X-Prize to Award $10M for Fast Sequencing

Shipud writes "The X-Prize foundation has announced the $10 million Archon X PRIZE for Genomics — for the first privately financed group to sequence 100 human genomes in 10 days. The motivation is to create an incentive for faster, cheaper genome seqeunceing, heralding the era of preventative personalized medicine. The winner will also receive an extra $1,000,000 for sequencing the genomes of 100 additional people; among them Larry King and Stephen Hawking. Apparently this is the largest medical prize in history."

Comments

Re:Dupe

[nyri]

Good. Because last time the discussion was a disgrace. Let's hope this one will be better. I'm sorry for this off-topic rant but the state of slashdot is really bugging me.

I just read the last discussion. Two of the three score:5 comments were jokes. They weren't even very funny. First one was about Steve Ballmer and his chair throwing as if that thing isn't a cliche. The second one was obvious. It was about XXX-Price and "genetic material". You can figure the rest. It was pretty well writen. Hence, it was, at least, somewhat funny.

The one additional comment was about haves and have-nots. A decent comment that deserves a discussion. Well, where's the discussion. The whole story got 115 comments (and three score:5). This site is suposed to be "news for nerds, stuff that matters". At the moment the most commented article on the front page is a FUD posting about Vista's supposedly über-draconian EULA. One of the first score:5 comments goes as follows:

I just read through the entire EULA because I just couldn't believe they had included "Home Basic users can't copy ISOs to their hard drives". Turns out I was right. As far as I can tell there is no restriction to ISO's per-se, instead the original author was attempting to infer a lack of a right of some versions to store a copy of the software [meaning, a copy of the vista DVD] on "network storage" based on the fact that this right is permitted for Ultimate. However, just because they grant a right to some versions doesn't mean you don't have that right when it isn't explicitly granted - for instance even if they only enumerated the right to backup copies for Ultimate you'd still have that right for all others, existing law generally grants it.

The translation to "can't copy [any] iso's" happened in the last step, by the comment submitter, and is as far s I can tell just a complete fabrication.

Some part of me wonders why a website full of people who swear to their grave that they'll never run a piece of software is so intent on discrediting it that they make up shit. Carry on though boys, have fun.

Does people continue reading the comments, the story and posting more comments? Hell, yeah!! And does anyone bother to come and discuss about one of the most intresting new themes in our society, namely the coming of an age where every person's genetic makeup can and will be analyzed. It seems not.