I miss the days when Halloween costumes, in addition to having a mask for whatever the costume was, had a picture of the character on its chest. Are kids’ costumes still like that?
(via suicidewatch)
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Classically Trained Musician Weighs in on Metal Vocalists
Choice quote, on Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden:
He achieves an intensely rhythmic delivery of the lyrics without losing legato and musical momentum, something a lot of classical singers struggle with, especially when interpreting the many staccato and accent markings that crowd scores by Bellini, Donizetti, etc.
(via utnereader)
The list also features Ronnie James Dio, King Diamond, Ozzy Osbourne, and Rob Halford. Very cool.
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Systems Biologist Launches Effort to Improve Cancer Drugs
A UT Dallas interdisciplinary researcher has launched a human genome analysis project intended to create a mathematical model that improves the efficacy of cancer drugs while reducing their manufacturing costs by as much as 30 percent.
A three-year, $305,000 grant from the National Science Foundation will fund Dr. Mathukumalli “Sagar” Vidyasagar’s development of a new method for detecting DNA sequence similarities.
“What I propose to do is to find mathematical models of how a cross section of cancer patients would react to a particular clinical trial drug,” he said. “If it is likely that an unacceptably high fraction would react adversely, that would allow the developers to kill that program in a timely manner.”
Sagar’s statistical method would reduce the size of the massive databases that store genetic data. With his model, clinicians would be able to sub-sample those databases while still retaining inherent statistical features such as correlations, thus saving time and money without sacrificing accuracy.
This is really interesting. It’s cool to see statistics research in a diverse range of fields, particularly ones such as this that are potentially very beneficial.
Also, “systems biologist” is a really cool title/description.
The infamous Friday the 13th disco theme from part 3
(via slashertheater)
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