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Posts

May 18, 2013

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6:06 PM | ‘Is ‘cloning’ mad, bad and dangerous?’ – an argument revisited
Seven years ago, to mark the then tenth anniversary of the announcement of the birth of the folkloric Dolly the sheep, and in the still reverberating wake of the South Korean cloning scandal, I practiced my fledgling/intermittent/debatable/wanton science communication skills with the penning of an article on the issue of ‘cloning.’ It being an anniversary with a ’0′ on the end, combined with topical relevance, suggested I might be lucky enough to get it published. And I was thus very... […]

Tachibana, M., Amato, P., Sparman, M., Gutierrez, N., Tippner-Hedges, R., Ma, H., Kang, E., Fulati, A., Lee, H., Sritanaudomchai, H. & Masterson, K. (2013). Human Embryonic Stem Cells Derived by Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, Cell, DOI:

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May 15, 2013

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1:46 PM | Male Black Widows Sniff Out Femme Fatales
I am thrilled to announce that this month I am joining a new top-notch science blogging team at Scitable, Nature Education’s award-winning science education website! (But don’t worry, friends. I will continue to post here about animal physiology and behavior every Wednesday). Next week, Scitable will be launching eleven new blogs covering topics like neuroscience, genetics, oceanography, physics and more. I will be co-authoring an evolution blog called Accumulating Glitches together with […]

Johnson, J., Trubl, P., Blackmore, V. & Miles, L. (2011). Male black widows court well-fed females more than starved females: silken cues indicate sexual cannibalism risk, Animal Behaviour, 82 (2) 383-390. DOI:

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6:59 AM | May 2013 upcoming graduate student deadlines
Does it ever feel like you only hear about important deadlines when it is too late? I frequently feel that way, so in this series, I am going to remind graduate students of some upcoming deadlines, as I did for Science Exchange in Graduate Student Award and Conference Opportunities and Innovative Research Awards for Young Investigators. These upcoming funding, conference, and award deadlines are focused on the graduate student audience; however, many may also apply to postdocs, […]

May 14, 2013

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3:57 PM | Homework Is Evil?: “The benefits of completing homework for students with different aptitudes in an introductory physics course”
One of the perennial problems of teaching intro physics is getting students to do their homework, so I was very interested to see Andy Rundquist on Twitter post a link to a paper on the arxiv titled “How different incentives affect homework completion in introductory physics courses.” When I shared this with the rest of…

F. J. Kontur & N. B. Terry (2013). The benefits of completing homework for students with different aptitudes in an introductory physics course, Physics Education, arXiv:

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5:53 AM | Measuring scientific coverage of @Wikipedia: Fellows of the Wiki Society Index 2013
Earlier this month confusingly-named “Royal Society” announced their new fellows for 2013. The society is made up of (quote): “…the most eminent scientists, engineers and technologists from the UK and the Commonwealth. Fellows and Foreign Members are elected for life through a peer review process on the basis of excellence in science.” A quick-and-dirty measure of the scientific coverage of […]

Moy, C., Locke, J., Coppola, B. & McNeil, A. (2010). Improving Science Education and Understanding through Editing Wikipedia, Journal of Chemical Education, 87 (11) 1159-1162. DOI:

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5:29 AM | Evolutionary arms-race won by moths
It is easy to forget that other organisms also affect the “environment” of a given species.  No one is evolving in a vacuum.  The existence of other species can not only … Continue reading →

Moir H.M., Jackson J.C. & Windmill J.F.C. (2013). Extremely high frequency sensitivity in a 'simple' ear, Biology Letters, 9 (4) 20130241-20130241. DOI:

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May 11, 2013

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5:42 AM | How Not to Be Eaten
In the soft jungle sun, a thick-limbed primate—with heavy fur and a strong grasping tail—is poised for flight.  This is Lagothrix poeppigii, or Poeppigi’s woolly monkey, and it is the … Continue reading →

Papworth S., Milner-Gulland E.J., Slocombe K. & Noë R. (2013). Hunted Woolly Monkeys (Lagothrix poeppigii) Show Threat-Sensitive Responses to Human Presence, PLoS ONE, 8 (4) e62000. DOI:

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May 10, 2013

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3:05 AM | Stop to smell the flowers. Especially lavender.
(source)Hi Julie, WOW!Dogs in clothes.  Corgis in bikinis at the beach. Greyhounds in onesies.  We people do some weird things to our canine friends, no?! I'm pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy being dressed up in a padded outfit all day long, so I think I'll pass on sharing that experience with my dogs. As you said, cultural perceptions, ethics and expectations add a whole layer of extra consideration. It's not always easy to work out what dogs want or need. That's why I […]

