If you spend any time on science blogs, chances are you've come across the work of xkcd. The xkcd empire includes exceptionally sharp critiques of math, science, and nerd culture.There are cartoons (and don't forgot to hover over them for extra content).Including what may be the best cartoon of all time:A 'What If' page where hypothetical physics questions are answered (did you know how many giraffes high a person can throw a ball?).And a twitter feed that offers a host of interesting numbers […]

Last weekend, my daughter asked me how bees made honey, and I realized that I didn’t know the answer. How do bees make honey? I did some homework, and can now explain it to her – and to you. Different honey bees have different jobs. Some of these bees are “forager” bees, which collect nectar

Methylation refers to a chemical modification of DNA and this modification can occur in millions of positions in the DNA sequence. Until now, scientists believed that this epigenetic phenomenon actively reduced the expression of certain genes. Today, a team of researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, led by Emmanouil Dermitzakis, Louis-Jeantet Professor at [...]

Juri  just sent me the following: Dear Igor, I follow your blog since I was working on my MSc thesis in 2009 and I always appreciated your efforts to spread news and interesting works related to CS and sparse signal processing. .... I would like to point out a couple of recent results obtained in my lab that are of possible interest for the readers of your blog: 1) The first one, talks about an algorithm for near-optimal sensor placement to solve a linear inverse […]

The number of cases reported in an E. coli outbreak has increased to 9 confirmed cases and 8 probable, DuPage County health officials said Tuesday. Six of the nine confirmed cases left people hospitalized, but all have been released, said … Continue reading →