Sheep is a simple game in which you try to predict the wisdom of the crowd you are in: the goal of Sheep is to submit the answer to each question that matches the answer given by the most other players. Each answer gets a number of points equal to the number of players that submitted it. The most points at the end wins the game. 

I'm not sure I get it, can you explain?

Sure! Here were the questions one week:

1) Name something that... is green.

2) ... is blue.

3) ... is red.

4) ... is yellow.

For question 1, "grass" was answered by 51 people, so they each received 51 points. 4 people answered "frog" so they each received 4 points. So on and so on for 10 questions.

What are rules of Sheep?

Not many! First, there are no incorrect answers in Sheep. You are allowed to look things up in Sheep. You are not, however, allowed to coordinate with other players before submitting answers. It is also very sad to submit multiple answers yourself.

Who can play Sheep?

Any human, except Elon Musk, can play Sheep. AI may not play Sheep (for those using a sans serif font, I mean Artificial Intelligence, not people named Al)

What do I get if I win?

Fame and glory, most obviously. And a T-shirt!

Okay, I'm sold! How do I start to play?

Add yourself to the Google Group for receiving emails, by going here.

Why do you do this?

That is a very fine question, and if you find yourself with possible answers, please let me know!

Season V of Sheep is in the books!

Congratulations to our season-long champion, KBOB, better known as Katherine Blakeslee! Katherine is a former Broadie, in her time working with Anna Greka on the Kidney Disease Initiative, who transitioned over to biotech a few years ago. For the past year and a half, she’s been learning Italian, and after 4 trips to Italy is confident to declare that she’s “practically fluent” (ignoring some creative grammar). In her spare time, she plays ultimate frisbee, hits the running trails, tries to quench her insatiable wanderlust, and rounds it all out with a very cute dog named Cosmo. Congrats, Katherine, on a season-long job well done!

Mercurio83 made a last-minute charge for the top spot, and came up just short but had an impressive run nonetheless. Going by Lee Tarlin in the real world, Lee was introduced to Sheep by long-time friend and former GPPer, Ruth Hanna. Lee turned 29 yesterday, also plays ultimate frisbee, and once sat in front of Carly Rae Jepsen at Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on Broadway. 

Our third place finisher, Lbastian, cleverly hiding his real identity of Luke Bastian, has both a BA and MEng from MIT, and currently works as a structural engineer out in Seattle, which is a good place for it, since apparently the whole Pacific NW is going to be annihilated one of these days by an earthquake. But you’re probably better off worrying about Near Earth Objects anyway, as discussed in the documentary film Armageddon. As far as I know, Luke does not routinely play ultimate frisbee, but is one of those people who is obnoxiously good at pretty much everything he tries, so he’d pick it up super quick no doubt!

Rounding out the Top 10 are: 

4) Lane: short for Lane Marder, who can often be found leading educational tours in the Broad Discovery Center.

5) Wooly Mammoth: the clean-shaven Chris Gerry, a former Broadie who is now at Kisbee Therapeutics – does that rhyme with “frisbee”?

6) Marissa F: aka Marissa Feeley, a former RA in GPP who is now a graduate student at Johns Hopkins. 

7) Not Your HR Partner: who is, in fact, my HR partner, Kayleigh Johansson. 

8) Alexandra Van Hall: the pseudonym for Alexandra Van Hall, a Broadie specializing in cellular assays and protein engineering.

9) avm: Abby McGee, former Broadie, now PhD student at U Washington, and the lead creator of Fragmid, the most satisfying tool I’ve made in my career.   

10) Gorm the Old: who is better known to me as the mastermind behind one of my favorite pieces of research software, PoolQ, the great Mark Tomko.

All scores can be found in the 'Totals' tab here.

Thanks all for playing, we hope to see you again in early 2025! 

Baa bye,

The Sheepmaster

Full Season Page over here.

Over 300 people played Sheep at some point this season, and 160 stuck it out week after week. So, who came out on top?

We have a two-way tie for 9th place, and first up we have our Senior Director of Translational Genomics, a proud Irishman who treats his mother well, Niall Lennon. Niall never finished in the top 20, but also never did any worse than the top half. Slow and steady, that wins the race. Well, puts you in the top ten, at least.

