A Bloody Good System
Fixing problems You work as a field engineer for a very large factory, and your job is to traverse the entire facility each day and ensure »
Coulda-Woulda-Shouldas: Counterfactuals in Epidemiology
What if you hadn't been a cheapskate and had just bought the damn bike lock? Suppose you'd never said hi to that »
Elegant Bureaucracy: Biochem 101
I often imagine the body as a factory: a collection of state-of-the-art machinery and skilled workers, optimized to produce thingies (let’s say jackets) at record »
Cancer: when orderly processes go awry
Let’s say you are a customs and immigration officer at an international airport. You have two important tasks to perform. First, you need to ensure »
Making (and breaking) the status quo
Humans love to maintain the status quo. In fact, one of the basic requirements for life is the ability maintain internal conditions (this is called homeostasis »