Ejecta rays point to the problem with ‘ideal’ models
The PNAS Journal Club points to an interesting research study on craters: “Journal Club: Researchers may’ve finally solved mystery of crater ray formation”.
All posts tagged with models
Culture, mathematical models, and Neandertal extinction
I am not philosophically opposed to building a mathematical model of Neandertal populations. Some of my best work has involved mathematical model-building. M...
Link: Sandpile dynamics explained
My UW-Madison mathematics colleague Jordan Ellenberg has an interesting feature in Nautilus that describes a simple model capable of generating very complex ...
Notable: Coevolution drives biological complexity
Notable paper: Zaman L, Meyer JR, Devangam S, Bryson DM, Lenski RE, et al. (2014) Coevolution Drives the Emergence of Complex Traits and Promotes Evolvabilit...
Quote: Stephen Hawking on models
Stephen Hawking, quoted in Wired (“Stephen Hawking’s best quotes”)
Passing on your fertility to your kids
From the NY Times earlier this spring, a profile of a New York woman with an exceptional legacy:
The Neandertal fraction
I’ve gotten the same question a few times, and have seen it elsewhere, so I thought it would be worth a short post to explain it. And for those readers who’v...
The problems of computer-aided biologists, 1
On the subject of modeling in genetics, John Timmer of Ars Technica has been running an excellent series on the challenges of computer models in biology. I’l...
Simulations bubbling like a stew
Peter Turchin writes very effectively about quantitative modeling and analytical methods in biology. So every so often I like to post an illuminative quote. ...
Neandertal races?
There’s a new paper in PLoS ONE by Virginie Fabre, Silvana Condemi and Anna Degioanni, titled “Genetic evidence of geographical groups among Neanderthals.” I...
Perils of modeling
You’re not coming here for economic analysis, but I found this Wired article on quants, risk, and the financial crisis useful:
Gene-culture models and reductionism
In the random corners of Google, I was led to a short 2004 letter in American Anthropologist by Daniel Wildcat, Irena Sumi and Vine Deloria, Jr. I found this...
The utility of theoretical models
I’m reading through Peter Turchin’s 1998 book, Quantitative Analysis of Movement, for a project I’m working on. I found that his second chapter gives a very ...
Handling exponential growth in demographic models
Exponential growth is a feature of current human populations, and was may represent how the human population behaved during some episodes of its demographic ...
Wobst’s population model
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