Trance opera—Spente le Stellebe dramaticmore quotes

# epigenetics: beautiful

DNA on 10th — street art, wayfinding and font

# visualization + design

Working with senior graphics editor at Scientific American Jen Christiansen, I have designed these Graphic Science visualizations for the magazine.

January 2019. Daily phases of gene expression.
July 2018. Mental illness overlap.

December 2015. Composition of bacteria in household dust.
June 2015. Relationship between genes and traits.

September 2014. Similarity of human, Denisovan, chimp, bonobo, and gorilla genomes.

# Take your medicine ... now

## Drugs could be more effective if taken when proteins they target are more active

### Janunary 2019, Scientific American Volume 320, Issue 1

Graphic by Martin Krzywinski.

Source: Ruben et al. A database of tissue-specific rhythmically expressed human genes has potential applications in circadian medicine Science Translational Medicine 10 Issue 458, eaat8806.

# The Same Genes May Underlie Different Psychiatric Disorders

## A distinct set of genes may underlie several psychiatric conditions

### July 2018, Scientific American Volume 319, Issue 1

The dataset is challenging: expression, correlation and network module membership of 11,000+ genes. Getting it onto one page was an exercise in restraint and calm.

Graphic by Martin Krzywinski.

Source: Gandal M.J. et al. Shared Molecular Neuropathology Across Major Psychiatric Disorders Parallels Polygenic Overlap Science 359 693–697 (2018)

# Men and Women Alter a Home's Bacteria Differently

## An analysis of dust reveals how the presence of men, women, dogs and cats affects the variety of bacteria in a household

### December 2015, Scientific American Volume 313, Issue 6

This collaboration with Jeanine Hunnicutt explored differences in household dust bacteria based on the gender and pet status of the occupants.

We have also written about the making of the graphic, for those interested in how these things come together.

Graphic by Martin Krzywinski and Barbara Jeanine Hunnicutt.

Catalogue of bacteria shapes by Barbara Jeanine Hunnicutt.

Source: Barberan A et al. (2015) The ecology of microscopic life in household dust. Proc. R. Soc. B 282: 20151139.

# A Road Map to the "Volume Control" of Genes

## Genes, traits and disease are linked in complex and surprising ways

### June 2015, Scientific American Volume 312, Issue 6

Because sometimes only a network hairball will do.

Graphic by Martin Krzywinski.

Source: Integrative analysis of 111 reference human epigenomes. (2015) Nature 518:317.

# Tiny Genetic Differences between Humans and Other Primates Pervade the Genome

## Genome comparisons reveal the DNA that distinguishes Homo sapiens from its kin

### September 2014, Scientific American Volume 311, Issue 3

A Scientific American blog entry "A Monkey's Blueprint" accompanies this piece. I also have a more detailed description with links to data sources.

You can also read more about Hilbert curves and creatures that live on it, Hilbertonians.

This design won a bronze award at Malofiej 23. For more information about Malofiej, see the SA Visual blog entry "There's No Infographic without Info (and other Lessons from Malofiej)".

Graphic by Martin Krzywinski, illustrations by Portia Sloan Rollings.

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# Analyzing outliers: Robust methods to the rescue

Sat 30-03-2019
Robust regression generates more reliable estimates by detecting and downweighting outliers.

Outliers can degrade the fit of linear regression models when the estimation is performed using the ordinary least squares. The impact of outliers can be mitigated with methods that provide robust inference and greater reliability in the presence of anomalous values.

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Analyzing outliers: Robust methods to the rescue. (read)

We discuss MM-estimation and show how it can be used to keep your fitting sane and reliable.

Greco, L., Luta, G., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Analyzing outliers: Robust methods to the rescue. Nature Methods 16:275–276.

Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2016) Points of significance: Analyzing outliers: Influential or nuisance. Nature Methods 13:281–282.

# Two-level factorial experiments

Fri 22-03-2019
To find which experimental factors have an effect, simultaneously examine the difference between the high and low levels of each.

Two-level factorial experiments, in which all combinations of multiple factor levels are used, efficiently estimate factor effects and detect interactions—desirable statistical qualities that can provide deep insight into a system.

They offer two benefits over the widely used one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) experiments: efficiency and ability to detect interactions.

Nature Methods Points of Significance column: Two-level factorial experiments. (read)

Since the number of factor combinations can quickly increase, one approach is to model only some of the factorial effects using empirically-validated assumptions of effect sparsity and effect hierarchy. Effect sparsity tells us that in factorial experiments most of the factorial terms are likely to be unimportant. Effect hierarchy tells us that low-order terms (e.g. main effects) tend to be larger than higher-order terms (e.g. two-factor or three-factor interactions).

Smucker, B., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2019) Points of significance: Two-level factorial experiments Nature Methods 16:211–212.

Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2014) Points of significance: Designing comparative experiments.. Nature Methods 11:597–598.

# Happy 2019 $\pi$ Day—Digits, internationally

Tue 12-03-2019

Celebrate $\pi$ Day (March 14th) and set out on an exploration explore accents unknown (to you)!

This year is purely typographical, with something for everyone. Hundreds of digits and hundreds of languages.

A special kids' edition merges math with color and fat fonts.

116 digits in 64 languages. (details)
223 digits in 102 languages. (details)

Check out art from previous years: 2013 $\pi$ Day and 2014 $\pi$ Day, 2015 $\pi$ Day, 2016 $\pi$ Day, 2017 $\pi$ Day and 2018 $\pi$ Day.

# Tree of Emotional Life

Sun 17-02-2019

One moment you're $:)$ and the next you're $:-.$

Make sense of it all with my Tree of Emotional life—a hierarchical account of how we feel.

A section of the Tree of Emotional Life.