Wells D.L. (2009). Sensory stimulation as environmental enrichment for captive animals: A review, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 118 (1-2) 1-11. DOI:

Graham L., Wells D.L. & Hepper P.G. (2005). The influence of olfactory stimulation on the behaviour of dogs housed in a rescue shelter, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 91 (1-2) 143-153. DOI:

Wells D.L. (2006). Aromatherapy for travel-induced excitement in dogs, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, 229 (6) 964-967. DOI:

MOTOMURA N., SAKURAI A. & YOTSUYA Y. (2001). REDUCTION OF MENTAL STRESS WITH LAVENDER ODORANT, Perceptual and Motor Skills, 93 (3) 713-718. DOI:

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May 08, 2013

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3:27 PM | Biting the Bullet
It is 6 am. In the soft morning light, we can barely see the monkeys. They have just exited their sleep tree and fed on some succulent Pourouma nearby.  Their … Continue reading →

Diaz J.H. (2009). Recognition, Management, and Prevention of Hymenopteran Stings and Allergic Reactions in Travelers, Journal of Travel Medicine, 16 (5) 357-364. DOI:

Haddad Junior V., Cardoso J.L.C. & Moraes R.H.P. (2005). Description of an injury in a human caused by a false tocandira (Dinoponera gigantea, Perty, 1833) with a revision on folkloric, pharmacological and clinical aspects of the giant ants of the genera Paraponera and Dinoponera (sub-family Ponerinae), Revista do Instituto de Medicina Tropical de São Paulo, 47 (4) 235-238. DOI:

Hoffman D.R. (2010). Ant venoms, Current Opinion in Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 10 (4) 342-346. DOI:

Morgan E.D., Jungnickel H., Keegans S.J., do Nascimento R.R., Billen J., Gobin B. & Ito F. Comparative survey of abdominal gland secretions of the ant subfamily Ponerinae., Journal of chemical ecology, PMID:

Szolajska E., Poznanski J., Ferber M.L., Michalik J., Gout E., Fender P., Bailly I., Dublet B. & Chroboczek J. (2004). Poneratoxin, a neurotoxin from ant venom: 
structure and expression in insect cells and construction of a bio-insecticide., European Journal of Biochemistry, 271 (11) 2127-2136. DOI:

Johnson S.R., Copello J.A., Evans M.S. & Suarez A.V. (2010). A biochemical characterization of the major peptides from the venom of the giant Neotropical hunting ant Dinoponera australis, Toxicon, 55 (4) 702-710. DOI:

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1:50 PM | Thanks Mom!
Like Mother, like baby! Photo from freedigitalphotos.net.Moms give us so much more than we ever give them credit for. Biologically speaking, we all have a mom and a dad (unless you’re a flatworm or some other species that can reproduce without sex) that provide us with one of each chromosome type (our chromosomes contain our genes, commonly thought of as our “biological blueprints”). So it makes sense that we tend to think of ourselves as being half-our-mom and half-our-dad. But not so! […]

BERNARDO, J. (1996). Maternal Effects in Animal Ecology, Integrative and Comparative Biology, 36 (2) 83-105. DOI:

Wolf, J. & Wade, M.J. (2009). What are maternal effects (and what are they not)?, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 364 1107-1115.

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May 07, 2013

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5:43 PM | Tau is its Own Worst Enemy
In an update to recent research, Todd Cohen, Virginia Lee, and the Penn CNDR team have found an unusual behavior in the protein tau. It is literally its own worst enemy - tau is actually an enzyme that adds an acetyl group to itself, a process called autoacetylation.

Cohen TJ, Friedmann D, Hwang AW, Marmorstein R & Lee VM (2013). The microtubule-associated tau protein has intrinsic acetyltransferase activity., Nature structural & molecular biology, PMID:

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May 05, 2013

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9:22 AM | The (Lack of) Changes in Ecological Research
Ecology is a rapidly changing, dynamic field of research. In recent decades, there’s been a major shift from considering ecosystems as stable and poised to seeing them as systems that are in constant flux. At least, that’s what ecologists want (us) to believe. But how much of this claimed change has been able to seep [...]

