Category: Education

Latest Read: Numbers Don’t Lie:

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date April 9, 2023

Numbers Don’t Lie: 71 Things You Need to Know About the World by Vaclav Smil. Vaclav a Czech-Canadian scientist and policy analyst. He is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg Canada.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the 2000 recipient of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology.

In addition, Vaclav was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its 2010 list of FP Top 100 Global Thinkers. In 2013, he was appointed by the Governor General to the Order of Canada. Finally, he was the 2013 EADS Distinguished Visitor at the American Academy in Berlin.

I read his book How the World Really Works late last year, enjoying his writing and his messages. However, downstream many people do not understand or they unknowingly misinterpret the analytics or statistical outcomes. To get an accurate view of the world, Vaclav is emphasizing that creators of these number really must focus on delivering the correct context to their reporting.

In many instances the demands of today’s post pandemic world certainly requires an understanding of science and statistics. More importantly, it requires effort. We must be willing to pay attention, looking beneath the surface to fully understand the material we are reading.

Tags Numbers Don’t Lie, statistics, Vaclav Smil

Education Reading

Latest Read: The Hard Sell

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date April 2, 2023

The Hard Sell: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup by Evan Hughes. This book traces an Opioid startup and its hard fall. The book is set to be a Netflix release in 2023. called Pain Hustlers.

This book tells a story of widespread, flagrant abuse selling opioids. In fact, the company’s leaders looked sideways as profits soared. I found this to be an important book as the American opioid crisis remains critical, however the message is a bit weaker after reading five other books about the crisis. The press however have made this story relevant.

John Kapoor created pharmaceutical firm Insys Therapeutics. The company was certainly not the first to sell opioids. In fact it was competing with the Sackers’s Purdue Pharma. However Insys developed a unique approach to deliver fentanyl (called Subsys) quickly in to the body.

Subsys was sprayed under the tongue. The drug’s fentanyl impact began in less than 5 minutes, almost as quickly as taking the drug in an IV. Yet when not measured accurately, a single dose will kill you. And it did indeed kill a lot of people.

However, Insys simply pushed their innovation. To drive success Kapoor hired a number of aggressive young executives. The story reveals how Mike Babich, hired from Chicago-based Northern Trust who became a cut throat sales leader.

Tags Evan Hughes, Fentanyl, Insys Therapeutics, John Kapoor, Mike Babich, Opioids, The Hard Sell

Education Reading

Latest Read: The Disordered Mind

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 26, 2023

The Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves by Eric R. Kandel. He is the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology for his foundational research into memory storage in the brain.

Eric is recognized as one of the pioneers of modern brain science. In fact, his work continues to shape our understanding of how learning and memory work and to break down age-old barriers between the sciences and the arts.

He is able to address upon his research experiences and noted studies regarding the brain. Yet when the neurons communicate, they can be disrupting. This is where Eric’s research into disordered minds certainly sheds light into autism, depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, and PTSD.

So, we now can understand via Eric’s research among many more, how our brain functions under autism. A neurological change in the brain which directly impacts social interactions. This is providing profound insights. In fact, we also understand more clearly how depression impacts our emotions linked to the integrity of one’s self.

In fact, the brain holds over 86 billion neurons which communicate with one another very precisely. However, if those connections are disrupted, the brain processes that give rise to our mind can become disordered, resulting in diseases such as depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, and autism.

This book is a wonderful next step from my previous reads The Elephant in the Brain and The Leading Brain.

Tags Disordered Mind, Eric R. Kandel, Innovation, Memory, Physiology

Artificial Intelligence Education Innovation Reading

Latest Read: What Is ChatGPT Doing and Why Does It Work?

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 17, 2023

What Is ChatGPT Doing and Why Does It Work? by Stephen Wolfram. Stephen Wolfram is a computer scientist and physicist. He was named a fellow of the American Mathematical Society and is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois Department of Computer Science.

He holds a PhD in particle physics from the California Institute of Technology. Steven then began teaching at Caltech and was the youngest recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship at age 21.

In 1987 he created Wolfram Research and continues to serve as CEO developing both Mathematica and the Wolfram Alpha answer engine. Recently the company announced that Wolfram Alpha would integrate with ChatGPT.

In short, this book is perhaps the first worthy book to address ChatGPT with a full understanding of AI technology. Plus, Steven holds the ability to explain AI, algorithms and equations which will help the reader gain a much better (perhaps the best) understanding of ChatGPT.

Since the first public introduction in late 2022, many have simply asked how does this AI service function? Stephen in fact, lays out in very readable form, the background and basic understanding of neural net technologies. As a scientific discovery, this AI technology has certainly holds great potential to change computing with a potential huge downstream impact to society.

Tags ChatGPT, Innovation, knowledge, Steven Wolfram, tipping point

Education Reading

Latest Read: The Code Breaker

Post author By Don Kasprzak
Post date March 12, 2023

The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson. This is a truly amazing book and perhaps (in a crowded field) the most important book I have read this year.

Jennifer is an American biochemist. Today she is Chair Professor in the department of chemistry and the department of molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley and is an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She holds a Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School.

Jennifer is also the President and Chair of the board at the Innovative Genomics Institute, a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, and an adjunct professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco.

Jennifer Doudna is a rock star. Well Noble Prize winner rock star. And this book serves as inspiration for my daughter. No better example for any daughter to see that begin told what a girl cannot accomplish than to see how Jennifer literally hit it out of the park.

As this story reveals, Jennifer was in sixth grade when her father gave her a copy of James Watson’s book The Double Helix. This was her inspiration that would trigger her discoveries to understand DNA codes as a scientist.

Tags CRISPR, Gene Editing, Innovation, Jennifer Doudna, Technology, The Code Breaker, tipping point