Category Archives: Uncategorized

Longevity and telomere length

Posted on June 21, 2014 by

Came across a New Scientist article last week about the findings from an examination of the blood and tissues of Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper after her death in 2005. Aged 115 at her death, she was at one point the oldest … Continue reading →

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Peak productivity?

Posted on May 25, 2014 by

Its been a crazy couple of weeks leading up to the 2014 World Health Assembly (just ended). We were involved in the launch of four global reports with a substantial statistical input from us in a period of 8 days. … Continue reading →

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My Erdös number drops to 4, I doubt it will go lower.

Posted on May 22, 2014 by

Chatting to colleagues at work the other day I boasted that my Erdös number had dropped to 5 (see previous post on this), and Dan asked what an Erdös number was. I explained, and he obviously went back to his … Continue reading →

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The world is living longer but still too many premature deaths

Posted on May 15, 2014 by

Average global life expectancy has increased by 6 years from 1990 to 2013 and is now 73 years for females and 68 years for males. Our latest statistics report (www.who.int/gho) shows that low-income countries have made the greatest progress, with … Continue reading →

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The world is getting smaller – my Erdös and Einstein numbers drop

Posted on May 8, 2014 by

In an earlier post (https://colinmathers.com/2014/01/26/its-a-small-world-erdos-bacon-and-other-numbers/), I described author paths that gave me an Erdös number of 6 and an Einstein number of 7. The other day I came across a comment that Kenneth Arrow, Nobel Prize Laureate in economics in … Continue reading →

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H-index and age: a new criterion for success?

Posted on January 27, 2014 by

The H-index is a measure of scientific research output defined as the number h of publications that have been cited h times or more ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-index). Thus an H-index of 10 indicates that 10 publications have been cited 10 times … Continue reading →

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Its a small world – Erdös, Bacon and other numbers

Posted on January 26, 2014 by

Just for fun, mathematicians like to quote their degrees of published separation from Paul Erdös, one of the most prolific modern writers of mathematical papers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erd%C5%91s_number). So one day when I needed a break from work, I thought I would … Continue reading →

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