This is so cute. The minimax bookie. http://t.co/atpgSv5H. I now have an alternative example to the nature vs statistician zero-sum game.

RT @smolix: In defense of keeping data private - This is going to be contentious. And it somewhat goes against a lot of... http://t.co/x ...

RT @binarybits: Court blocks Illinois law used to charge those who video police officers http://t.co/qnt1voAv

The paper’s failure as a work of statistical genetics stands in contrast to its success as a work of public outreach. If we are annoyed that a bad paper got the message across, then we should be annoyed with ourselves that we never communicated our own results properly. Here is some small attempt to rectify that:

RT @Goldberg3000: TSA agent to my 79-year-old mother-in-law: 'There's an anomaly in the crotch area.' For the full story: http://t.co/5x ...

RT @Alexepstein: This just in: "renewable energy" is nonsense. "Progressive energy" is where it's at. Tell your friends.... http://t.co/ ...

“If a disease risk is affected by many genes, you’re not going to make much headway unless you know what they are,” he says. “If they all have small effects you need an enormous sample to actually cobble together a really good risk profile for an individual. If we are given the DNA sequence data for somebody, it’s not necessarily true that it cannot be predictive; it’s just that we do not yet have the data to make such a prediction. If there are a million genomes sequenced, and it’s tied to clinical data, things could get much better. The predictive value could substantially increase.

“Even today — and the authors of the study admit this — If I give you a list of 100 diseases, then maybe the sequence would indicate a high risk for at least one of them. Even if it’s just one disease, that information is valuable.

RT @TheAtlantic: How the politics of humanitarian interventions encourage bad foreign policy http://t.co/VsMvgrwx

ReadCube http://t.co/p9yrBOGL is fantastic for reference management and annotation. Definitely competitive with Papers

Rather than take you up on the details of particular examples—we stand by our original assessment of Imagine’s representation of the DLPFC, amphetamines, and the evolution of human creativity—we’d like to address your last point. That every popular book on the brain would “fail the standards [we] preach above” does not make those standards any less valid. But we want to be clear: although we believe it is problematic that books “cite fMRI localization studies at face value,” or generally claim certainty where is does not yet exist, we have absolutely no objection to writers who “engage in speculative links between neural mechanisms and complex mental phenomena.” It is a matter of acknowledging the speculative nature of those links.
You bring up a chapter in Eric Kandel’s new book (which we are excited to read) that features “fMRI data combined with musings on aesthetics and beauty.” The word “musings” grabs our attention because here lies the critical difference between overstatement a

RT @nalundgaard: Houston coffee people! Did you know that you're busy next Monday night? I do. Here's what you're doing: http://t.co/8Hm ...

From a Statistical Mechanics and Computer Science POV

Buckner's goal is to use neuroimaging to look at individual brains, generate maps of the structure, connections and function, and then use genomic approaches, such as genome-wide association studies or whole-genome resequencing, to correlate a given brain phenotype to a specific genotype. And at only 15 minutes for a scan, Buckner sees a tremendous possibility for addressing many different questions in neuroscience using MRI. "If you can add on something as short as 15 minutes to getinformation to pool across studies, you have a real opportunity to take advantage of the large number of [patients] going through Harvard and Martinos to develop a large-scale resource where you have information on thousands of brains and genetics."

A defense of why neuroeconomics is not neurotrash

Very poorly return; its a bit too deterministic at times but the writer does seem to try to reach a rational conclusion.

Encouraging children to (respectfully) ask their teachers and parents why – and the parents and teachers giving a respectful answer – is not going to lead to the downfall of society. If anything, it is going to lead to adults who may think more reflectively about their choices.

