David Lubinski sent me a copy of his latest paper from a longitudinal study of individuals who scored at the 1 in 10k level (normalized by age) on SAT-M or SAT-V before 13. This population is similar to the one whose DNA we are using in our intelligence GWAS.How can a brief test administered to a 12 year old be so good at picking out individuals who are likely to be exceptionally successful at age 38? If I hadn't been repeatedly told otherwise by "experts" I might conclude it had some validity ;-)Who Rises to the Top? Early IndicatorsYouth identified...
Sunday, 31 March 2013
Thursday, 28 March 2013
In a 2010 post, I wrote:Machines and bilingualism: I had a terrifying thought the other day. I would guess that at 90 percent confidence level machine translation and voice recognition will be good enough in 20 years that people will be able to communicate pretty well across most language barriers using cheap and unobtrusive devices. If so, is it worth all this effort to make sure my kids are bilingual?I say it's terrifying because of the significant effort we're expending on our Bilingual Kids Project -- including relocating to Taiwan for this...
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
I'll be on live (I think) for an hour starting at 11 AM eastern. If you dial in, you might be able to ask me a question on the air :-)WBUR On Point. (More on the show and its host here.)"To join the conversation on the air, call us at 1-800-423-8255 during a live broadcast."Genius BabiesThe internet headline was “engineering genius babies” out of China. Not true. But the reality is very interesting. We’ll check it out.GuestsNita Farahany, Professor of Law, Philosophy, Genome Sciences & Policy at Duke University School of Law, and a member of...
Monday, 25 March 2013
I haven't read this yet but it looks quite interesting. Koxinga is pretty well known in Taiwan and China, of course (see picture at bottom).Princeton University Press: During the seventeenth century, Holland created the world's most dynamic colonial empire, outcompeting the British and capturing Spanish and Portuguese colonies. Yet, in the Sino-Dutch War--Europe's first war with China--the Dutch met their match in a colorful Chinese warlord named...
Thursday, 21 March 2013
Another historical letter sent by a reader. My understanding is that Feynman was not appointed at Berkeley because of Birge's anti-semitism: "One Jew (Oppenheimer) is enough," he is reported to have said.CONFIDENTIALNovember 4, 1943Professor R. T. BirgeChairman, Department of PhysicsUniversity of CaliforniaBerkeley, CaliforniaDear Professor Birge:In these war times it is not always easy to think constructively about the peace that is to follow, even in such relatively small things as the welfare of our department. I would like to make one suggestion...
A friend sent me this letter from Feynman to Wolfram. Wolfram received a Caltech PhD in theoretical physics at the age of 20, before turning to other topics such as complexity and software development. Wolfram did not heed Feynman's advice: the next year he founded UIUC's Center for Complex Systems Research; then, in 1987, he formed Wolfram Research, the company responsible for Mathematica and, more recently, Wolfram Alpha.I wish I had read this letter before taking my new job ;-)CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGYCHARLES C. LAURITSEN LABORATORY...
Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Some years ago I posted on Harvard psychologist Anne Roe's study of eminent scientists. Roe's 64 scientists -- selected in their 40's and 50's for outstanding research contributions -- scored much higher on a set of high ceiling psychometric tests than the general population of scientists or PhDs. A reader directed me to an archive of Roe's papers, maintained by the American Philosophical Society. An inventory reveals the identities of Roe's subjects. Physicists will recognize names such as Luis Alvarez, Julian Schwinger, Wendell Furry, J.H. Van...
Sunday, 17 March 2013
Saturday, 16 March 2013
Sunday, 10 March 2013
The figures below are from a recently released IRS study using 2007 data (the most recent available; note this is pre-2008 credit crisis). The study focuses on the top 1% of adults by wealth (net worth of at least $2M or so). Medians and means differ by a lot, which is explained by the distribution in the bottom figure. Click for larger images.About 50% of the top 1% in wealth are over 60. Having $2M saved up for retirement is not nearly as...
Friday, 8 March 2013
"Horses ain't like people, man, they can't make themselves better than they're born. See, with a horse, it's all in the gene. It's the f#cking gene that does the running. The horse has got absolutely nothing to do with it." --- Paulie (Eric Roberts) in The Pope of Greenwich Village.For more on myostatin mutations in people and dogs, see here.The genetic origin and history of speed in the Thoroughbred racehorseNature Communications 2012 Jan 24;3:643. doi: 10.1038/ncomms1644AbstractSelective breeding for speed in the racehorse has resulted in an...
Theoretical physicist Paul Frampton was recently convicted by an Argentine court of smuggling cocaine, and sentenced to 4 years in prison. Frampton maintains he was duped into transporting the cocaine by a bikini model he had met online. I am unsure as to the facts in the case but I can say that the portrait of Paul in the article is fairly accurate. He remains, for the moment, a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill.Here is a 2008 paper I wrote with Frampton:...
Hype cycle (Wikipedia). Let's hope synthetic biology can someday reach the plateau ...Chronicle: ... The cost of genetic sequencing and synthesis continues to plunge, but the functions of many genes in even the simplest forms of life, like bacteria and yeast, stubbornly hold on to their secrets. Genetic networks interact in complex, mysterious ways. Engineered parts take wild, unexpected turns when inserted into genomes. And then evolution, a system...
See also Flowers for Algernon.Forebrain Engraftment by Human Glial Progenitor Cells Enhances Synaptic Plasticity and Learning in Adult MiceHuman astrocytes are larger and more complex than those of infraprimate mammals, suggesting that their role in neural processing has expanded with evolution. To assess the cell-autonomous and species-selective properties of human glia, we engrafted human glial progenitor cells (GPCs) into neonatal immunodeficient...
Thursday, 7 March 2013
This is a great example of the visual presentation of quantitative information.One quibble: I suspect that the top 1% individual discussed near the end has wealth equal to the average among the top 1%, which is strongly distorted by individuals at, e.g., the top 0.1% level. If they used threshold 1% wealth the result would not be as dramatic.It's also important to note that there is a 30+ year lever arm influencing average wealth -- relatively modest disparities in annual income can, when combined with differentials in investment, consumption,...
Wednesday, 6 March 2013
Murray Gell-Mann on his relationship with Feynman.See also Gell-Mann, Feynman, Everett.I had only one memorable encounter with Murray while I was a student at Caltech. On the other hand I have quite a few memories of Feynman, who enjoyed interacting with students. I don't really blame Murray for not being particularly interested in students. The gap between him and us must have been (and still is) quite vast :-) Hawking was on campus and was giving a kind of "secret" (not advertised) seminar in the medium sized lecture room on the second floor...
Friday, 1 March 2013
Another great Econtalk podcast.Yanis Varoufakis of the University of Athens, the University of Texas, and the economist-in-residence at Valve Software talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the unusual structure of the workplace at Valve. Valve, a software company that creates online video games, has no hierarchy or bosses. Teams of software designers join spontaneously to create and ship video games without any top-down supervision. Varoufakis discusses the economics of this Hayekian workplace and how it actually functions alongside Steam--an...
Chris Adami joins the blogosphere! Let's hope the long post linked to below is a harbinger of more to come. Chris started in theoretical physics but has since migrated into areas like artificial life, evolution and neuroscience. See also Brain, Mind, Evolution.Your conscious you: ... After all this mathematics is done, we are left with a number that Tononi calls "Phi" (also the title of his most recent book), which characterize the capacity of any computing machinery to integrate information. What does this construction do for you? Right now, nothing...
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