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Nobel Prize For Medicine Awarded For Insights Into Internal Biological Clock
Dave Knott quotes a report from The Guardian: The Nobel prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to a trio of American scientists for their discoveries on the molecular mechanisms controlling circadian rhythms -- in other words, the 24-hour body clock. According to the Nobel committee's citation, the researchers were recognized for their discoveries explaining "how plants, animals and humans adapt their biological rhythm so that it is synchronized with the Earth's revolutions." The team identified a gene within fruit flies that controls the creatures' daily rhythm, known as the "period" gene. This gene encodes a protein within the cell during the night which then degrades during the day. When there is a mismatch between this internal "clock" and the external surroundings, it can affect the organism's wellbeing -- for example, in humans, when we experience jet lag. All three winners are from the U.S. Jeffrey C Hall, 72, has retired but spent the majority of his career at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts, where fellow laureate Michael Rosbash, 73, is still a faculty member. Michael W Young, 68, works at Rockefeller University in New York.
Hall and Rosbash then went on to unpick how the body clock actually works, revealing that the levels of protein encoded by the period gene rise and fall throughout the day in a negative feedback loop. Young, meanwhile, discovered a second gene involved in the system, dubbed "timeless," that was critical to this process. Only when the proteins produced from the period gene combined with those from the timeless gene could they enter the cell's nucleus and halt further activity of the period gene. Young also discovered the gene that controlled the frequency of this cycle.
Hall and Rosbash then went on to unpick how the body clock actually works, revealing that the levels of protein encoded by the period gene rise and fall throughout the day in a negative feedback loop. Young, meanwhile, discovered a second gene involved in the system, dubbed "timeless," that was critical to this process. Only when the proteins produced from the period gene combined with those from the timeless gene could they enter the cell's nucleus and halt further activity of the period gene. Young also discovered the gene that controlled the frequency of this cycle.
ask yourself: if it takes "scientists" to do your job, why can we outsource it to low-wage workers in the other side of the world with no loss whatsoever?
My language doesn't attach the word "science" to computer degrees, so we're ahead of you on that one (well, except for Bachelor and Master degrees, but those are international names so don't blame us).
As for the quoted statement, in my experience we can't. Any company I've been in that has outsourced, and every friend who has been in the know in his or her company, tells the same story: outsourcing looks great on paper, but is a pile of stinking poo in reality. Money saved on wages for developers, gets lost in the poor quality of the delivered product, and the extra resources needed to manage them.
The only remedy I've seen is to not rent resources but instead establish a local office, then send people there a lot in order to bring that culture more in line with our own. It takes a long time, and costs a lot of money, but eventually they might become productive. I can only think of one example of it working, and it took about a decade to get there.
I am much more interested in the IgNobel prizes than in the Nobel prizes, especially since Dunning and Kruger were awarded the IgNobel prize for their work.
I was so grateful that somebody finally did some research into a phenomenon I am encountering every day.