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Stories and comments across the archive that link to pnas.org.

Comments · 713

  1. initial feasibility studies show good results by tim_maroney · · Score: 2 · on Nanopore DNA Sequencing
    Note the word "concieved" in the first line of the document...there is not much in place yet.

    That was my first take as well, but then when I looked through the references, I found that many feasibility questions seem to be resolved already. For instance, I read the main page and thought, "Sure, but how do you transport the strand through the nanopore?" Then I checked the first reference listed, and what do you know: "We show that an electric field can drive single-stranded RNA and DNA molecules through a 2.6-nm diameter ion channel in a lipid bilayer membrane."

    The final system may still be largely conceptual, but it's by no means blue sky. I tend to be a techno-skeptic but this work impresses me.

    The page sounds to me like a breathless plea for lots of venture capital funding.

    This is grossly unfair. The language and style are well within the normal bounds for scientific papers. The word "revolutionary" is appropriate for a technology that would do years of work in hours. And in case you didn't notice, it's not private research -- it's being done at The Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, The Biological Laboratories, Harvard University. What interest would a university laboratory have in "venture capital"? If they later spin it off into private industry for product development, then they might go for venture funding, but it simply makes no sense to do so now. There's a big difference between research sponsorship and venture funding.

    Tim

  2. If you're interested in the technical details... by lysie · · Score: 5 · on Full Color Electronic Paper a Reality
    There was an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in April:

    http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/98/9/4835

    It describes the methods used to create the paper (authored by people from Bell Labs and by E Ink corp).

  3. problems with peer review by myc · · Score: 2 · on Electronic Access to Scientific Journals
    the problem with peer review is that, by and large, science is an "old boys school". Regardless of what academics will have you be believe, getting your data published in a good journal, especially if your results are novel and/or contraversial, is more influenced by who you know than what you've done. The worst possible example of this is in the journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In principle, for a reasercher to be elected to the Academy is an extreme honor and often it is seen as a launching pad to the Nobel Prize. As such, PNAS allows publication of reearch papers from their members sans the standard peer review process. However, in recent years when productivity and competition for grant money has become the most cut-throat, PNAS has become a dumping ground for results that could not have been published elsewhere, or for results that are so provocotive that submission to standard peer-review journals would run the risk of getting similar results published by your competitors first in other journals. Not only this, PNAS has also been used as favors for members to non-members who have trouble getting published elsewhere.

    PNAS is the extreme example. Other journals, although theoretically peer-reviewed as well, have essentially the same problem: even if your results suck (but don't suck too bad), if you're buddies with the chief editor then you can get published most of the time.

  4. some considerations by 3-State+Bit · · Score: 1 · on 3D Microfluid Computers Used To Solve NP Problems
    You know Slashdot wouldn't suck if
    1. People read the articles before posting.
    2. Slashdot editors turned 30 seconds of their time toward making sure people can read the articles.
    With that said, you can see a /summary/ at least of the article by going to pnas.org and clicking "Microfluidic networks solve computationally hard problems" near the center of the screen. (gets you here).
    I don't know much of the specifics, but this doesn't seem to be an incredibly interesting development. Since "three-dimensional microfluidic networks" are not quantum-mechanical in nature, at best whatever they can do is to more /efficiently/ solve what we already can solve. Remember, people, NP stands for "non-polynomial[time]." In other words, as a given 'n' for the some measure of the complexity of the type of problem (such as n=6 for the specific achievement this article heralds) increases, the amount of computation (or compatational "time") increases at a rate greater than a polynmolial...in other words, at exponential or greater rates and not at something you can express in terms of O(x^n) with n fixed.
    What does this mean for you? That this evolution is not interesting and does not shed new light on anything in the physical or mathematical world: nowhere does the article say that this system will solve in polynomial time the maximum clique problem. NP doesn't mean a problem is unsolvable: just that it becomes increasingly and increasingly difficult to solve as the size of it increases. Here is an introduction to the idea of NP. The clay institute is offering $1m for anyone that can solve NP, so I doubt this article claims to do anything of the sort, although, as we've all by now noticed, I can't actually see the article itself. Not worth $5 if you ask me.
    Here is an article that already proposes DNA computing. (.gz, and probably not worth a d/l)
    And here are some other NP problems
  5. Free, shorter version of the article by jonnythan · · Score: 3 · on 3D Microfluid Computers Used To Solve NP Problems

