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Recently, I read the article “Wired Bacteria Form Nature’s Power Grid: ‘We Have an Electric Planet’” in the New York Times, and was super impressed. I vaguely knew that reactions with electron transfer are widespread in nature (for example in photosynthesis), but I had no idea that bacteria could transport electric charge. This breaks down mental barriers in my mind. Previously, I put electronics like computer chips and solar cells in a different category than biological stuff. But if bacteria can get energy from minerals like a battery and transport charge along their cells, maybe bacteria don’t rely on technology that is fundamentally different than what we use in our cellphones.

If you want to dig into this research, which seems to have really taken off recently, here is a review article.

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I’m hearing more and more that good posture is important for health and wellness. Doing a quick search I found several articles including one from Harvard Health touting the benefits of good posture. This article suggests exercises that are supposed to help with improving posture.

How realistic is the expectation that people can change their posture on their own? I see some people with excellent posture, and lots of others with their head hunched forward. Do some people just naturally have good posture? Are their people who have gone from terrible posture to good posture? How did they do it? What is their stories?

I am a believer that it is possible to improve posture through exercise and stretching. I think about people who do ballet, and they all seem to have extraordinary posture. Their training and exercises must play a role.

I also think about posture in terms of the structure of our bodies. There are ligaments holding the spine together and these ligaments actually support the loads on the back (the spine is a tensegrity structure). If the length of those ligaments changes then the curve of the spine will change. I think that exercises could slowly change the lengths of these ligaments and strengthen them so that the spine has the optimal curvature.

Still even if it is possible theoretically to improve your posture, how difficult will it be? Should we leave good posture to the dancers and figure skaters, or can we take on the task of aligning our bodies?

 

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I looked up the growth charts from the WHO which show how kids (boys in the figure below) grow from birth to 19 years of age. The curves are nice and smooth so it seems like you might be able to predict adult height based on the height as a 1 year old. But the charts only show the averages. How often do children change height percentiles? How common is it for kids to grow early and end up short? Or vice versa how common is it for kids to grow late but to end up on the tall end?

cht_lhfa_boys_z_0_5

Source: https://www.who.int/childgrowth/standards/cht_lhfa_boys_z_0_5.pdf?ua=1

cht_hfa_boys_z_5_19years

Source: https://www.who.int/growthref/cht_hfa_boys_z_5_19years.pdf?ua=1

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Since finishing grad school, I have been diving from physics into coding. It turns out that it probably is all the same thing at the end of the day! I came across a paper that discovered an exact mapping between the renormalization group, a central concept in modern physics, and deep learning, the latest and greatest machine learning algorithm. It’s crazy but makes sense. Both the physics idea and deep learning rely on looking at a system on a succession of different levels. This high level view of a system helps you to see the big picture. That is useful for self-driving cars and for finding phase transitions in condensed matter systems.

I am excited about the potential of machine learning and AI. It’s cool to think that my various seemingly different interests, could turn out to overlap in productive ways.

What if there are other hidden connections between totally different fields?

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I’ve been reading Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet about his experience leading by giving up control and encouraging leadership throughout the organization. He experimented with this leader-leader model while commanding a US nuclear submarine, the USS Sunfish. The results were dramatic; the Sunfish went from the worst performing submarine to the highest performing boat in the Navy. His story inspires me.

I love this idea that each member of the organization has some control over how things get done. In my experience, that is when I have fun and get excited about my work.

It reminds me of a time in high school gym class playing ultimate frisbee. I was on a team with a mix of skill levels, with many new to frisbee. Somehow we all got excited about the game and managed to do really well against teams with more athletic players. The key was that we all handled the frisbee as we passed it back and forth. Each pass was a decision made, an act of leadership. I remember the joy of flowing down the field with my teammates, seeing them out of their comfort-zone but excited and enjoying themselves as they attempted to make passes and out-wit our opponents.

The opposite is soul sucking. Who enjoys getting micro-managed? Being told what to do, how to do it, and when it has to be done? And yet this is accepted. Companies try to control their employees through layers of management, procedures, and policies.

Maybe it is because the leader-leader model is hard to pull off when you don’t know what you are doing. David Marquet describes an initial failure with this approach where he didn’t support giving up control with the necessary tests for competence and the necessary organizational clarity. The result was chaotic.

I can’t wait to try some of the methods that David Marquet describes from his time on the USS Sunfish. At my work, and in my life, the challenges are too complex for a leader or a management team to solve alone. It is way too much work to try to keep everyone in line when they need to be told what to do. No, the challenge of the leader-leader model is worth it. Plus it seems like way more fun!

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I am generalizing the scope of this blog from science and tech to things that I am interested in. I plan on tagging posts so that it will be reasonably easy to filter for what you are interested in. 

Today’s post is the start of a series on questions. Questions are powerful. I have been feeling dulled by my reflex to look up things on Google immediately on thinking up a question. I get quick answers, but fail really learn. I hope that by taking the time to write out the questions that I will learn and perhaps you will find it interesting too.

Q: What are the most common causes of death of 1 year olds?

As a parent of a 1 year old, I’m interested in learning both what makes my son healthy and what risks to avoid. The risks are especially hard, because something can be scary but very unlikely. So what are the top 10 causes of death for 1 year olds in the US?

I have some follow-up questions as well: What is the rate of deaths per year per capita? How likely is a child in this cohort of children to die from each of these causes? How has this child mortality changed over time?

Just trying to avoid survivorship bias.

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I’ve greatly benefited from people who have generously shared ideas by writing blogs. It is staggering how much knowledge is out there. I want to do my part to contribute. I aim to write up when I learn how to use a technology or learn something interesting.

Writing is a great way to develop ideas. So I’m sure that it will be useful to me too!

Coming soon!