One of the things with biomedical research of any genre is that so much of any benefit can only be seen with complex and powerful statistical tools. And more often than not these tools are applied to studies that have taken place in a laboratory on populations of mice that have been specially bred for…
Details
Fascinating collection of old trading docs hats off to Tracy Alloway for curating this. A little cringe worthy in places but a good way to spend the morning.
Apparently Blockbuster opened their first store 30 years ago. In 1989 they had 1,000 stores In 1999 they had 6,500 stores In 2009 they had 7,400 stores In 2019 they had a single remaining store in the US which serves as an odd sort of tourist attraction. In 2000 they had the opportunity to buy…
Details
The “Flynn effect” refers to a pattern observed by James Flynn, a professor at the University of Otago in New Zealand. It points out that for most of the 20th century, scores on IQ tests have been rising. The reasons behind this pattern have been a subject of controversy. For example, are the rising IQ…
Details
Every age has a dunce. A society, or set of societies, that just don’t get it. They don’t learn history’s lessons. They don’t progress — they stagnate, and then regress, clinging desperately to failing ideologies, grasping at dead, obsolete ideas like a drowning person grasps at flotsam. But history’s tide is unforgiving. It cares little…
Details
Mubasshir Murshed, fondly known as “Mub” by his friends, is a 17-year-old mathematics genius who has been given the rare honour, for someone of his age, of being published in a national academic journal. His achievement sounds complicated for the uninitiated — he has written an equation that proves “why a parabola is the only…
Details
On September 26, 1983, the planet came terrifyingly close to a nuclear holocaust. The Soviet Union’s missile attack early warning system displayed, in large red letters, the word “LAUNCH”; a computer screen stated to the officer on duty, Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, that it could say with “high reliability” that an American intercontinental ballistic missile…
Details
