The beauty of data visualization

My previous post about a graph depicting some interesting cultural information in the form of a cool graph led me into more of David McCandless work and I highly recommend his The Visual Miscellaneum: A Colorful Guide To The World’s Most Consequential Trivia (US markets) or Information Is Beautiful (European markets). Do not opt for the Kindle version of the books, this is one book that you would love in paper.

But ofcourse you don’t have to take my word for it, the TED talk by McCandless should give you a taste of what the book has in store. The book is a valuable read for students, scientists, designers and general creativity nuts.

This is no Edward Tufte, visual information display book (and is not meant to be one) but it sure has plenty of appeal for the average curious soul.

Gut bacteria are what we eat!

An interesting read from the The Scientist magazine about Horizontal gene transfer in the gut. To put it in plain words – the bacterial flora in the human gut acquires certain sets of genes from the bacterial population present in the food that we consume which in-turn help the bacteria (in our gut) to easily break down the food.

In broad strokes, the human digestive system function’s with the assistance of the bacteria in the gut and these bacterial flora seem to be specialized to the kind of  food that we consume. Sterilizing food materials thoroughly may not be the most intelligent thing to do! ..

Gut bacteria are what we eat – The Scientist – Magazine of the Life Sciences.

iPhone apps every biologist needs



After writing a previous post about the productivity boost that iPhone & iPod apps provide to a research student, it was time to update the topic, considering the constant barrage of apps coming into the app store. Here is a link to my article on The Scientist magazine website listing my current top 10 apps that would be of immense help to a (biology) grad student.
Image : William Hook