I was going to talk more about the Zika virus this month, but honestly, I'm too tired for serious. I have a fellowship application due next month and I'm all serioused-out. So instead, I'm going to talk about one of my pet peeves: poorly drawn Venn diagrams. You may not…
If you're not familiar with the link between the recent outbreak of Zika virus and an increase in microcephaly cases, I highly suggest you read this post first (mainly because I like tooting my own horn). Basically, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have…
Let's talk outbreak. Nope, not the movie about Ebola, but a close cousin. Well, "close" as in, they're both about a virus originally found in Africa and that's about it. So, third cousin twice removed? Anyway, I'm talking about the Zika virus outbreak happening in South America right now, specifically…
I have a confession to make. I am a graph addict. A data junkie. I make no apologies for this, it is just the truth. I realized this a few weeks ago when I came across a website that charts all the causes of death across age and separates it…
Happy holidays! This blog is a bit later than normal in order to perfectly time it with the beginning of the actual 12 days of Christmas! Yeah, I'm just kidding. I decided that putting up lights and drinking eggnog were more important. I just got lucky with the timing. I…
Alternate title: Are you sure there’s fire at that smoke? I’ve written previously about curse words for scientists. One term that I didn’t include, but probably should have, is “correlative”. It rates right up there with “data trend”. It boils down to someone telling you that sure…