Where am I supposed to go? Where was I supposed to know?get lost in questions

# pi: fun

Bioinformatics and Genome Analysis Course. Izmir International Biomedicine and Genome Institute, Izmir, Turkey. May 2–14, 2016

# visualization + design

Typography geek? If you like the geometry and mathematics of these posters, you may enjoy something more letter ed. Visions of type: Type Peep Show: The Private Curves of Letters posters.

# The art of Pi (pi), Phi (phi) and e

This section contains various art work based on pi, phi and e that I created over the years. pi day and pi approximation day artwork is kept separate.

The accidental similarity number (ASN) is a kind of overlap between numbers. I came up with this concept after creating typographical art about the i-ness of pi.

The poster shows the accidental similarity number for pi, phi and e.

The accidental similarity number for pi, phi and e created from the first 1,000,000 digits of each number. (posters, BUY ARTWORK)

# Association, correlation and causation

Thu 01-10-2015

Correlation implies association, but not causation. Conversely, causation implies association, but not correlation.

This month, we distinguish between association, correlation and causation.

Association, also called dependence, is a very general relationship: one variable provides information about the other. Correlation, on the other hand, is a specific kind of association: an increasing or decreasing trend. Not all associations are correlations. Moreover, causality can be connected only to association.

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Association, correlation and causation. (read)

We discuss how correlation can be quantified using correlation coefficients (Pearson, Spearman) and show how spurious corrlations can arise in random data as well as very large independent data sets. For example, per capita cheese consumption is correlated with the number of people who died by becoming tangled in bedsheets.

# Bayesian networks

Thu 01-10-2015

For making probabilistic inferences, a graph is worth a thousand words.

This month we continue with the theme of Bayesian statistics and look at Bayesian networks, which combine network analysis with Bayesian statistics.

In a Bayesian network, nodes represent entities, such as genes, and the influence that one gene has over another is represented by a edge and probability table (or function). Bayes' Theorem is used to calculate the probability of a state for any entity.

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Bayesian networks. (read)

In our previous columns about Bayesian statistics, we saw how new information (likelihood) can be incorporated into the probability model (prior) to update our belief of the state of the system (posterior). In the context of a Bayesian network, relationships called conditional dependencies can arise between nodes when information is added to the network. Using a small gene regulation network we show how these dependencies may connect nodes along different paths.

Puga, J.L, Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2015) Points of Significance: Bayesian Statistics Nature Methods 12:277-278.

Puga, J.L, Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2015) Points of Significance: Bayes' Theorem Nature Methods 12:277-278.

# Unentangling complex plots

Fri 10-07-2015

The Points of Significance column is on vacation this month.

Meanwhile, we're showing you how to manage small multiple plots in the Points of View column Unentangling Complex Plots.

Data in small multiples can vary in range, noise level and trend. Gregor McInerny and myself show you how you can deal with this by cropped and scaling the multiples to a different range to emphasize relative changes while preserving the context of the full data range to show absolute changes.

McInerny, G. & Krzywinski, M. (2015) Points of View: Unentangling complex plots. Nature Methods 12:591.

# Fixing Jurassic World science visualizations

Fri 10-07-2015

The Jurassic World Creation Lab webpage shows you how one might create a dinosaur from a sample of DNA. First extract, sequence, assemble and fill in the gaps in the DNA and then incubate in an egg and wait.

We can't get dinosaur genomics right, but we can get it less wrong. (a) Corn genome used in Jurassic World Creation Lab website. Image is from the Science publication B73 Maize Genome: Complexity, Diversity, and Dynamics. Photo and composite by Universal Studios and Amblin Entertainment. (b) Random data on 8 chromosomes from chicken genome resized to triceratops genome size (3.2 Gb). Image by Martin Krzywinski. (c) Actual genome data for lizard genome, UCSC anoCar2.0, May 2010. Image by Martin Krzywinski. Triceratops outline in (b,c) from wikipedia.

With enough time, you'll grow your own brand new dinosaur. Or a stalk of corn ... with more teeth.

What went wrong? Let me explain.

Corn World: Teeth on the Cob.