Open Source Software Meets Do-It-Yourself Biology

destinyland writes "This article profiles a growing movement — DIY biology — that's made possible in part by open source tools. Using programs like BioPerl and BioPython, DIY biologists write their own code (computer and genetic), designing their own biological systems and altering the genome. A protein-folding simulator, Folding@home, is now the most powerful distributed computing cluster in the world, and as the movement evolves, cooperatives are also springing up where hobbyists pool resources and create 'hacker spaces' to reduce costs and share knowledge. 'As the shift to open source software continues, computational biology will become even more accessible, and even more powerful,' this article argues — while intellectual property and other bureaucracies continue to hobble traditional forms of research."

Comments

Re:Distributed Cluster

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The throughput and latency of a cluster that works over the public internet would make your basic 100Mb ethernet operation laugh, not to mention the cool kids in myranet and infiniband; but the difference is one of degree rather than kind. If your problem is loosely coupled enough, it works just fine.

yes,

[circletimessquare]

that's exactly what she says

is that you francesca?

Re:Is this really a new thing?

[Locke2005]

Fortunately, in this case your initial assumption was correct -- Venus is indeed a Homo Sapiens. Nevertheless, some people still refer to her mother as a "bitch". Good luck with your experiments, and remember -- practice makes perfect!