This talk begins by examining how the widespread use of ensemble averages to study asset price fluctuations leads to perilous advice about how much one should borrow to invest. It is argued that time averages are more relevant in the non-ergodic processes typically found in finance and lead to the ...

Virus emergence is a complex, multilevel problem that results from a combination of ecological and genetic factors. To forecast when and how new viruses may emerge we must first identify the factors determining the distribution of genetic variants within the reservoir host as well as across all potential new ones, ...

What do the laws of thermodynamics look like, when applied to microscopic systems such as optically trapped colloids, single molecules manipulated with laser tweezers, and biomolecular machines? In recent years there has been considerable interest and progress in addressing this question, and it has become apparent that the fluctuations of ...

Spinoza was a seventeenth-century über-rationalist who employed a truly bizarre methodology, attempting to prove everything — from the nature of the world, to human nature, to the ethical meaning of our lives — from first principles, in the style of Euclid. Why would a scientist take seriously anything this resolutely ...

Little is known about the progression of HIV in the early stages after infection. Knowing the number of Transmitted/Founder variants that entered the body at the time of infection could be useful to scientists, including those who study the accuracy of animal models, the correlation of viral diversity to different ...