Materials podcasts
Mathew Peet at Bainite tells us about a few podcasts that he had made with Prof. Bhadeshia:
I made three new podcasts with Prof. Harry Bhadeshia on his latest papers on transformation texture, the new delta-Trip steels and on prediction of Hot Strength of ferritic steels.
These are short podcasts (and make complete sense probably only to those who have a deeper knowledge of the relevant area); however, this is a cool way of communicating new results — to be frank, how many times I have read some paper or other and wished that one of the authors would explain what he/she has done and why in a few minutes — it is that fantasy come true for me. And, this experience seems to be as much fun for Prof. Bhadeshia as it is for us: for example, in the transformation texture podcast, at the end, you can hear Prof. Bhadeshia exclaiming “That went well!”.
Update: Here is a listing of some more materials podcasts from Mathew Peet.
Memory
Mo at Neurophilosophy points to a cover story on memory in the November 2007 issue of National Geographic; as a bonus, Mo also links to a cool interactive 3D map of brain:
Accompanying Foer’s article on the National Geographic website is a very cool interactive 3D map of the brain, which can be flipped and rotated to reveal the structures involved in encoding and storing different kinds of memories.
Guide to the art of discovery
Prof. Zhigang Suo at iMechanica writes about a book that influenced him a lot; Prof. Suo, in his post, lists the headings of sections in Chapter 2 of the book, and it sure sounds extremely interesting:
Here are headings in Chapter 2, Strategy for Discovery:
- Don’t follow the crowd
- Rebel, but wisely
- Strive to enhance serendipity
- Avoid science eddies
- Study the Earth, and the Science of Geology
- Seek the nonquestions
- See your era in long-term perspective
- Go with intuition
- Avoid sidetracking trivia
- Be competitive. Be a winner. Be first
- Argue by analogy
- Vision, hypothesis, and objective testing
- The strategy of exploration for understanding
Why blog?
Tyler Cowen asks the question “Why should a good economist blog?” and lists some reasons and goes on to make some predictions about the future of blogging by economists; the reasons for blogging that Cowen lists (1, 2 and 5, in his numbered listing), however, are general enough that they are relevant to any academic scholar or researcher, and not just to economists.
Women pilots of WWII as role models
Natalie Bennett at Philobiblon:
If a history book is to grab you in the same way as a good thriller, to fit within the impossible-to-put-down category, what it almost certainly needs is characters – interesting characters, sympathetic characters, characters about whom you quickly come to care.
Spitfire Women of World War II is packed with such characters…
That sounds like a must-read book!
Tags: 3D map of brain, bloggin, delta-trip, economists, Giles Whittell, Harry Bhadeshia, hot-strength of ferritic steels, memory, podcasts, research methodology, Spitfire women of World War II, strategy for discovery, Tips, transformation texture, why blog, women pilots of WWII
