a couple of suggestions after reading the lesson

[nden]

On one occasion the lesson mentions aliasing a package during import as in import numpy as np
Perhaps it's worth mentioning the construct from ... import ... which is also very often
used in scientific software and warn against using from ... import *.

While reading the section "Analyzing Patient data" I thought a call to the matplotlib colorbar() function after the imshow() call would be useful.

[cleary3]

On one occasion the lesson mentions aliasing a package during import as in import numpy as np
Perhaps it's worth mentioning the construct from ... import ... which is also very often
used in scientific software and warn against using from ... import *.

As I understand it, the Python lessons in Software Carpentry are trying to teach basic programming skills and concepts with Python as a vehicle for the instruction. Software Carpentry is explicitly not trying to teach Python. The various import styles show above are very Python specific and likely don't belong in the Software Carpentry lessons.