This Week's Serving of Potpourri

Some things that caught my eye this week (when my power was on!):

1)  Evelyn Lamb with some wonderful math history in a few telling letters betwixt Gauss and Sophie Germain:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/roots-of-unity/2015/02/13/gauss-and-germain-on-pleasure-and-passion/

2)  Having some fun with Wolfram/Alpha:
http://tinyurl.com/jwqb52n
https://twitter.com/wacnt

3)  Entertaining podcast interview (40 mins.) with Jordan Ellenberg:
http://www.maureenanderson.com/images/stories/audio/013115hour1.mp3

4)  A bit of number-fun from Gary Davis and Ben Vitale:
http://www.blog.republicofmath.com/the-number-3608528850368400786036725/

5)   Andrew Gelman notes the problem of press releases and mathematical hype in this quick post:
http://andrewgelman.com/2015/02/22/academics-made-accountable-exaggerations-press-releases-work/

6)  Wow! I see from Princeton University Press's Spring catalogue that an 800+ page "comprehensive" biography of Euler (by Ronald Calinger) is on the way... for ~$50.
Now, how about a bio of Riemann next! ;-)

7)  Math podcasts are "burgeoning," and the key is to "tell a story"... read all about it:
http://blogs.ams.org/blogonmathblogs/2015/02/23/math-for-your-ears/#sthash.EOnYonKv.dpbs

8)  An interview with Ken Ono, mostly on his study of Ramanujan's work, with some update on the upcoming movie about Ramanujan's life:
http://gonitsora.com/in-conversation-with-prof-ken-ono/

9)  A research journal (in social psychology!) has banned the reporting of p-values (h/t to Jordan Ellenberg for this one):
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/01973533.2015.1012991

10)   This site has made an interactive version of Newcomb's Paradox (and is researching responses to the classic conundrum):
http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/newcomb/
(h/t to Colm Mulcahy for this one)

11)  A bunch of mathy links associated with the Cambridge Science Festival, given here:
http://plus.maths.org/content/maths-cambridge-science-festival

12)  Hannah Fry reviews Cedric Villani's "Birth of a Theorem" for The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/25/birth-of-a-theorem-mathematical-adventure-cedric-villani-review

13)  Mike Lawlers' place on the Web:  https://mikesmathpage.wordpress.com/

....and on Sunday I'll have another new interview up here, so y'all come back now!

Potpourri BONUS! (extra NON-mathematical links of interest):

1)  Last week's NPR TEDRadioHour ("The Unknown Brain") started off with what may still be my all-time favorite TED Talk, neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor's remarkable viral 2008 story of experiencing her own stroke:
http://www.npr.org/programs/ted-radio-hour/384949524/the-unknown-brain
If somehow you've missed it, listen to at least her first segment on the show, but the whole hour is great.

2)  And a couple of interesting reads from Aeon magazine (also, neuroscience-related):
a)  the tendency of fiction to 'trump fact' on the Web:
http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/should-you-fact-check-your-grandmas-facebook-posts/
and,
b)  human brain elasticity:
http://aeon.co/magazine/psychology/can-i-make-my-brain-as-plastic-as-a-childs/