RT @MarcBodnick: Is Ayn Rand considered a feminist? Answer from @anactivemind. http://t.co/XHCFOHZR on @Quora

My answer to: What questions should Michael Mann, author of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars answer at … http://t.co/tpZb6xTZ on @Quora

A fundamental assumption in neuroscience is that brain structure determines function. Accordingly, functionally distinct regions of cortex should be structurally distinct in their connections to other areas. We tested this hypothesis in relation to face selectivity in the fusiform gyrus. By using only structural connectivity, as measured through diffusion-weighted imaging, we were able to predict functional activation to faces in the fusiform gyrus. These predictions outperformed two control models and a standard group-average benchmark. The structure-function relationship discovered from the initial participants was highly robust in predicting activation in a second group of participants, despite differences in acquisition parameters and stimuli. This approach can thus reliably estimate activation in participants who cannot perform functional imaging tasks and is an alternative to group-activation maps. Additionally, we identified cortical regions whose connectivity was highly influen

The Big and the Small: Challenges of Imaging the Brain’s Circuits

RT @geomblog: I don't think a billion+ Indians were aware that the pressure cooker had ever gone away... http://t.co/EABl87RI

RT @quantivity: Signal Recovery on Incoherent Manifolds: http://t.co/0W7xAGXq

I can only report that The End of Poverty, narrated throughout by Martin Sheen, puts Ayn Rand back on the map as an accurate and indeed insightful cultural commentator. If you were to take the most overdone and most caricatured cocktail-party scenes from Atlas Shrugged, if you were to put the content of Rand’s “whiners” on the screen, mixed in with at least halfway competent production values, you would get something resembling The End of Poverty. If you ever thought that Rand’s nemeses were pure caricature, this film will show you that they are not (if the stalking presence of Naomi Klein has not already done so). If you are looking to benchmark this judgment, consider this: I would not say anything similar even about the movies of Michael Moore.

Method/Models

The inadequacy of such approaches becomes clear when one seeks to compare or combine information from climate reconstructions at different locations since they often do not match one another as well as one would expect. In this talk we will describe models developed by researchers at the University of Sheffield and the British Antarctic Survey that allow us to quantify uncertainties on ice core chronologies and articulate them in terms of probability distributions.

Results and Conclusions

A pivotal part of interpreting the information held within these sequences is to build ice core chronologies i.e. to relate time to depth. Until recently, those constructing chronologies focused on providing "best" estimates for the dates at a selection of depths in the core and offered only limited information about the uncertainties on them.

This sounds like a fascinating special issue featuring Cox, Gelman and Wasserman. Statistics meets Phil of Science - http://t.co/7VrHDO2D

Statistical Science and Philosophy of Science: Where Do (Should) They Meet in 2011 and Beyond?

At one level of analysis, statisticians and philosophers of science ask many of the same questions: What should be observed and what may justifiably be inferred from the resulting data? How well-tested or confirmed are hypotheses with data? How can statistical models and methods bridge the gaps between data and scientific claims of interest? These general questions are entwined with long standing philosophical debates, so it is no wonder that the statistics crosses over so often into philosophical territory.

A journal article serves many purposes. One of them is to make money for publishers. Scientists and other academics publish in scholarly journals as a credentialing mechanism and, secondarily, to tell people about their work. Journals used to be crucial for both of these reasons, but in a world where academics could just post a paper up on their own websites, the primary purpose of a journal article is its professional validation. That’s why it makes some sense that the authors of a journal article should pay for the privilege of that validation, via peer review, rather than readers paying for the privilege of reading.

Impact of impact factors: Forced to cite superfluous/irrelevant papers? Me, yes; not from editors but from reviewers... http://t.co/UdqR20LY
– Petros Boufounos (petrosb) http://twitter.com/petrosb/status/165535927391887360

Lots on asymptotics of nonparametric testing, resampling, U-statistics, etc. .

Photo: Shrimp tomato curry with tamarind, pepper, coriander, cumin and pulusupudi. http://t.co/Ko9aY6DA

Talks about PLOS NULL to publish all null science findings.

Not so surprising to find Rob Tibshirani in the stats news. http://t.co/gh1FuMfy

“I grew up believing that [capitalists] were making the world a better place,” she says. “The capitalism we have has left us with degraded infrastructure, threats to our health, and global warming.”

The 1% increasingly don't know anything about capitalism; if they mistake it for cronyism.

I don't at all agree with this line of criticism. Google can either choose to optimize for making all of their products a success or treating each of their products separately. Considering that they want to effectively compete with facebook, it only makes sense that they leverage their search to make google+ a success. Its a tradeoff they have to choose, how much will consumers tolerate less desirable search results but will ultimately lead to greater usage of another google product. It is ridiculous to talk about this as an anti-trust issue.

