Advice before you start: this is about
learning languages. Just like trying to
speak Greek, it is unrealistic to think
that you can become a pro in a few
hours. These are skills that have a very
high ceiling, and you can work daily for
years and still not learn everything.
However, like knowing a foreign language, learning to program opens up
many horizons that were impossible
before!
Choosing which language to learn depends on your goals. For the computer-savvy scientists, I see three major
routes. The first is to embrace computational biology, which I won’t cover
here. The second is to adopt a language that gives you the ability to analyze and transform data and run basic statistics. The third is to develop a
web presence or browser-based tools
to better communicate your results.
If you want to manage basic statistics
and data management, I highly recommend either R (my preference) or
Python. You can get started with R by
using the interactive R package Swirl–
all the details on how to use it are at
swirlstats.com. R is an open-source
language with enormous amounts of
user-created content for countless
applications, including high-level statistics, bioinformatics, and graphing.
You can learn Python (along with several other languages) at codeacademy.
com. Python features easy-to-use
and easy-to-read syntax, making it a
good bet for the aspiring programmer.
If you’re interested in developing a
web presence, Codeacademy is again
a good place to start. With HTML/CSS
you can build deeply customized websites and with JavaScript you can build
interactive web applications.
These are all just starting points on
the journey, but forums and blogs
on these sites should point to where
to go next. Give it a try and write me
([email protected]) if you run into
trouble. I only started a few years ago,
so I am also a novice in this field.
Happy coding!
Ryan Price, USA
Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Master’s Program ‘15
Currently an IRTA fellow at the
Laboratory of Neurogenetics
National Institute on Aging in
Bethesda, Maryland, USA
1. www.wired.com/2009/03/why-biology-students-should-learn-how-to-program/ Accessed on Dec 10, 2016
Science Snapshot
My dissertation is part of an interdisciplinary project
that investigates body representations by integrating expert perspectives from neuroscience, medicine,
computer science, and philosophy. My main research
questions are, “Does personal body size influence
perception of self and others?” and “What visual factors contribute to body weight perception?” For the
visual stimuli for our psychophysical experiments, we
use personalized high-resolution 3D body scans and
manipulate spatial properties of the body in ways
that would not be possible in the real world. I make
use of novel technology and software provided by
the Perceiving Systems group at the MPI for Intelligent Systems that allows us to generate personalized biometric-based avatars. I present the body
models in stereo and life-size for my psychophysical
experiments using immersive virtual reality. This research allows us to better understand body size perception, a topic that has relevance for patients with
body image disturbances such as anorexic patients.
Anne Thaler, Germany
Currently a GTC Doctoral student at the MPI for Biological Cybernetics
in the Space and Body Perception Group of Dr. Betty Mohler
July 2016 | NEUROMAG |
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