budget about $1B?) for tax purposes ;-)Paying Tuition to a Giant Hedge Fund: ... Harvard’s Division of Arts and Sciences—the central core of academic activity—contains approximately 450 full professors, whose annual salaries tend to average the highest at any university in America. Each year, these hundreds of great scholars and teachers receive aggregate total pay...
Wednesday, 5 December 2012
See also Elite universities and human capital mongering. The numbers below suggest that the top 30 schools enroll half or more of all students who are in the top, say, half percent of ability as measured by SAT/ACT.Chronicle: ... In past decades, many of our best students attended state universities close to home, where they often received an excellent education at reasonable cost. Today, such students are likely to be vying for admission to the nation's most elite colleges and universities. Does this widening of the "prestige gap" between elite...
Sunday, 2 December 2012
Thanks to a reader for these links. YouTube is amazing!Teller on von Neumann's enjoyment of thinking, and his horror at the breakdown of this ability due to his terminal cancer. (Also mention's that vN's relation to "the rest of us" was similar to talking to a 3 year old :-) "Only he was fully awa...
I love this video.This one is also good :-) Check out the guy who won't tap and is choked completely out. I've done this to other people but I'm a quick tapper so it's never happened to me.I think in my mid to late 20's prime I could have beaten up any other theoretical physicist in the world in a fight ;-) But those days are go...
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