March 28, 2016
Briefly
- “Unlike other projects that map cities by sound, Chatty Maps isn’t measuring volume or ranking neighborhoods as noisy or quiet. Instead, it shows the city across a spectrum of different sounds—as well as the emotions we associate them with.” I’m not convinced, but it’s interesting to look at. (via @teh_aimee)
- “World Cup fans not responsible for the Zika outbreak”. (Scientific American blog, open-access research paper) I think ‘responsible’ is the wrong word, but in any case, looking at the genomes of Zika virus specimens suggests that the current virus has been circulating in the Americas since 2013 at least. Also, the three samples from microcephaly cases don’t share any relevant mutation, so the more-severe disease in the current outbreak probably isn’t due to a change in the virus. You can do a lot with genetics.
- “Can an algorithm be wrong?” from limn.it
- “Exposing algorithms” from the Tow Center for Digital Journalism: a summary from a session at the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting conference
- Also via the Tow Center, “The Curious Journalist’s Guide to Data” by Jonathan Stray. A book for journalists, but also relevant to consumers of journalism.
Thomas Lumley (@tslumley) is Professor of Biostatistics at the University of Auckland. His research interests include semiparametric models, survey sampling, statistical computing, foundations of statistics, and whatever methodological problems his medical collaborators come up with. He also blogs at Biased and Inefficient See all posts by Thomas Lumley »