Joining Niall, please welcome to the stage Lee O'Neil. Lee has been a Broadie for 10 years, and she used to work in communications, but then fled to Santiago, Chile for one year in a bout of self-shame, which was triggered by writing a truly awful pun that was nonetheless well-received by the rest of the comms team. Fortunately, the authorities found her, extradited her back to the Broad, and as part of the plea deal, she joined the Director's office, where she no longer needs to write puns (Todd prefers knock-knock jokes). 

Next up is Theodore "The Ocho" Tomich, who got off to a strong start, taking home Best in Flock honors in week 1, and managed to stay in contention throughout the season. Although, it must be noted, he did not actually win, so Theo is kinda the Peyton Manning of this whole affair (how many times did the Colts start off undefeated only to shrivel by the time January came around?) Theo is the first non-Broadie to appear in the top ten, although he won't be the last. 

Lucky number seven is Sherlock Holmes, aka James Patti. James is formerly of the TIDE group, a winner in season three, and now a medical student at Tufts. Importantly, James was the person who taught the TIDE group that it was insensible to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts, although it does seem like one can invoke "interferon gamma" as causal for literally every immunological phenotype, even if those phenotypes are completely orthogonal. 

Rounding out the top of the bottom half of the top ten, we have a current member of the Comms team, Karen Zusi-Tran, who I hear once wrote a pun so groan-inducing that it caused a pirate's glass eye to jump out of its socket and go 'plink' right into the Caribbean Sea. "Gee, all these comms people doing so well," you might be thinking to yourself, "surely the leader of this group is somewhere in the Top Five!" Let me disabuse you of that notion straightaway, turns out that person, who shall remain nameless (but rhymes with "See My Fire") spent most of the season dwelling in the basement, only managing to break into the top 50% once. 

In fifth place, coming to us all the way from the suburban hellscape that is Northern Virginia – all the NIMBY provincialism of New Jersey, but with an inability to produce rock stars or drive in a light dusting of snow – please welcome to the Hall of Champions, Michael Chaney. I don't actually know what Michael does for a living, but I like to imagine that he is a spy. Not a Jason Bourne type, mind you, who could beat you senseless with a rolled up newspaper, but rather in the James Bond / Jonathan Spatz mold of the gentleman spy, whose suave demeanor carries the day. Of course, by writing this, the odds just shot up dramatically that Michael is actually more aptly compared to Jeffrey Lebowski. Don't be fatuous, Michael. 

In fourth place we have our last non-Broadie, the famed political scientist Dr. Matt Glassman. Not to wade into geopolitics, but Matt and I have a Mutually Assured Destruction pact, in that we each have waaay too much insight our past, pre-professional selves [ed. note: this is not to imply that I am delusional enough to think I have actually achieved "being a professional" in any absolute sense; trust me, progress has been made]. Matt hails from Upstate NY, and is surely lamenting the fact that he didn't factor into the trifecta wagering, but to be fair, not-cashing-in is also his comfort zone. 

Oooo, getting exciting, isn't it? We're now into the medals!

Picking up the Bronze, please welcome to the podium CDoT's Allison Leed. A Broadie since 2012, Allison's specialities include NMR, so I can only imagine how many times she's used the excuse "oops, the giant magnet I work with rendered all my credit cards inactive, I guess you'll have to pick up the check." Honestly, I think this would work, especially if you doubled down by sincerely insisting on explaining to the rest of your party how NMR actually works -- pretty confident they would just pay the bill in an effort to end the conversation.  

With the Silver medal, flap your hooves together for GPP's Berta Escude Velasco. Berta joined the Broad last year after spending her undergraduate years at BU, and she has also done a stint in the COVID testing lab during the Omicron wave. While there's no $10 prize for finishing in second place, there is a bottle of wine waiting for you (which cost more than $10) here at Sheep HQ! 