    at http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/short/98/6/2961

    if you trust me

  6. Re:You need a better source for such speculations. by rde · · Score: 2 · on A Different Idea For Distributed Storage

    where does that opinion come from, and does the sun shine there?
    It's more of an impression than an opinion, one formed after reading lots of stuff on the internet (my sole source, sadly). I make no claims to expertivity (hence the final qualification); in fact, having scanned your page I'm willing to bow to your expertise on the subject. Whether the sun shines on my sources I'm not willing to speculate. Just so you can sneer properly, I enclose some of the links from my bookmarks that have been visited on a number of occasions:
    The Cryptography Project
    Quantum Computing FAQ
    Quantum computing
    There are more sites, but these are a fair representation. Were my conclusions wrong? Possibly. Was I reading the wrong sites? Maybe. Was looking on the web in the first place a wast of time? Dunno. But if I've helped you feel superior, then I can go home happy.

  7. Applicability is not clear... by IdahoEv · · Score: 2 · on Cells Need Gravity to Develop

    I looked up the abstract of the original article because the news article reference wasn't all that clear. It's listed in P.N.A.S. as a chemistry study, not a biology study.

    It appears the researchers were examining self-organization of microtubules in solution, but not actually sending living cells into space. And it's pretty big stretch to extrapolate from a simple chemical solution to living cells in a human body.

    I'd hold off for now on calling this study the solution to the question long-term health deterioration in space.

  8. Applicability is not clear... by IdahoEv · · Score: 2 · on Cells Need Gravity to Develop

    I looked up the abstract of the original article because the news article reference wasn't all that clear. It's listed in P.N.A.S. as a chemistry study, not a biology study.

    It appears the researchers were examining self-organization of microtubules in solution, but not actually sending living cells into space. And it's pretty big stretch to extrapolate from a simple chemical solution to living cells in a human body.

    I'd hold off for now on calling this study the solution to the question long-term health deterioration in space.

  9. Yahoo and Slashdot have the details wrong by pmc · · Score: 5 · on It Came From Beyond ... In Buckyballs!
    See Nasa home page and NASA's version of the story for the details. Here is the abstract of the article.

    Yahoo (and the Slashdot story) has it wrong in that the helium is extraterristial NOT necessarily from outside the solar system. He3 is in fact found in the solar wind: the crust of the moon, for example, is thought to enriched in He3 from the solar wind.

    He3 does exist on earth (and in the rest of the Solar System for that matter). What is different is the ratio of He4 to He3 on Earth and in most of the rest of the solar system. What the article should say is that

    1) Helium is trapped inside Bucky-balls found in asteriod impact sites and 2) The He4 to He3 ratio is the same as the ratio in the rest of the solar system and is not the same as that on earth.

    This implies that 1) Buckyballs formed in space 2) They can trap gases in them and 3) They can survive extremely violent impact.

    Slashdot - please, please, please check the original sources for stories.

  10. Here is the press release by Raindeer · · Score: 3 · on It Came From Beyond ... In Buckyballs!

    The press release can be found here: http://george.arc.na sa.gov/dx/basket/pressrelease/00_20AR.html

    A preview of the article will be posted at: http://www.pnas.org

    It is research so it should be peer reviewed. But the source seems good.

  11. PDF version of the paper by raph · · Score: 1 · on Scientists map schematic of brain's fibers
    The PDF version of the paper, with lots of detailed images, is here.

    I'd like to commend the PNAS for putting the PDF file online for free and with no registration hassle. In addition, the server seems to be holding up quite well. It looks like a successful defense against the /. effect does exist!

  12. Reality check please ? by Morendil · · Score: 1 · on Scientists create flu virus entirely from genes

    Oh, yet another one of *those*. What does it actually *mean* to create an organism "entirely from genes" ? More precisely, how is the old-fashioned way of creating organisms different (i.e. *not* "entirely from genes") ? AFAIK I'm purely and entirely a product of various genes.

    Five minutes' searching produces this abstract of the relevant article from the NAS Proceedings.

    The abstract says that "Human embryonic kidney cells were transfected with eight plasmids [bits of DNA strands, right ?] [...] flanked by the human RNA polymerase I promoter [...] and viral polymerases". That doesn't sound so different from the previously discovered methods for cloning of larger organisms, where you inject DNA into an embryonic cell.

    What sounds more interesting is the "reverse genetics" reference - which is mentioned as the technique whereby the resultant virus is a hybrid of two different strains. Anybody have informative pointers regarding that ?

  13. Re:It's not just biology - Re:/. wrong forum for t by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Scientists create flu virus entirely from genes
    Pity this ones basically a CNN blurb.

    The entire article is on the PNAS website: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/ful l/96/16/9345 and is a lot more informative.