Random Curiosities (II)

Again a full reading list that I've compiled, the most interesting items are selected for the 'random curiosities' of this week. It seems to me that these lists will surely help me to keep track of my readings and interests over time and it will be definitely interesting to look back..

• The first item on the list is a great documentary I've watched recently which is called 'The Emergence of Network Science' featuring Steven Strogatz. It is mainly focused on graphs and especially the famous 'six-degree of seperation' problem and gives the new emerging science of networks. I've met many new names from the film and one of the major ones is A. Barabasi and his wonderful new book 'Network Science'. It is published online and it seems like a great resource. I will definitely check it out before the 'Applied Graph Theory' course in Nesin Matematik Village which I'll be participating this summer.

• A game-theoretical ecological article called 'The hawk–dove game in a sexually reproducing species explains a colourful polymorphism of an endangered bird' in the recent issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B. It examines the famous 'hawk-dove game' behaviour in the Gouldian finches population and derives the conditions for the evolutionary beneficial polymorphism to be retained in the population. Link for the article.

• A recent article from C. Veller and M. Nowak titled "Extended flowering intervals of bamboos evolved by discrete multiplication" which is about the mathematical pattern involving the flowering of bamboo plants (Link for the article). There is a nice overview of the paper called 'Bamboo Mathematicians' in Carl Zimmer's blog.

• Another interesting find from Strogatz twitter feed: 'Winning at Rock Paper Scissors'.. A great numberphile video discussing a 'real-life' strategy for the renowned Rock-Paper-Scissors game using game theory. In relation to that, I've discovered an interesting article of Strogatz, namely 'Nonlinear Dynamics of the Rock-Paper-Scissors Game with Mutations'...

• From New York Times, an article on mathematical population model of blue crabs in Chesapeake Bay which is based on a field data: Mathematicians and Blue Crabs

• Another interesting article on the models of evolutionary mechanism from Yale which proposes “house of cards” model — which holds that mutations with large effects effectively reshuffle the genomic deck — explains evolutionary processes better than the theory that species undergo the accumulation of many mutations with small effects. Further read: In evolution, ‘house of cards’ model wins

• Quanta Magazine has published an interesting article about genetically identical flies and their diverging individual behaviours studied through genetic and environmental variations. Details in the article: 'Animal Copies Reveal Roots of Individuality'

• Nautilus is running a very interesting theme this month: 'Error' with a sub-title "How does the scientist negotiate the hall of mirrors and come out clutching the truth?..." Worth checking out..

• An inspiring read from the great mathematician V. I. Arnold 'On Mathematics Education' from the archives of Dynamical Systems Magazine.

• Book find of the week: A Mathematical Nature Walk by John A. Adam. Full of wonderful questions about various natural phenomena and inspiring models and answers for them. Definitely a gem. (Book link)