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Computation & Analysis

Brain, Neurons, Cognition: Computational Neuroscience

As the next phase of Wolfram Research's endeavor to make biology computable, we are happy to announce the recent release of neuroscience-related content. The most central part of the human nervous system is the brain. It contains roughly 100 billion neurons that act together to process information, subdivided functionally and structurally into areas specialized for certain tasks. The brain's anatomy, the characteristics of neurons and cognitive maps are used to represent some key aspects of the functional organization and processing abilities of our nervous system. Our new neuroscience content will give you a sneak peek into the amazing world of neuroscience with some facts about brains, neurons and cognition.
Keiko Hirayama, Wolfram|Alpha Developer, Wolfram|Alpha Scientific Content
Education & Academic

Exploring Exoplanet Systems with the Wolfram Language

Exoplanets are currently an active area of research in astronomy. In the past few years, the number of exoplanet discoveries has exploded, mainly as the result of the Kepler mission to survey eclipsing exoplanet systems. But Kepler isn't the only exoplanet study mission going on. For example, the TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) studies its own set of targets. In fact, the media recently focused on an exoplanet system orbiting an obscure star known as TRAPPIST-1. As an introduction to exoplanet systems, we'll explore TRAPPIST-1 and its system of exoplanets using the Wolfram Language.
Jeff Bryant, Research Programmer, Wolfram|Alpha Scientific Content
Computation & Analysis

Edit Your NaNoWriMo Novel with the Wolfram Language

If you're like many of us at Wolfram, you probably know that November was National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Maybe you even spent the past few weeks feverishly writing, pounding out that coming-of-age story about a lonely space dragon that you've been talking about for years. Congratulations! Now what? Revisions, of course! And we, the kindly Wolfram Blog Team, are here to get you through your revisions with a little help from the Wolfram Language.
Zach Littrell, Technical Content Writer, Technical Communications and Strategy Group John Moore, Marketing and Technical Content Team Lead, Technical Communications & Strategy Group
Announcements & Events

Wolfram Data Summit 2016

Wolfram continues to be at the forefront of data science innovation. We invite you to check out the latest here. This past September, we hosted our annual Wolfram Data Summit in Fairfax, Virginia. Over the past seven years, the Data Summit has come to occupy a central place at the nexus of data, computation and business. This high-level gathering of data innovators brings together people from many backgrounds and provides them the opportunity to share their challenges and breakthroughs in analyzing, managing and disseminating data. With its emphasis on cross-pollination, the Wolfram Data Summit has emerged as an exciting place to share insight into the subtle differences and unique challenges presented by data in different domains. New and unexpected points of commonality emerge from these conversations, allowing participants to trade solutions to emergent data problems.
John Moore, Marketing and Technical Content Team Lead, Technical Communications & Strategy Group
Education & Academic

Webinar Training Series: Wolfram|Alpha in the Economics Classroom

Are you a teacher who's been asked "Why am I learning this?", "How is this going to help me in real life?" and other variations of this question by your students? I know that I faced this when I was teaching, and it can be tough to provide a satisfactory response. However, being able to address this issue is critical in the classroom. We believe that Wolfram|Alpha provides one way to do so. The Wolfram Knowledgebase, our ever-growing repository of curated computable data, gives you instant access to trillions of data elements across thousands of domains. With Wolfram|Alpha, you can query these data points using natural language (plain English) right in your classroom. By using real-world data, students have the opportunity to direct their learning toward areas that they care about. In the economics classroom, you can discuss GDP using data about real countries, data that is current and citable. Explore Wolfram|Alpha's trove of socioeconomic data that will open multiple areas of inquiry in the classroom. A wonderful side effect that I've found with using a tool like Alpha is that it also teaches you to pose queries intelligently. Being able to carefully construct a problem is an integral step in the process of thinking critically. Join us for a special training event on August 24 to learn more about using Wolfram|Alpha in the classroom. This session in the Wolfram|Alpha for Educators: Webinar Training Series will focus on the economics classroom. Previous sessions in this series focused on calculus and physics classrooms, and you can watch our past event recordings online.
Ishwarya Vardhani, Education Partnerships Manager, Partnerships
Products

Introducing Wolfram|Alpha Add-ons for Google Drive

Wolfram|Alpha answers a ton of computational and factual questions every day---through our website, mobile apps, APIs, and from within the Wolfram Language itself. Now we would like to introduce a new way to harness the power of computation with the Wolfram|Alpha Add-ons for Google Drive. These free add-ons for Google Docs and Google Sheets enable you to bring up a Wolfram|Alpha sidebar next to your file or get Wolfram|Alpha results instantly, all without interrupting your workflow. To install these add-ons in your Google Drive, click the buttons at the top of our support page.
Stephanie Oh, Education Software Technology Manager
Products

Explore Yoga with Wolfram|Alpha

Each person enters a yoga class with their own unique goals. Some hope to stretch their legs, while others might want to strengthen their core, improve their balance, perform an advanced pose, or simply destress. As a yoga teacher, my goal is to balance my classes to accommodate everyone's needs and deliver information that will be potent and relevant for as many students as possible. However, there is so much information to explore in the field of yoga that it would be impossible to deliver it all in an hour-long class. Now it is possible for yoga enthusiasts and budding students alike to explore yoga using Wolfram|Alpha. You can now use Wolfram|Alpha to discover information about 216 yoga poses. If you want to learn about a pose, you can search by either its English or Sanskrit name and find basic instructions, along with an illustration. You can also look at the muscles that the pose stretches and strengthens, get ideas for ways to vary the pose, or learn about preparatory poses that you can use to build up toward more difficult poses. If you are recovering from an injury or ailment, you can check a list of precautions and contraindications to discover if the pose might be aggravating for your condition. You can also learn about commonly practiced sequences of yoga poses, such as the Sun Salutation.
Kristin McCoy, Wolfram|Alpha Scientific Content
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