Articles by Sean
Why Do All Snowflakes Have Six Sides?
Merry Christmas! As we relax and unwind this holiday season, look out the window to observe the crystals that form on the pane. Do you realize that each snowflake has six sides, regardless of its shape or size? Each icy crystal begins its existence high up in the atmosphere as a single mote of dust, slowly altering its appearance into a delicate snowflake as it falls to the ground. Throughout this process, snowflakes always retain their six-sided, hexagonal structure, nature ever the master craftsman. […]
The Faults in Our Wines
To all the wine lovers out there, have you ever wondered how many chemicals are involved in conjuring the unique taste of a wine? The chemical composition of soil in a certain vineyard, the environment and climate that season, the carefully selected barrels the wines are aged in. These are just some of the factors that contribute to the thousands of chemicals that affect a wine’s taste. But with these processes tightly controlled, wine faults still occur, literally souring the taste of good wine. […]
The Songs Whales Sing Carry Big Mysteries
Beneath the surface of the oceans, there is silence. Rarely disturbed, it is often forgotten that sound travels through water four times faster than in air. Whales have taken advantage of this, using low amplitude vocalizations that can be heard many kilometers away. But do these ‘songs’ carry a purpose? Or do whales simply like singing in the shower, so to speak? […]
Penicillin is the Greatest Collaboration the World Has Seen
Originally developed at the height of World War 2 to aid the Allied war effort, penicillin has since saved hundreds of millions of lives. The discovery and mass production of the antibiotic involved scientists and engineers in different fields working together, with help from government organizations, research institutes and industry partners spanning multiple continents. This massive effort helped turn the tide of the war in the Allied forces’ favor, cementing its place as versatile drug for treating bacterial infections, making penicillin arguably the greatest collaboration the world has witnessed to this day. […]
Learn Statistics: Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)
One thing that regularly stumps scientists is the handling of data. We seem to be very good at generating obscene amounts of it, but representing it meaningfully can be a little off-putting if you don’t happen to be a bioinformatician. In previous tutorials, we looked at hypothesis testing using variations of the t-Test, and we continue the series by comparing more than 2 sample sets with ANOVA. […]
Sean is a consultant for clients in the pharmaceutical industry and is a lecturer at a local university, where unfortunate undergrads are subject to his ramblings on chemistry and pharmacology.