After all, he argues, random processes are used all the time to model things in science: When we test a sequence of numbers for randomness, we are essentially testing how easy it is to predict the sequence of numbers. One of the simplest tests is to measure how frequently heads and tails occur during a series of coin flips. If the distribution is heavily skewed one way or the other after a large number of flips, then we can be pretty certain the coin is not fair. We cannot be absolutely certain, since there is always a small probability for a really long run of heads, but as the run lengthens, the probability of achieving the run with a fair Read More ›

At Nature: “Study finds that the noxious pests have become so numerous, they’ve developed a taste for each other — as well as defences to ward off such attacks”: The discovery could help researchers to understand the evolutionary underpinnings of how this uncommon and extreme behaviour emerges. Scientists have seen cannibalism evolve in species before, says Volker Rudolf, a community ecologist at Rice University in Texas, who studies the phenomenon. But what’s exciting about this work, he says, is that the researchers are almost seeing it “develop in front of their eyes”, given that the behaviour arose in less than a hundred years — the blink of an eye by evolutionary standards… Although adult cane toads are fearsome — they Read More ›