Milad writes:

“I am a Mechanical Engineering undergrad at UC Berkeley and I got this tattoo about a month ago. It’s the golden ratio in the shape of a rectangle, with the ratio of the sides of the rectangle actually being the golden ratio! I have been obsessed with this number since I heard about it in high school, and it is the reason why I became so fascinated with mathematics. The golden ratio is known to be the closest mathematical explanation of beauty. It has been used a lot in architecture, art, and music around the world, and has some amazing mathematical and geometrical properties.”

Continue reading “Does The Golden Ratio Look Less Beautiful As Numbers?” →

Blogs are abuzz with the news that E. coli can solve classic math puzzles like the Burnt Pancake Puzzle. The paper itself is available for free here.

Judging from the Frankensteinian anxiety this news seems to be triggering, people must think that life is normally not capable of the logic that we’re familiar with in computers. In fact, however, E. coli was carrying out a natural sort of computation long before some undergrads starting tinkering with it. In Microcosm, I show how the genes that build E. coli’s flagella act like a noise filter circuit. (Here’s a new paper on the digital control in E. coli.) What’s interesting about the Burnt-Pancake E. coli is that it’s solving our problems, not its own.

Continue reading “Is There Nothing E. coli Cannot Do? Part Three of a Continuing Series” →

Russ writes:

“Podarcis sicula (Italian wall lizard) is native to Italy, and the nearby Mediterranean coast. It thrives in cities, and has probably been a human urban commensal for 2000 years. They and their congeners (P. muralis) have been introduced into many places in Europe, including France, southern England, and Germany. they may be the most widely introduced temperate reptile species.

Continue reading “The Invader” →

I’ll be giving three talks in the next couple weeks in New York.

First up, my lecture at Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn Tuesday. It’s possible I’ll be able to post the video of the lecture later–I’ll let you know. (Out of curiosity–anybody know a good way to combine video and powerpoint slides online? I’ve seen it done, but not on any open social video sites.)

Then come two appearances in the World Science Festival.

Continue reading “New York, New York, New York” →

Zach writes:

“It is a half sleeve up my upper right arm based around an image taken by one of the CERN bubble chambers. It is based on this image. I first saw that image my freshman year of college. It had the sublime, simple beauty that only something made of math and science can have. It stuck with me for 8 more years before I actually decided to get it etched into me. Oddly enough, on Valentine’s Day. I guess it was my Valentine’s to physics and science. Oh, and when people ask who drew it, I always respond ‘God.'”

Continue reading “Subatomic Doodling” →