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The Next X Prize

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the sounds-very-seXy dept.

BlueCup writes "The X Prize Foundation, sponsor of a widely noted 2004 award for developing a reusable rocket suitable for private space travel, says it is now teaming with a wealthy Canadian geologist to offer $10 million to any team that can completely decode the genes of 100 people in 10 days. And that's not all. As an encore, the winning team will be paid $1 million more to decode another 100 people's genes, including a bevy of wealthy donors and celebrities. Already accepted for future decoding: Google Inc. co-founder Larry Page, Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul G. Allen and former junk-bond king Michael Milken."

5 of 114 comments (clear)

  1. Will they decode Ballmer's genes as well? by cp.tar · · Score: 4, Funny

    See if they can find the chair-throwing gene...

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    Ignore this signature. By order.
  2. This is the beginning of the end by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Maybe MY genes are worth decoding too, despite the fact that I'm not a C-level executive at a Fortune 500 company.

    Welcome to the World of Tomorrow! Where only the obscenely rich can afford immortality for themselves and their families, and the rest of us are left out in the cold... we are called "invalids" with an icy, sneering indifference by the wealthy, geneticly gifted sons of Paul Allen and Larry Page.

    Wake up people. There's a war on the horizon and the denying this technology to us proles us is going to be a major weapon.

  3. And to sweeten the deal by krell · · Score: 4, Funny

    "And to sweeten the deal, we've hidden special codes somewhere the spleen section section of the genes of everyone on earth. Make sure to check these codes at www.mountaindew.com to win your free iTunes music: and one prize winner WILL RECEIVE A NEW NISSAN XTERRA!"

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    Where were you when the voynix came?
  4. I'm sponsoring a prize too by Anne_Nonymous · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sponsoring the XXX prize for two women willing to accept my genetic code at the same time.

  5. 1000 TB by fragles · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You just need to buy lot of 454 sequencing devices (http://www.454.com/) or Solexa http://www.solexa.com/wt/page/index and have big datacenter. Then you use those sequencers to re-sequence those 100 people and compare them with the reference human sequence. Big datacenter - You will need 30 Solexa devices and around 1000 TB data storage this is a nice task for Google datacenter.