Where do you see yourself in ten years? You probably might not imagine yourself wearing Ninja Turtle pajama pants, getting up at 4:00 in the morning for a teleconference. For some reason, I kept track of my very early beginnings in epilepsy genetics when I was still a medical student. According to my calendar, today is precisely my tenth anniversary in epilepsy genetics, a day that I refer to as Red Johanna Day. Let’s revisit what happened over the last decade and what I learned from my mentors and friends in the field. And let’s find out about the Ninja Turtles. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Red Johanna Beach
Red Johanna Day – The signal and the noise
Predictions. December 17th is the day that I consider my annual anniversary in epilepsy genetics. Exactly eight years ago, I was still a student in my final med school year and went to Australia for a job interview. We took a road trip over the weekend and on the evening of the 17th, I was reading Nigel Tan’s review on epilepsy genes aptly entitled The truth is out there while sitting in a rock pool at Red Johanna Beach, a surfing beach at the Great Ocean Road south of Melbourne. Looking back, I think this was one of the few publications that helped me make sense of all the literature on epilepsy association studies. I thought that I would like to be able to write something like this while shivering in the waters of the Bass Strait that are always a little bit too cool. Today, sitting in the cozy warmth of our apartment in Kiel, I have finished reading Nate Silver’s book The Signal and the Noise, a book about making sense of data and predictions. Eight years later, are we any closer to the truth that is out there? Continue reading
