X Prizes for DNA, Nanotech, Autos, Education

An anonymous reader writes "Larry Page and Craig Venter are now on the X Prize Board of Trustees, and Peter Diamandis, the man behind the $10 million space prize, said new X prizes are in the works for innovations in automobiles, education, nanotech and DNA reseach. Diamandis, from the article: "Why do we still drive cars that use an internal combustion engine and only get 30 miles per gallon? I think that we'll see some amazing achievements in this area." This is in addition to the foundation's incentive to completely decode the DNA of 100 or more people covered earlier on Slashdot."

Comments

"Decode DNA"? Oh really? DES or RSA?

[eldavojohn]

This is in addition to the foundation's incentive to completely decode the DNA of 100 or more people covered earlier on Slashdot.

If there's one thing that confuses me, it's why anyone ever uses the verb "decode" when speaking about DNA. Maybe it's just because it sounds cool and "sequence DNA" isn't quite as futuristic. Because that's all their asking for them to do--read the DNA into a form that reflects the ordering of G, T, A or C which are abbreviations for the different possible amino acids.

Now, to "decode" that would mean that it's encrypted somehow, but it's not. It's there in strands in the center of a cell's nucleus. Maybe "extract" would work as a verb, but we're certainly not cracking any encryption. Do I use RSA encryption to protect my genes from you? No. Even if I did, they'd likely only have to crack it once unless everyone used separate public keys.

What it would really mean to decode DNA would be to figure out what the sequence is actually telling us and we are a far far way from that. The sequence reveals the three letter nucleotides and these then reveal many different proteins that form upon folding. We need to find out which are junk, how recombination works, what defines a stop codon, which nucleotides form which proteins, understanding the C-value, etc. Once that happens, then we can start claiming we've decoded something. Please, people, its function is encrypted, not its sequence.

When an X-prize is issued using this wording, it really makes me think twice if they really even know what they want done to win the prize. If you take it literally, that's awfully ambitious. Of course, there's no way to reverse the use of this word as I believe the media has made it a permanent house-hold phrase ...

ARRGH! Too much information!

[Anonymous Coward]

...completely decode the DNA of 100 or more people covered earlier on Slashdot."

I'm well aware the Japanese have a word for it, but please, no more stories about people covered in DNA.

Re:Answer:

[dal20402]

This is completely self-perpetuating, and your answer is just "There's nothing we can do about it."

There is no reason a vehicle has to be 18 feet long and weigh 5000 pounds to be safe or perform adequately. They are that big because people like big vehicles, plain and simple. Why? Who knows. Probably a combination of 1) misguided feelings of safety and 2) dick size.

Because of its superior responsiveness and its unwillingness to roll or tip, I feel far safer driving a 2500-pound Honda Civic with good tires than a monster Ford truck. Statistics on the frequency (as opposed to severity) of accidents not related to reckless/negligent driving bear my intuition out.

Half the solution is to make the cost of driving large vehicles reflect their social cost, through increased gas taxes, registration fees based on vehicle weight, and requiring a CDL with the attendant fees and training for all trucks over 5000 lbs. or over 78" high. The other half of the solution is to convince people that driving your 200-pound self to the grocery store in a 5000-pound truck is stupid.

Re:Why not use renewable energy?

[servognome]

Simple, with our current economy and infrastructure it is more profitable to very influential energy companies this way. And since our current President and Vice President are very close to these energy companies, you will see very little in the way of change.

Actually the reason is with our current economy and infrastucture it was more profitable for EVERYBODY. Notice how people are now looking for alternatives to gas powered vehicles at the same time the oil companies are making record profits.
When oil was cheap there was no incentive to look at alternatives, now that it's become more expensive there is a market demand for more efficient/alternative fuel vehicles.