And finally… finally… the winner. Taking home the Gold, earning the title of Ovis the Imperial, and certainly planning on not letting any of us forget about it, please make supportive baaaaa'ing noises in the general direction of another fellow GPPer, Tanaz Abid!!! Congrats Tanaz! This is not Tanaz's first taste of the salty tears of all those whom she has vanquished, having come out on top in week 6 (when, interestingly, Berta also finished second). Nor is this Tanaz's first honorary title, having previously been dubbed "Queen of the Neurospheres" which, for those not in the know, is actually quite the accomplishment. Tanaz had a helluva run in Sheep this year, as her worst finish was in the top 30%, and overall she earned 6,760 points out of a possible max of 7,944 (85%). That's Oracle territory, and I'm not talking SQL. 

Be good to each other, and we'll see ya' next time…

Cheers,

Chief Sheep Officer

Weekly Winners

Week 1: Rhyme Time. Alice McElhinney

Week 2: Number Two. Chris Podracky

Week 3: Around the World. Stephen Fleming

Week 4: Babies. Emily Kessler

Week 5: Going Low. Joe Allen

Week 6: Pop Culture. Tanaz Abid

Week 7: Time. Doug Alan

Week 8: Colors. Chris Podracky

Week 1: The Year That Was. Winners: Marissa Feeley, Genetic Perturbation Platform; Dylan Parsons, MGH. Results

Week 2: Supporting Roles. Winner: James Patti, TIDE. Results

Week 3: Letters. Winner: Nick Teceno, Vertex. Results

Week 4: Fantasy on Film. Winners: James Patti, TIDE; Charlotte Doench, daughter-of-Broadie; Vijaya Hegde, aunt-of-Broadie; Aaron Banker, dating-a-Broadie; Ryan Bronson, Infectious Disease. Results

Week 5: Rhyme Time. Winner: Matt Glassman, Georgetown. Results

Week 6: Animals. Winner: Katherine Blakeslee, Greka Lab; Whitney Dodds, Conflicts. Results

Week 7: Food. Winner: Marissa Feeley, Genetic Perturbation Platform. Results

Week 8: Sports. Winners: Abby McGee, Genetic Perturbation Platform; Bridget Wagner, Wagner Lab; Andrew Boghossian, Cancer Program; Andres Sanin, Boston University. Results

Week 9: Potpourri. Winner: Michelle Wartak, Broad People. Results

Week 10: Summertime. Winner: Michael Fabijanic, Oracle. Results

Week 1: Television. Winner: Laurie Holmes, Genomics Platform. Results

Week 2: Numbers. Winner: Danielle Perrin, Science Business Ops. Results

Week 3: States. Winner: Meagan Sullender, WashU. Results

Week 4: Staying Active! Winner: Peter DeWeirdt, Genetic Perturbation Platform. Results

Week 5: Music. Winner: Ally Day, Genomics Platform. Results

Week 6: Bo(a)r(e)d Games. Winner: Whitney Dodds, Conflicts of Interest. Results

Week 7: Simpler Times. Winner: Tanaz Abid, Genetic Perturbation Platform. Results

Week 8: Word Play. Winner: Matt Glassman, Georgetown. Results

Week 9: Oh the Places We'll Go. Winner: Charlie Sangree, Duke Law. Results

Week 10: Home Sweet Home. Winner: Chris Podracky, David Liu lab. Results

Week 11: Measuring Up. Winner: Bhishma Patel, GPP. Results

Week 12: Potpourri. Winner: Luke Koblan, Liu lab. Results

Week 1: Animals: Nurjana Bachman, Foundation Medicine. Results

Week 2: The 90s. Winner: Tslil Asit, Mootha lab

Week 3: Rhyme Time. Winner: Tamara Mason, Genomics Platform

Week 4: Cities of the World. Winner: Laurie Holmes, Genomics Platform

Week 5: Colors. Winner: Marty LaFleur, Haining lab, Dana Farber

Week 6: Boston. Winner: Bridget Wagner, Wagner lab, CBTS

Week 7: Food. Winner: Katherine Walsh, Alliance Management

Week 8: Potpourri. Winners (4-way-tie!): Serena Brown (Novartis); Ian Smith (U Toronto); Federica Piccioni (Genetic Perturbation Platform; Jenny Rood (Development)