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Researchers Use Google's Search Algorithms To Fight Cancer

Posted by samzenpus on from the searching-for-a-cure dept.

MatthewVD writes "German scientists have modified Google's PageRank algorithm to scan tumors and learn more about how cancers progress. PageRank orders results based on how other web pages are connected to them via hyperlinks; the modified algorithm, NetRank, scans how genes and proteins in a cell are similarly connected through a network of interactions with their neighbors. This approach could also yield new therapies to help combat tumors."

2 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Oh Geez by martin-boundary · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's not a "google" algorithm. Google's contribution to science isn't the ranking algorithm, it's the _scale_ of application on the order of billions of nodes. People have been doing calculations using "PageRank" for about a century before Google was founded (by hand obviously).

  2. All fucking journos must fucking die by Rogerborg · · Score: 4, Insightful
    • Researchers: "[NetRank operates] in a manner similar to Google's PageRank"
    • Retard masquerading as a professional journalist: "Researchers modified PageRank to develop NetRank"

    Die. Just die in a fire. Die, die, die.

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    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.