Carmel, Y., Kent, R., Bar-Massada, A., Blank, L., Liberzon, J., Nezer, O., Sapir, G. & Federman, R. (2013). Trends in Ecological Research during the Last Three Decades – A Systematic Review, PLoS ONE, 8 (4) DOI:

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May 03, 2013

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9:48 PM | Scatological Scents
Ever since tamarins were first captured from the wild to serve as research models in laboratories, we have been curious about their use of odour for communication. These miniature monkeys … Continue reading →

Threlfall C., Law B. & Banks P.B. (2013). Odour cues influence predation risk at artificial bat roosts in urban bushland, Biology Letters, 9 (3) 20121144-20121144. DOI:

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May 02, 2013

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9:30 PM | Elite journals: to hell in a handbasket?
Once upon a time, journals were made of paper and ink. However, we left the dark ages of dead woods behind us and moved forward to an age in which authors don’t need to publish in journals (but still want to). There’s an increasing decoupling between the individual article and its publishing journal, created by [...]

Vincent Lariviere, George A. Lozano & Yves Gingras (2013). Are elite journals declining?, ArXiv, arXiv:

George A. Lozano, Vincent Lariviere & Yves Gingras (2012). The weakening relationship between the Impact Factor and papers' citations in the digital age, ArXiv, arXiv:

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9:30 PM | Elite journals: to hell in a handbasket?
Once upon a time, journals were made of paper and ink. However, we left the dark ages of dead woods behind us and moved forward to an age in which authors don’t need to publish in journals (but still want to). There’s an increasing decoupling between the individual article and its publishing journal, created by [...]

Vincent Lariviere, George A. Lozano & Yves Gingras (2013). Are elite journals declining?, ArXiv, arXiv:

George A. Lozano, Vincent Lariviere & Yves Gingras (2012). The weakening relationship between the Impact Factor and papers' citations in the digital age, ArXiv, arXiv:

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2:33 PM | Redefining Mental Disorders as Brain Disorders: TED Talk of Thomas Insel
Components of Brain Limbic SystemAdvances in the diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and autism are a public health priority.Dr. Thomas Insel, director at NIMH recently presented a TED talk that emphasized the need to rethink how we conceptualize and study these types of disorders.  He argues for a need to redefine mental disorders as brain disorders.  Advances in brain research tools are likely to provide improvements in early diagnosis and […]

Collins, P., Insel, T., Chockalingam, A., Daar, A. & Maddox, Y. (2013). Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health: Integration in Research, Policy, and Practice, PLoS Medicine, 10 (4) DOI:

Insel, T. (2011). A bridge to somewhere, Translational Psychiatry, 1 (4) DOI:

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2:33 PM | Redefining Mental Disorders as Brain Disorders: TED Talk of Thomas Insel
Components of Brain Limbic SystemAdvances in the diagnosis and treatment of brain disorders like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and autism are a public health priority.Dr. Thomas Insel, director at NIMH recently presented a TED talk that emphasized the need to rethink how we conceptualize and study these types of disorders.  He argues for a need to redefine mental disorders as brain disorders.  Advances in brain research tools are likely to provide improvements in early diagnosis and […]

Collins, P., Insel, T., Chockalingam, A., Daar, A. & Maddox, Y. (2013). Grand Challenges in Global Mental Health: Integration in Research, Policy, and Practice, PLoS Medicine, 10 (4) DOI:

Insel, T. (2011). A bridge to somewhere, Translational Psychiatry, 1 (4) DOI:

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April 27, 2013

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11:51 AM | A Year of Blogging
Exactly one year ago, The Beast, the Bard and the Bot were born. Time for some reflection. But first, a bit of numerical material (current at the time of writing). Some Numbers Posts: 96, including this one. Total views: 19672 Max views on single day: 631 Top 5 countries providing visitors: United States (8264) United [...]

Fausto, S., Machado, F., Bento, L., Iamarino, A., Nahas, T. & Munger, D. (2012). Research Blogging: Indexing and Registering the Change in Science 2.0, PLoS ONE, 7 (12) DOI:

Shema, H., Bar-Ilan, J. & Thelwall, M. (2012). Research Blogs and the Discussion of Scholarly Information, PLoS ONE, 7 (5) DOI:

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11:51 AM | A Year of Blogging
Exactly one year ago, The Beast, the Bard and the Bot were born. Time for some reflection. But first, a bit of numerical material (current at the time of writing). Some Numbers Posts: 96, including this one. Total views: 19672 Max views on single day: 631 Top 5 countries providing visitors: United States (8264) United [...]

