As I wander over hill and through dale, through alpine passes and mountain streams… A knight striding with flag, bear, and sword. (Bern, Switzerland)… I’m seeing a kind of exterior artwork on the outside walls of many Swiss buildings.&nb…
We all make assumptions… … it’s a normal thing to do. But when we’re doing online research, it’s good to check yourself. This week’s Challenge is a little story about why… My assumption was that these common kitch…
The most common error… … in online research is probably that of not checking your assumptions. We tend to see the world without questioning, and we often bake those assumptions into our research behaviors. Here we see three co…
Living anywhere new inevitably leads to discoveries and recognition that the world is larger and more interesting than you might have thought, As mentioned, I’m here in Switzerland for four months. Even though I’ve been here before many time…
I’m currently living and teaching in Zürich until the end of the year, .. here in the heart of Switzerland. I’m teaching for this semester at the University of Zürich–and you only get one guess as to what I’m teaching. That’s right, I…
Can we count on LLMs for medical advice? Illustration by DALL-E of a medical scientist doing researchAnd it’s pretty clear that LLMs and associated generative AI tools (see the illustration above, which is a lovely generated image by DALL-E)…
LLMs are all the rage these days… Illustration by DALL-E of a medical scientist doing researchSome studies show that office workers who use LLMs (e.g., Google’s Bard or OpenAI’s ChatGPT) are more productive… on the tasks that they measured.&nb…
It seems obvious… .. but as I said, I suddenly realized that I didn’t really understand what “fiber in my diet” really meant. This happens all the time. There’s a kind of skill of recognizing that something isn’t lining up…
I realized I don’t know what “fiber” really is! I was at a farmer’s market buying a few veggies for the week ahead, and while standing in line I was browsing my news feed, and came across an article about the amount of dietary fiber in…
An octopus has eight arms… Gloomy octopus. P/C John Turnbull…. and, even though it’s a mollusk, it doesn’t have a shell. They do have a hard beak, but there’s no shell in the ordinary sense of a mollusk.  …
I thought I knew what an octopus was… Gloomy octopus. P/C John Turnbull…. they’re the ultimate shape-shifter with an amazing ability to solve puzzles, slip through tiny holes, and possessed of a fascinating kind of intelligence. I’…
It’s not everyday you see a phytosaur… … yet, there it was in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Big, with an impressive set of teeth, and looking for all the world like a massive crocodile. This is Redondasaurus bermani.&…
I looked at the Phytosaur in real shock… Because there, in the dinosaur hall of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in central Pittsburgh, was what looked to be a massive crocodile. This is Redondasaurus bermani. It was huge …
Mixotrophs for the win… Elysia chlorotica, a sea slug that incorporates chloroplasts into its body.P/C Patrick J. Krug, Creative Commons CC BY-NC 3.0 license, via Wikimedia CommonsRemember the Elysia cholorotica (the big green sl…
I love learning something that radically changes my understanding of the world… Elysia chlorotica, a sea slug that incorporates chloroplasts into its body. P/C Patrick J. Krug, Creative Commons CC BY-NC 3.0 license, via Wikimedia CommonsIf…