Voyage To Sequence DNA From the World's Oceans

joehoya writes "Wired has an extensive article about an expedition with the goal of discovering new microbial species and new genes in the world's oceans. The expedition is led by J. Craig Venter, who is best known for his involvement in the race to sequence the Human Genome. This is a really fascinating expedition with a pretty high geek quotient. I know, as I set up many of the computer and other electronic systems aboard, and traveled with the expedition as far as the Pacific side of the Panama Canal. In fact, you can see me (ok, the side of my head) in one of the article's pictures, next to the Captain while helping to take a sea water sample."

Comments

This could have a big impact on computing

[beee]

Take a moment to familiarize yourself with genetic algorithms and you'll begin to understand this research's potential impact on computing. Institutes like HPL are quickly moving on DNA computing and some fundamental bit-manipulation has already taken place at a chromosomal level at MIT. This is the most exciting area of computing, and just might make AI possible.

Re:The ultimate goal here is...

[beee]

My local LUG actually attached a modified laser pointer to a small shark's head -- the kind of shark you can keep in a fish tank... I don't recall its species name. We had quite a great time reciting Austin Powers lines for a few hours before we removed the water-proofed pointer from the confused shark's body. Unfortunately the only camera at the event met with an untimely death before the pictures could be recovered.

If you're in the Baltimore LUG and happened to have a camera at the event, please contact myself or Horatio -- we really regret not having any photos. If you managed to snap a photo, please, let us know!