Fausto, S., Machado, F., Bento, L., Iamarino, A., Nahas, T. & Munger, D. (2012). Research Blogging: Indexing and Registering the Change in Science 2.0, PLoS ONE, 7 (12) DOI:

Shema, H., Bar-Ilan, J. & Thelwall, M. (2012). Research Blogs and the Discussion of Scholarly Information, PLoS ONE, 7 (5) DOI:

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April 25, 2013

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4:38 AM | A room with a view: what do dogs want?
Putting the woof in tweet! (source)Hi Julie,Wow! Thanks for sharing the amazing fun tweet-week we had posting for @realscientists on Twitter. It was great to engage with so many people about so many areas of dog (and other animal!) behaviour and research. And poo. So many questions about dog poo!  Some things can be relied upon in life; it’s good to know people are always curious about dog poo.If you want to revisit any of those posts or links we exchanged as part of the Real […]

Wells D.L. & Hepper P.G. (1998). A note on the influence of visual conspecific contact on the behaviour of sheltered dogs, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 60 (1) 83-88. DOI:

Taylor K. & Mills D. (2007). The effect of the kennel environment on canine welfare: a critical review of experimental studies, Animal Welfare, 16 (4) 435-447. Other: Link

Sop Shin W. (2007). The influence of forest view through a window on job satisfaction and job stress, Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 22 (3) 248-253. DOI:

Verderber S. & Reuman D. (1987). Windows, views, and health status in hospital therapeutic environments, Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 4 (2) 120-133. Other: Link

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4:38 AM | A room with a view: what do dogs want?
Putting the woof in tweet! (source)Hi Julie,Wow! Thanks for sharing the amazing fun tweet-week we had posting for @realscientists on Twitter. It was great to engage with so many people about so many areas of dog (and other animal!) behaviour and research. And poo. So many questions about dog poo!  Some things can be relied upon in life; it’s good to know people are always curious about dog poo.If you want to revisit any of those posts or links we exchanged as part of the Real […]

Wells D.L. & Hepper P.G. (1998). A note on the influence of visual conspecific contact on the behaviour of sheltered dogs, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 60 (1) 83-88. DOI:

Taylor K. & Mills D. (2007). The effect of the kennel environment on canine welfare: a critical review of experimental studies, Animal Welfare, 16 (4) 435-447. Other: Link

Sop Shin W. (2007). The influence of forest view through a window on job satisfaction and job stress, Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 22 (3) 248-253. DOI:

Verderber S. & Reuman D. (1987). Windows, views, and health status in hospital therapeutic environments, Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 4 (2) 120-133. Other: Link

Citation
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4:38 AM | A room with a view: what do dogs want?
Putting the woof in tweet! (source)Hi Julie,Wow! Thanks for sharing the amazing fun tweet-week we had posting for @realscientists on Twitter. It was great to engage with so many people about so many areas of dog (and other animal!) behaviour and research. And poo. So many questions about dog poo!  Some things can be relied upon in life; it’s good to know people are always curious about dog poo.If you want to revisit any of those posts or links we exchanged as part of the Real […]

Wells D.L. & Hepper P.G. (1998). A note on the influence of visual conspecific contact on the behaviour of sheltered dogs, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 60 (1) 83-88. DOI:

Taylor K. & Mills D. (2007). The effect of the kennel environment on canine welfare: a critical review of experimental studies, Animal Welfare, 16 (4) 435-447. Other: Link

Sop Shin W. (2007). The influence of forest view through a window on job satisfaction and job stress, Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 22 (3) 248-253. DOI:

Verderber S. & Reuman D. (1987). Windows, views, and health status in hospital therapeutic environments, Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 4 (2) 120-133. Other: Link

Citation
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4:38 AM | A room with a view: what do dogs want?
Putting the woof in tweet! (source)Hi Julie,Wow! Thanks for sharing the amazing fun tweet-week we had posting for @realscientists on Twitter. It was great to engage with so many people about so many areas of dog (and other animal!) behaviour and research. And poo. So many questions about dog poo!  Some things can be relied upon in life; it’s good to know people are always curious about dog poo.If you want to revisit any of those posts or links we exchanged as part of the Real […]

Wells D.L. & Hepper P.G. (1998). A note on the influence of visual conspecific contact on the behaviour of sheltered dogs, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 60 (1) 83-88. DOI:

Taylor K. & Mills D. (2007). The effect of the kennel environment on canine welfare: a critical review of experimental studies, Animal Welfare, 16 (4) 435-447. Other: Link

Sop Shin W. (2007). The influence of forest view through a window on job satisfaction and job stress, Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 22 (3) 248-253. DOI:

Verderber S. & Reuman D. (1987). Windows, views, and health status in hospital therapeutic environments, Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 4 (2) 120-133. Other: Link

