Hi,
I still haven’t made it back to my keyboard and screen. Instead, I’ve spent some time spying on the woodpecker nest hidden in the oak tree I can see from my window. The chicks have been particularly noisy, and over the past couple of days, I’ve seen them poking their heads through the tree hollow.
The cool thing about birds is that they don’t get sore throats, even when they scream like mad for hours. They don’t have a larynx — instead, they have a structure called a syrinx, located at the base of the trachea. They also lack an epiglottis, which is the tissue that protects us (humans) from accidentally getting food or liquids into the trachea. Another cool thing is that woodpeckers have amazing tongues — if you’ve never googled that, you should. Imagine having a tongue as long as your forearm, wrapped around your skull, protecting you from getting a concussion while literally banging your head against a tree:
But I haven’t forgotten about coding completely. I haven’t been particularly punctual these days with delivering my content, but I hope this link will make up for my inconsistency. I have the pleasure of sharing a corridor with the VBD Hub at Imperial, and I know they’ve just released some great learning materials. Their focus is on vector-borne diseases, but they also offer many general tutorials. You can also keep an eye on their LinkedIn, especially if you are interested in their workshops.
Carpe diem,
Aga
PS: Here is the survey in which you can tell me what R topic you find particularly confusing and why you want to learn it so that we can shape this space together!