The World's Most Popular Class

What do you get when you combine a top-tier institution, a fun technology topic, Google's research director and completely open enrollment? An end to anyone else being able to complain about their class size.

With 98,435 students signed up and counting, the Artificial Intelligence class appears very excited about providing global access to one of Stanford's most popular courses (normal enrollment ~200). They didn't  expect this hoopla, and I'll be amazed if even 0.1% of those enrolled get anything positive out of the course. The recommended textbook (coauthored by one of the instructors) has not increased in sales as the class size ballooned. I would guess 98,400 of the enrolled students do not know what the prerequisite "solid understanding of linear algebra" means. Still, it's a brave venture and an interesting experiment. The class is free, no credit, and utilizes FAQ "discussion" periods and online homework/quiz/tests. And for the few people enrolled with legitimate interest and ability, it should be a pretty amazing class.

NNT

"The NNT" is a great example of taking very complicated scientific studies and presenting them in a compelling, easy to understand format. This group of doctors picks a particular treatment, reads all the studies, and then provides some very straightforward conclusions. The NNT (number needed to treat) is statistically how many patients have to be given a treatment to benefit. For example, steroid treatment for asthma attacks helps 1 out of every 8 patients,  while aspirin to prevent heart attacks helps 1 out of 50 patients. Then they provide a simple stoplight review: green is good (more benefit than harm) yellow is 'we can't tell yet', red is 'no benefit found'. They follow up with some quick statistics on benefit / risk, and also translate the statistics into words for the arithmophobic, then some specific details about the studies and how they drew their conclusions.

I like the startling factoids (1 in 2 women got a false positive mammogram result - definitely not a test worth taking). I think it's useful to know how ineffective treatments are (even for the best treatments, usually more than 90% of patients are not helped.) But more generally, I think it's amazing that I can't even decipher the titles of most of the studies they present, but I couldn't find a single thing on The NNT.com that I didn't understand. There are definitely some down sides to people getting medical advice from the web, but this site is reliable, straightforward and useful.

Giant Crystals

This isn't a movie set, those are actual people exploring fascinating Naica crystal caves in Mexico. These selenite crystals formed under water as oxygen diffused down and reacted with minerals in the water. A mish-mash of interdisciplinary projects are underway involving geochemists, astrophysists, photographers and many others. They've invented special ice suits to survive the sweltering environment, documented crystal formations found no where else on earth, and are working to conserve unique cave environments throughout the region.