Citation
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4:38 AM | A room with a view: what do dogs want?
Putting the woof in tweet! (source)Hi Julie,Wow! Thanks for sharing the amazing fun tweet-week we had posting for @realscientists on Twitter. It was great to engage with so many people about so many areas of dog (and other animal!) behaviour and research. And poo. So many questions about dog poo!  Some things can be relied upon in life; it’s good to know people are always curious about dog poo.If you want to revisit any of those posts or links we exchanged as part of the Real […]

Wells D.L. & Hepper P.G. (1998). A note on the influence of visual conspecific contact on the behaviour of sheltered dogs, Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 60 (1) 83-88. DOI:

Taylor K. & Mills D. (2007). The effect of the kennel environment on canine welfare: a critical review of experimental studies, Animal Welfare, 16 (4) 435-447. Other: Link

Sop Shin W. (2007). The influence of forest view through a window on job satisfaction and job stress, Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research, 22 (3) 248-253. DOI:

Verderber S. & Reuman D. (1987). Windows, views, and health status in hospital therapeutic environments, Journal of Architectural and Planning Research, 4 (2) 120-133. Other: Link

Citation

April 22, 2013

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7:26 PM | The Leiden University Ranking
The new Leiden Ranking (LR) has just been published, and I would like to talk a bit about its indicators, what it represents and equally important – what it doesn’t represent. The LR is a purely bibliometrical ranking, based on data from Thomson-Reuters’ Web of Science database (there’s another bibliometrical ranking, Scimago, but it’s based [...]

Waltman, L., Calero-Medina, C., Kosten, J., Noyons, E., Tijssen, R., van Eck, N., van Leeuwen, T., van Raan, A., Visser, M. & Wouters, P. & (2012). The Leiden ranking 2011/2012: Data collection, indicators, and interpretation, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63 (12) 2419-2432. DOI:

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April 21, 2013

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12:00 PM | Interdisciplinitis: Do entropic forces cause adaptive behavior?
Physicists are notorious for infecting other disciplines. Sometimes this can be extremely rewarding, but most of the time it is silly. I’ve already featured an example where one of the founders of algorithmic information theory completely missed the point of Darwinism; researchers working in statistical mechanics and information theory seem particularly susceptible to interdisciplinitis. The [...]

Wissner-Gross, A.D. & Freer, C.E. (2013). Causal Entropic Forces, Phys. Rev. Lett., 110 (16) 168702. Other: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.168702

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12:00 PM | Interdisciplinitis: Do entropic forces cause adaptive behavior?
Physicists are notorious for infecting other disciplines. Sometimes this can be extremely rewarding, but most of the time it is silly. I’ve already featured an example where one of the founders of algorithmic information theory completely missed the point of Darwinism; researchers working in statistical mechanics and information theory seem particularly susceptible to interdisciplinitis. The [...]

Wissner-Gross, A.D. & Freer, C.E. (2013). Causal Entropic Forces, Phys. Rev. Lett., 110 (16) 168702. Other: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.168702

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12:00 PM | Interdisciplinitis: Do entropic forces cause adaptive behavior?
Physicists are notorious for infecting other disciplines. Sometimes this can be extremely rewarding, but most of the time it is silly. I’ve already featured an example where one of the founders of algorithmic information theory completely missed the point of Darwinism; researchers working in statistical mechanics and information theory seem particularly susceptible to interdisciplinitis. The [...]

Wissner-Gross, A.D. & Freer, C.E. (2013). Causal Entropic Forces, Phys. Rev. Lett., 110 (16) 168702. Other: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.168702

Citation
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12:00 PM | Interdisciplinitis: Do entropic forces cause adaptive behavior?
Physicists are notorious for infecting other disciplines. Sometimes this can be extremely rewarding, but most of the time it is silly. I’ve already featured an example where one of the founders of algorithmic information theory completely missed the point of Darwinism; researchers working in statistical mechanics and information theory seem particularly susceptible to interdisciplinitis. The [...]

Wissner-Gross, A.D. & Freer, C.E. (2013). Causal Entropic Forces, Phys. Rev. Lett., 110 (16) 168702. Other: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.168702

Citation
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12:00 PM | Interdisciplinitis: Do entropic forces cause adaptive behavior?
Physicists are notorious for infecting other disciplines. Sometimes this can be extremely rewarding, but most of the time it is silly. I’ve already featured an example where one of the founders of algorithmic information theory completely missed the point of Darwinism; researchers working in statistical mechanics and information theory seem particularly susceptible to interdisciplinitis. The [...]

Wissner-Gross, A.D. & Freer, C.E. (2013). Causal Entropic Forces, Phys. Rev. Lett., 110 (16) 168702. Other: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.168702

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