Category Archives: Data

Data generated by the YourBrainonDrugs project.

Kaggle causality hacking contest

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Caspar

Big data is already a lot like magic. Based on your spending habits Mastercard are supposed to know that you are getting a divorce before you do, computers are better at predicting good vintages than wine experts, facebook and google … Continue reading →

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Using search data to find drug side effects

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Caspar

Along the same lines as Google Flu Trends, researchers at Microsoft, Stanford and Columbia University are investigating whether search data can be used to find interactions between drugs. They recently found an interaction.Using automated software tools to examine queries by … Continue reading →

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Why open data is good for science.

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Caspar

I recently applied to the Open Knowledge Foundation for one of their  Panton Fellowships. They are giving a number of £8,000 Fellowships to researchers who are trying to promote open science and open data. I got through the initial screening … Continue reading →

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Drugs Meter smartphone app

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Caspar

Dr. Adam Winstock The psychiatrist behind the Global Drugs Survey is gearing up to launch a phone based “Drugs Meter “.  Here’s how the Guardian describe it: A new digital application – called drugs meter – attempts to provide people who use … Continue reading →

Posted in Alcohol, Data, Science, Technology | Leave a comment

Kevin Kelly – The Quantifiable Self

Posted on June 26, 2011 by Caspar

Kevin Kelly was one of the speakers at the first Quantified Self conference which took place in San Francisco last month. The idea of quantifying the self is to record lots of data on your personal life and seeing if … Continue reading →

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Baltimore junkies are wearing wires.

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Caspar

Can it be possible, a positive drugs story coming out of Baltimore? Some Baltimore junkies have been given PDA’s (Palm pilots rather than Crackberries). They were asked to keep track of the activities and daily habits associated with their habits … Continue reading →

Posted in Addiction, Data, Data Visualization, Experience, Treatment, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Social Construction of Social Problems » Sociological Images

Posted on February 18, 2011 by Caspar

I’ve just discovered the Sociological Images blog (not to be confused with the Sociological Imagination blog). It is a interesting collection of images and infographics that all make a sociological point. Collectively, the images illustrate the persuasive power of a strong … Continue reading →

Posted in Data, Data Visualization, War on drugs | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Podcast: Catherine Coveney on Cognitive Enhancement and Modafinil

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Mark

In this podcast Catherine Coveney uses the case study of Modafinil (a revolutionary ‘wakefulness’ drug reportedly subject to increasingly widespread use amongst students, academics, professionals and shiftworkers) to explore the status and practice of cognitive enhancement within contemporary society. Cognitive … Continue reading →

Posted in Cognition, Data, Podcasts, Science | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Correlation will be king?

Posted on January 5, 2011 by Caspar

More data or better stats? Image via Wikipedia What is going on? In the New Yorker we have Johan Lehner telling us that scientific findings are getting harder and harder to replicate. He worries that there might be something wrong with … Continue reading →

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Life in the moment is happier but less imaginative. Just ask your iphone.

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Caspar

This Science Brevia article is the first published example I’ve seen using smartphone technologies to collect psychological data. It comes from Dan Gilbert’s ever inventive lab. They used an iphone application to run an experience sampling study. The article is … Continue reading →

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