What’s even more astonishing, is that the classification still
works with non-contiguous pieces of each DNA sequence.
“The genome is a little bit like a book in many volumes. It’s a
language, like English. So this [method] captures something
like word frequency. You can notice that you have the word
‘the’ occurring very frequently whether you take the whole
volume or whether you take a sentence here or a sentence
there.”
This is especially exciting given that most sequencing results
actually come in separate chunks, which are then fit together
using other algorithms. With this method, you wouldn’t even
need to do that part before classification could begin.
“We developed a quantitative, universal mathematical
method that is able to tell the relationship between species.
This is not to be understated.”
PROF. LILA KARI ON GENDER
EQUITY IN MATHEMATICS
"I am 100% sure that this is a cultural, artificial construct,
because I come from a country where it doesn’t exist. I
studied in Romania where computer science was in the
Department of Mathematics and 2/3 of all the students
were girls. So when I hear that someone points out, 'oh
it’s biological', I just laugh them away.
I’ve tried to think very hard in hindsight, what it was that
made me study math – I never thought it would be a
problem. Nobody implied to us in any way whatsoever
at any stage of development that girls should not be able
to do math."
— Malgosia Ip
The Panel
"Don't put a woman
on a committee.. Make
her the president. Put
women in positions of
power, not supporting
roles." — Almut
Burchard
"There have to be
proactive approaches
to hiring... with
the tenure system,
change happens very
slowly." — Anthony
Bonato
"Quotas are not
going to work..
maybe "blind" hiring
practises are one
way to reduce bias."
— Kathleen Miao
The Ada Lovelace Day panel
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