PCa and PCoA explained

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Bob O'H

ResearchBlogging.orgJust before Christmas I was asked to talk to our molecular biologists about multivariate analyses. I was reminded of this on Thursday afternoon, when I saw that I had to talk to them on Friday. “Ah, no problem”, I thought. “I can put something together in the morning. What time is the meeting? 11am? Eek.”

So, I turned up with half an idea about what I was going to talk about, and had the great fortune that the room had a blackboard. And chalk. Several colours of chalk. What fun I had! But I made the mistake of saying I would blog it afterwards, and include some resources for further reading. Well, this is the blog post, and if anyone wants to add more resources, please go ahead in the comments.

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Posted in R, Statistics | 8 Comments

Oh, Christmas Trees.

Posted on December 21, 2011 by rpg

The Shetland Library has just informed its followers on Twitter and Facebook about this Christmas tree:

Which is way too cool, and has given GrrlScientist and I an idea for next year’s tree (although if we use all of our books we’ll have to relocate to somewhere with a larger hall).
At the moment this is our Christmas tree:

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Posted in Silliness | Comments Off on Oh, Christmas Trees.

VWXY Hockey Pool Week 10 and reproducible research

Posted on December 12, 2011 by rpg

I’ll be shocked if anyone remembers this post from last year, where I put up the results of the hockey pool Cath Ennis organised. But another year, another pool.

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Posted in Silliness | 2 Comments

The source of a quote about the Second Law?

Posted on December 7, 2011 by rpg

A few years ago I saw a quote up on the wall on the MRG lab in Helsinki, and I’m wondering if anyone knows its provenance. It went something like this:

The Second Law of Thermodynamics, as it applies to life, states that organisms survive by making a bigger mess of their environment.

which seems rather appropriate. I was reminded of this because I’m reading a manuscript and I think this totally undermines one minor sentence.

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Posted in Ecology, Silliness | 1 Comment

On Ugly and Not so Ugly Maths

Posted on December 2, 2011 by rpg

This week I’ve been writing a grant application. This has meant trawling through a pile of literature I wasn’t terribly familiar with. During that trawling I found this piece of rather ugly maths:

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Posted in Aaaaaagh, Friday Fun | 3 Comments

Meta-analyses in Ecology and Evolution

Posted on November 3, 2011 by rpg

I talked myself into giving a talk in a group seminar about meta-analyses in September, but that was shifted to November, so that everyone could attend. So, here it is.
I have a couple of thoughts about how meta-analyses in ecology are different to medicine, where they are mainly used. I think this should colour how we approach them. There were also a couple of points brought up during the discussion that are worth raising.

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Posted in Ecology, Statistics | 12 Comments

What’s this?

Posted on September 2, 2011 by rpg

I’ve just been looking at a bit of central China on Google Maps. This bit:

View Larger Map
I’m curious what this place looks like. I’m interpreting it as terraces on the sides of a river valley, but that’s an educated guess. Does anyone know better? Or can you suggest a more interesting explanation? And what’s the wifi reception like if you’re sat there with your laptop?
If we’re really lucky someone from there might turn up and tell us. Or they’ll just try to sell us some replica shoes, handbags and a new era cap (presumably celebrating the new era when England aren’t crap at cricket, so it’ll probably collapse in the middle).
(HT: Tom for the lead)

Posted in Friday Fun, Science Blogging | 7 Comments

Explanations needed

Posted on August 26, 2011 by rpg

last Saturday GrrlScientist and I went for a walk in Oberursel. It’s a pretty town, but down a back street we found this tree:
RIMG0036.JPG
Upon this tree was a sign:
RIMG0035.JPG
This was rather puzzling. What were a wheel-y thing and a shrimp doing at the foot of the tree? Rather than try to work it out ourselves, I though I’d crowd-source it, and ask you, my reader(s) to explain what this is all about.
I’ll probably deduct points for the right answer, unless it’s particularly good. I’ll definitely deduct points for spam. Well, unless it’s shrimp spam.

Posted in Friday Fun, Silliness | 10 Comments

Oh yeah, this blog thing

Posted on August 23, 2011 by rpg

Oh, damn. I’ve been wondering what that crying was I’ve been hearing down the intertubes these last couple of months. It was my poor Blog Monster complaining that it needed feeding with posts.
RIMG0027.JPGA six spot burnet, Zygaena filipendula, last week. Well, I think it is.
Just by luck, an email was sent around the UK statisticians about the Met. Office’s new game. They want to find out how best to present uncertainty to the general public (the ones who aren’t banned from the web for instigating non-riots, anyway) and have come up with this game, where you can help sell virtual ice creams by interpreting the weather report. When you play the game, you get the information presented in one of a couple of ways, so they’re testing how well people do at understanding these. And you can enter a draw to win a met. office t-shirt! Ooooo!

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Posted in Friday Fun | 9 Comments

What are PhDs for anyway?

Posted on June 14, 2011 by rpg

A few weeks ago Nature published a piece, which asked “The world is producing more PhDs than ever before. Is it time to stop?”. A couple of weeks later the Royal Institution in London arranged a panel discussion about careers in science, a panel which included the UK science minister. Many of the problems discussed buzz around the problems junior researchers have in finding permanent jobs, and in how science is funded by providing short-term grants, which don’t give any job security.

Looking at these discussion, I’ve concluded that the root cause of the problem is the way the PhD is viewed and used by Society, and how this has changed over the decades.

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Posted in Science Blogging | 11 Comments