Simulations Plus

Although some meteorological modelers may disagree, it seems to me that models predicting development and movement of hurricanes are getting more and more accurate.

Scientists in the field of pharmaceutical research and development face a most daunting challenge. Our understanding of the diseases we work to treat grows more complex and perplexing with each new published study. Take, for example, the gusher of information coming out on Alzheimer’s disease. How can research findings from genetics, neurology, nutrition, protein chemistry, pharmacology, and epidemiology (just to name a few) be tracked, sorted, and used?

Seems like every time we learn something new, whether it is in biology or cosmology, we learn something else that just makes us sit back and say Wow. So it is with a recent story in The Economist about new information regarding one of the universal “constants” alpha.

G.H. Hardy* said, “A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns. And just as in poetry and painting, the mathematician’s patterns must be beautiful. Beauty is the first test,” he said. “There is no permanent place in the world for ugly mathematics.”

Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm (seen here) is an example of a complex painting that can be grasped with a few moments of contemplation, according to Terry Teachout (links to a dead page) in the Wall Street Journal. Pollock worked during the mid 20th century, when nature was assumed to be random. However, as Robert Taylor (links to content that is no longer available) explained in a 2002 Scientific American article:

Update: For another perspective on tech employment in the United States and China, see Andy Grove’s recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek.

Take a look at BigDog and his amazing robot pals in this link to the New York Times. Or, if you love cute and cuddly, you should check out Paro.