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Bioinformatics in The Economist
Erich Schwarz writes "Bioinformatics has gone from being an esoteric sub-field to being a business. The Economist gives a useful overview, while warning 'Bioinformatics is not for the faint of heart...'"
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It seems as most everything in computer has "been done", and biology/chemisty/biochemical engineering seems to be where all the fun & excitement is these days.
What about quantum computing? Chemical computing? Optical computing?
No, I don't agree. I don't agree at all. We are on the cusp of the biggest improvents in computing in my opinion. It's like cars. First 50 years there was huge improvements. But they didn't become really useful, commodity goods even, until everyone had one. Then the real useful work begins. Refinement. Same with computing. The largest gains in terms of speed, etc have probobly happened already. But now we have the golden age to look forward. Where computers, as useful as they are now, will become more useful(kinda redundant, but oh well). We will soon be able to have computers that don't crash, that work with everything. Moreso, everyone will be able to use them, like cars. And then, when most can afford to use, and most can use, is when the real fun and excieting stuff happens. Computers that do the work, instead of you doing most of it. Photorealic games, surgey from half way around the world. The golden age is coming.
The golden age is coming.
I agree, and I'd just go one step further. I don't think computing will ever reach a point of stagnation. Computing is about ideas, and as long as we are human, we'll always have new ideas.
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -A. Turing
Fuck you. What if I happen to be passionate about medieval sailing ropes? What kind of job will I get? Will you pay for me to live somewhere because what I'm passionate about doesn't pay?
This society that we created forces people into things they don't care about so they can eat.
You happen to like computers and it pays right now. So get off your high horse and consider the point of view of other people.
I'm not sure from whence came all your 'hences' but the sixty four combinations of ACTG only translate into 20 (some argue a few more) amino acids and start/stop signals. The system is highly redundant to lessen the impact of single-base polymorphsims (i.e. if a codon is CCA and the second C is copied as an A accidentally the same amino acid still can be produced in the end-result protein chain).
... it's not 64bit computation. It's ~23bit computation ... but all those other buzzwords are fun too. :)
So hence
-j
The difference in modern computing and modern biochemistry/genetics/developmental biology is that bioenginnering is a good deal behind computing. 50 years ago, we were working on making computers work. We didn't really get to working on all the applications of computers until computers could be personalized and used in the home. Bioengineering is still at the point where it's being explored. It's all being done in labs because there aren't "do it yourself" genetics labs you can put in your home. Eventually there will be, but not right now. Therefore, if you want to fark around with DNA, you need a degree and a job. If you want to fark around with computers, all you need is to teach yourself some languages and get a PC.
It's not that computers aren't as exciting as genetics is right now...there's a lot more you can do with computers than DNA at the moment. However, genetics is more exclusive because it is not as availible to the public.
If not all sentients are human, couldn't it be possible that not all humans are sentient either?
I don't think it matters what you majored in--these days you can cross over.
When it comes to bioinformatics, this is certainly true. However, to be successful in bioinformatics, people need a basic knowledge of chemistry, biology, molecular biology, genetics, programming, medicine, comp. sci. and perhaps some library science to be proficient in bioinformatics and this combination can be hard to come by. Additionally, an ability to successfully communicate with folks from all of those disciplines is crucial and can be even harder to come by. For another article on some of these issues in bioinformatics (with an admitted bias towards the Macintosh) read this article I wrote for Scientia et Macintosh
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What you can do, however, is apply computer science and engineering skills to biological problems: work as a developer or engineer for a biotech company or lab.
I kind of hope I don't get modded down for this as I am totally serious: This is one of those posts where I didn't know whether to mod it "Insightful" or "Funny." Perhaps we need the new mod: "Lost"
Sunny
Be my Friend
Bioinformatics is a fun interesting field. I worry however, that it may be a little overhyped. People who are interested in bioinformatics need to realize it is a very (albeit cool) specialized field. There aren't going to be a million more bioinformatics researchers in the world. The demand for these researchers just isn't there (and won't be there in the near future). For example, a search on hotjobs reveals only 51 listings for the keyword bioinformatics and nearly 900 listings for programmer.
That said, bioinformatics is exciting. If a computer savy person is interested in getting into it, they should intern or work for a researcher/professor on a research project. You might be surprised, however, when you find that working as a programmer elsewhere pays 2-4 times more.
-Sean (sdm@stanford.edu)
I'm a graduate student in mathematics and I find biology "hard". It's somewhat straightforwards, but there's too much crap to memorize. But all the biology people I know think math is hard, so it's obviously a matter of personal attributes and taste as to what is "hard" or "easy".
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Well, as sorry I am that you had a bad experience as a Biology major, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I got my undergraduate degree in Biology from Hillsdale College in Michigan and minored in Chemistry. If you don't enjoy your major, change it. Seems pretty simple to me.
And the fact that there is a large number of people in Biology classes I would hypothesize is related to the number of people who try to get into Medical School. And veternary school and graduate school in biomedical sciences which is a huge and growing field. Whereas I don't think CS majors have that many options.
I am currently getting a PhD in Pharmacology/Biochemistry but just wanted to offer a counter opinion as someone who LOVED Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry and Cell Biology and Developmental Biology. Biology and Chemistry are absolutely fascinating. If you don't enjoy them, don't major in them...just like if you don't enjoy CS....don't major in it. I think that's a better message to send then "I highly discourage anyone from majoring in Bio".
I assume you didn't get a teaching certificate or take any business classes where you could have easily done hospital finances. Or did you look at Government jobs as an inspector of the numerous things the government regulates. Or look to OSHA or some college/company similar organization for training on safety issues. All can be based on a biology degree. Just a couple counter thoughts from a person who loves biomedical science!
Biology is hard because Mother Nature is the most dirty hacker on the planet!
Imagine trying to unpick the code of a programmer who:-does not know how to program, so just randomly diddles with the code (any code, the program, the compiler or the operating system she don't care) and uses whatevers just good enough.
who does not know about documenting, or version control
who's software testing is done by the users
and when she does reuse her code, its sometimes the result of two projects converging on the same solution.