First of all, it isn't immoral to identify gender of a foetus, indian laws are a bit ridiculous in this regard and it its kind of random to pick on google for not removing such ads.

RT @arstechnica: SOPA Resistance Day musical break: "The Day the LOLcats Died" http://t.co/UhlBCbts

But to Gazzaniga, this isn’t the right framework in which to consider the problem. “The issue isn’t whether we are ‘free,’” he writes. “The issue is that there is no scientific reason not to hold people accountable and responsible.”

A person’s brain, whether healthy or subpar, isn’t the end of the line. Throughout the book runs a version of this refrain:  “the mind, which is somehow generated by the physical properties of the brain, constrains the brain.”

The mind—in ways we don’t yet understand—emerges from the brain, but it can’t be reduced to the brain. It’s not merely some subservient by-product. You can’t predict the mind from the raw ingredients of the brain. The mind is more than the sum of its parts.

fmri indeed measures delayed neuron excitation.

I solved the Permutation problem in InterviewStreet CodeSprint 2 http://t.co/qQ9TwFZP via @interviewstreet

“Nonlinear” is not a hypothesis but the lack of a hypothesis. http://t.co/moKbfm0G"

"I’ve heard some good things about individualism. Maybe some of us should try it." http://t.co/vBjytjAI

For the Graduate Student http://t.co/PbbmZT5U on @Quora A compilation of useful advice and information for graduate students.

1. I cannot agree that social norms offer intrinsic motivation, i think they ought to be considered extrinsic as well.

2. The first half seemed to imply that you shouldn't pay someone to do what they love ? Since after all money doesn't buy you happiness beyond 75k.

3. More like after a certain amount of money, your hierarchy of values is likely to look different.

Seems associate rewards/punishment purely with the behaviorists.

RT @RevivalMarket: Cheese case is rolling at capacity again. Sorry for that inconvenience folks. http://t.co/PK2jEVf2

A criticism of neuro melodrama.

The only criticism seems to be that he isn't Gandhian enough. #facepalm. Corruption and public-private collusion seems to elicit the same kind of anti-growth anti-capitalist stance as the occupy movement.

arxiv.org/abs/1001.4594

I still have not consented to go through the "enhanced" machines, not even once, even though one time I nearly missed a plane as a result and the last few times at Washington Dulles Airport it has led to unpleasantness with the screening staff. Five percent of the reason I always "opt-out" is vague "why do I want any more radiation exposure from rush-tested machines?" concern. Another 25 percent is my offense at the humiliating hands-over-the-head posture the suspect traveler is made to assume. The remaining 70 percent is my own little protest against this latest step in security theater, shady business circumstances and all (as explained in the first Pro Publica piece).

The recommended limit for annual dose to the skin for the general public is 50,000 µSv9. The dose to the skin from one screening would be approximately 0.56 µSv10 when the effective dose for that same screening would be 0.25 µSv11. Therefore the dose to skin for the example screening is at least 89,000 times lower than the annual limit.

Enough With the ‘Slut Gene’ Already: Behaviors Ain’t Traits. http://t.co/KwNX6mJQ
I love it when pop nonscience is outed.

OMG - Super cool calendar for 2012 http://t.co/VDc0ONKQ

On @Quora: What is the easiest way to explain the role of luck in success without sounding as though you are t… Answer: http://t.co/jmLcEd1g

allow airline passengers to use electronic devices in airplane mode; during takeoff and landing http://t.co/86sy9hRn

That would be the provision of the law, called the medical loss ratio, that requires health insurance companies to spend 80% of the consumers’ premium dollars they collect—85% for large group insurers—on actual medical care rather than overhead, marketing expenses and profit. Failure on the part of insurers to meet this requirement will result in the insurers having to send their customers a rebate check representing the amount in which they underspend on actual medical care.

@jacquesdurden fyi, there is a sister paper to the suboptimality paper on anisotropic nlmeans http://t.co/Wr9Ik5de to

To replicate or not replicate scientific data. Science issue on reproducible research http://t.co/3ohQk1PU

RT @AmSciMag: Don't cut baby's umbilical cord so soon, a study of infantile anemia suggests. http://t.co/9mV5CAwz #SitN