Category: Computer Science

Did Big Data Win the Election for Trump?

Author: Katie Wozniak

Editors: Jessica Cote, Noah Steinfeld, and Shweta Ramdas

Five months after the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, many remain confused about how Donald Trump made it into the White House despite leading a seemingly disorganized and unconventional campaign against a more experienced candidate. To understand how this happened, experts have taken a closer look at the campaign strategies employed by Trump, and one major theory is that Trump won the presidency thanks to big data analysis by an analytics company called Cambridge Analytica.

But is there really enough evidence to support that big data won Trump the election?

Biochemistry, Chemistry, Computer Science, Technology

Computing Levinthal’s Paradox: Protein Folding, Part 2

Author: Sarah Kearns

Editors: David Mertz, Zuleirys Santana Rodriguez, and Scott Barolo

In a previous post, we discussed how proteins fold into unique shapes that allow them to perform their biological functions. Through many physical and chemical properties, like hydrogen bonding and hydrophobicity, proteins are able to fold correctly. However, proteins can fold improperly, and sometimes these malformed peptides aggregate, leading to diseases like Alzheimer’s.

How can we figure out when the folding process goes wrong? Can we use computers to figure out the folding/misfolding process and develop methods to prevent or undo the damage done by protein aggregates?