#Blaugust2024 just kicked off and I'm doing this again! First post (per instructions from fearless leader @belghast is an introduction to me and what Quintessence of Dust is about. I'm shooting for 20 posts in August.

https://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-essence-of-quintessence-of-dust.html

#scienceblogging
#blogging

playing with the Rogue Scholar API to get all the DOIs for my blog posts. Yay for APIs! https://api.rogue-scholar.org/docs#/default/get_blog @admin

#Blogging #ScienceBlogging

I managed to write my first post for #blaugust, on the topic of fMRI neurofeedback.

Delving into the details of this topic, and particularly thinking about how this method could be used as a closed-loop form of feedback for testing predictions from network control theory was a lot of fun. And hopefully it will be useful for people who wanna learn more about.

https://neurofrontiers.blog/fmri-neurofeedback-whats-the-fuss/

#Blaugust2023 #neuroscience #ScienceBlogging #fmri

Science vs intuition

...intuition is a crappy tool for understanding the world. System 1 wasn't built for that purpose. It was built for speed. #Intuition can't understand a terrestrial ball. It doesn't expect a caterpillar to turn into a butterfly. It can't help you understand how ice can fall from the sky an hour after the temperature peaked (in Tucson) at 105 F (40 C). It has never seen continents move.

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#ScienceBlogging
#ScientificCommunication
#blaugust2023

https://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2023/08/scientific-thinking-as-antidote-to.html

I'm inspired by the #SkyIslands of southern Arizona and northern Sonora. They're literally islands, and a giant laboratory for the study of evolution. The hashtag is in my profile so it's about time I wrote about them! Looking forward to more, and hoping to get directly involved in research somehow. Maybe I can be a volunteer bug collector?

#IslandBiogeography
#blaugust2023
#scienceblogging
#sciencewriting
#tucson
#evolution

https://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2023/08/sky-islands-one-of-earths-great.html

Following up on yesterday's post about the vast universe of protein sequence space. I mentioned Dan Dennett's brilliant Library of Mendel, itself a subset of the famous Library of Babel.

Today I go more deliberately through the Library of Babel concept, and rename the protein library to The Library of Maynard Smith. (Frances Arnold at Caltech already did that, more than 10 years ago!)

#EvolutionIsEasy
#ProteinEvolution
#blaugust2023
#scienceblogging
#AdaptiveWalk

https://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2023/08/contemplating-libraries-in-biology-not.html

Change is hard.
#Evolution is easy.

That's the theme of my writing (book) project. My claim is that we* have a tendency to think of evolution as hard: life is fragile, good things are rare, death is everywhere. Life seems impossible, miraculous. Plus, we continuously confront a depiction of evolution as big radical change that feels like an impossible transformation.

#Blaugust
#ScienceBlogging
#EvolutionIsEasy
#Blogging

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https://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2023/08/change-is-hard-evolution-is-easy.html

Here's my intro post for #Blaugust2023 which is an annual blogging festival. My first time participating.
One post a day for the month of August!

Thanks to @belghast for setting up the festival, to @Aywren for helping me find it. Follow @Blaugust for info on the festival

#Blogging
#ScienceWriting
#ScienceBlogging

https://sfmatheson.blogspot.com/2023/08/a-blogging-festival-im-in-for-blaugust.html

The **Behind the paper** series at the #PLOSBiologue blog at #plosbiology @PLOSBiology is always inspiring and interesting. The newest is about findings in extramedullary hematopoiesis in tumors and tells about how Derek Barisas (MD/PhD student at WashU School of Medicine) nurtured the project through the pandemic—the lab shut down 3 months after he started.

https://biologue.plos.org/2023/07/05/tumors-produce-factors-that-promote-extramedullary-hematopoiesis/

Paper: https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3001746

#cancerbiology
#behindthepaper
#scienceblogging

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