1
2Clinical Trials Unit, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland
In 1954, Haldane and Spurway published a paper in which they discussed the information content of the honey bee waggle dance with regard to the ideas of Norbert Wiener, who had recently developed a formal theory of information. We return to this concept by reanalyzing the information content in both vector components (direction, distance) of the waggle dance using recent empirical data from a study that investigated the accuracy of the dance. Our results show that the direction component conveys 2.9 bits and the distance component 4.5 bits of information, which agrees to some extent with Haldane and Spurway s estimates that were based on data gathered by von Frisch. Of course, these are small amounts of information compared to what can be conveyed, given enough time, by human language, or compared to what is routinely transferred via the internet. Nevertheless, small amounts of information can be very valuable if it is
Dec 21, 2020
Ezra F. Vogel, 90, one of the country’s leading experts on East Asia through a career that spanned six decades, passed away in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Sunday due to complications from surgery.
Vogel studied an extraordinary range of substantive topics in multiple countries from the perspectives of various academic disciplines, retooling himself as a scholar many times over in his academic career.
He was originally trained as a sociologist studying the family in the United States. He devoted two years to language study and field research in Japan in 1958-60, emerging as a specialist on Japanese society. He then embarked on Chinese-language study in the 1960s, before it was possible to travel to mainland China, and became an accomplished scholar of Chinese society as well.
Green Social Democracy Offers the Most Viable Path Toward a Sustainable Future
A green social democracy offers a way out of economic and climate crises, says economics professor David Kotz.
The coronavirus pandemic has created both a public health and an economic crisis in the United States. More than 300,000 people have died of COVID-19, with excess deaths highest among Black and Latinx populations. Hospitals across the country have passed the breaking point. And millions are struggling to eat and pay the rent. Yet, the stock market is hitting record highs and the super-rich are getting even richer in the midst of the pandemic. Yet, there is no talk among the elites of meaningful reforms, even while the climate change is driving the planet to tipping points.
傅高义之子授权澎湃刊发其手书讣告：愿洞察每个国家的优点_新闻_腾讯网 qq.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from qq.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Espionage at the Edge of Empire Espionage at the Edge of Empire
By BENJAMIN BREEN
by Gregory Afinogenov
In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was commonplace to imagine a scientist as a lone toiler in a space of solitary reflection: Darwin on his walks on the grounds of Down House, say, or Caroline Herschel at her late night vigils beside her telescope. This changed, decisively, with the advent of “Big Science” in the early twentieth century. Historians began to re-envision science as an inherently
collective endeavor, the work of teams, corporations, or states. “Science can be effective in the national welfare only as a member of a team,” Vannevar Bush declared in his influential 1945 report