We are starting the LGBT Pride Month, which commemorates the Stonewall Riots (1959). It has rained a lot since that June 51 years ago when a group of transgender, gay, lesbian, and bisexual people rebelled against the police fighting for their rights, inexistent at that time. Fortunately, the situation has changed for the better: in 2011 the UN National Assembly approved the first Human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity resolution, and the difference between sex and gender is not and up to date, 29 different countries recognise same-sex marriage. Therefore, do we still need to celebrate/commemorate/revindicate LGBT Pride? Yes, yes and one thousand times yes. Why? Here I give you only 10 reasons, but it would not be difficult finding 100 more.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Commentary
Converting Miles to Kilometres – An inefficient but neat method
Picture this: You’re a zealous acolyte of the metric system, with a rare affliction that makes multiplying decimal numbers impossible. You’re on holiday in the UK, where road signs give distances in miles. Heathens! How can you efficiently estimate the number of kilometres without multiplying by approximately 1.60934?
Continue readingState of the art in AI for drug discovery: more wet-lab please
The reception of ML approaches for the drug discovery pipeline, especially when focused on the hit to lead optimization process, has been rather skeptical by the medchem community. One of the main drivers for that is the way many ML publications benchmark their models: Historic datasets are split into two parts, with the larger part used to train and the smaller to test ML models. In order to standardize that validation process, computational chemists have constructed widely used benchmark datasets such as the DUD-E set, which is commonly used as a standard for protein-ligand binding classification tasks. Common criticism from medicinal chemists centers on the main problem associated with benchmark datasets: the absence of direct lab validation.
Continue readingFinding The Gene Responsible for Huntington’s Disease – The Story of Nancy Wexler.
Huntington’s Disease – an inherited disorder, which will result in the lack of movement and speech, dementia and ultimately death. Earliest symptoms include lack of coordination and unsteady gait; physical abilities worse until the complete physiological breakdown of the patient’s body. Meanwhile, the mental abilities worsen as well into dementia. Overall, Huntington’s disease results in the death of brain cells.
Continue readingGreen politics, the left, and Brexit
For my first non-technical blogpost, I thought I’d go in for something that we can all agree on and is entirely devoid of controversy: Brexit. Is that growning I hear from the back of the room?
One of my uncles is a professor of sociology; he returned to the UK for the first time in 10 years over Christmas 2019, and naturally we had plenty to talk about. He had left with two kids when I was a lanky, goofy teenager and had returned with four to a lanky, goofy adult. What were most interesting, though, were his views on green politics and their relationship with the traditional left-right spectrum.
Continue readingConsistent plotting with ggplot
Unlike other OPIGlets (looking at you, Claire), I have neither the skill nor the patience to make good figures from scratch. And making good figures — as well as remaking, rescaling and adapting them — is incredibly important, because they play a huge role in the way we communicate our research. So how does an aesthetically impaired DPhil student do her plotting?
Continue readingYou’re getting on my biscuits
Jaffa cakes are God’s own snacks and I will brook no opposition. I don’t mind if they’re McVitie’s brand Jaffa cakes, or Pim’s, the suspicious European variety. Even Sainsbury’s Basics Jaffa cakes float my balloon. Take a soft sponge base, slap some jam and chocolate on that puppy, and you’re golden.
But if you describe your love of these glorious creations, the conversation takes a familiar turn. Are they cakes or are they biscuits? it goes. HMRC tried to classify them as cakes – or was it biscuits? Something like that. It had to do with VAT…
Continue readingCommon denominators between a PhD and an Oxford ball
One of the things I love about Oxford is the way it pushes you to become a well-rounded person. It does so by means of a wealth of talks and lectures, and also through the college system that encourages meeting people from different disciplines, but above all through the strong culture of student projects. This place will encourage you, perhaps even push you, to take part in fantastic projects that will make the already very demanding workload even worse… but also teach you incredible skills and get you to work with wonderful, inspiring people.
Continue readingInvisible Women – Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed by Men
If you are looking for an excellent, data-focussed present to buy for yourself and everyone you love, check out Invisible Women – Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed by Men by Caroline Criado Perez. Having lent my copy to most members of the SABS DPhil program already, I will quote stats from this book to anyone who will listen.
Tsar Nicolas II and the curious case of the mismatched bases in his maternal mitochondrial DNA – was Tsar Nicolas II really killed in a cellar in 1917?
The Death of the entire ruling Romanov Family in 1917
In 1917, Tsar Nicolas II, together with his wife, the Tsarina Alexandra, their five children (Maria, Anastasia, Olga, Tatiana and crown prince Alexei), and four servants, was executed and hastily buried in non-marked graves. His death ended the monarchic rule of House Romanov in Russia; no Tsar would ever sit on the Imperial throne again. A house which included famous Tsars Peter the Great and Catherine the Great was literally eradicated overnight.
Continue reading