Cellulose has major problems compared to starch. It's not soluble, it's mixed with other insoluble materials (lignins, etc.)and the breakdown process is more costly in terms of energy and processing.
Where does it require Citizenship?
on
Explosives Camp
·
· Score: 1
Where does it say that the camp is restricted to US Citizens? I can't find it anywhere (e.g. from "How do I get selected?") Considering how rare it is for Americans to have passports and how common it is to be non-citizen in US, I'd be quite surprised for the Citizenship requirement.
However I imagine debugging on a quantum computer will be no fun: After all, quantum programs will behave different when you look at them with a debugger!
And how is that different from debugging C pointers?;)
The article isn't totally clear about it but the Finnish university in question is the Helsinki University of Technology (in the city of Espoo) and not the University of Helsinki. These are the largest two universities in Finland and both have Physics departments so the distinction is important.
Altough this is a good achivement it's no scientific breakthrough. If you're interested please read the description section from the patent It's quite well written and understandable.
There's few things you have to know about viruses and cancer to understand this thing:
First: The viruses (adenoviruses to be specific) work by infecting the host (human) cell and by forcing the host to replicate the viral DNA and to produce the proteins coded in the DNA. After few days of this, a lot of new viruses form inside the host cell and the cell gets broken up (lysed) relasing a lot of new viruses to infect the nearby cells.
Second: Cancer is uncontrolled replication of cells. Actually quite many genes must be deactivated (like p53) and activated (like telomerase) to produce a bad type (neoplastic) tumor. The telomerase is needed in the cancer cells because it extends the ends of the chromosomes in the cell after each replication, thus allowing a cell to replicate more.
Prior art: Some people have taken the promoter (DNA sequence that activates a gene) from human telomerase and put it in an adenovirus (that was mutated to be non-replicating) together with cell-suicide inducing gene. By infecting a cancer cell with this virus, you can kill it nicely if the cell expresses telomerase (i.e. is replicated i.e. is a cancer cell)
The problem with the prior art is that producing non-replicating viruses is difficult and expensive and you have to infect all of the cells more or less individually.
Invention: Use the telomerase promoter to drive a gene required for the DNA replication in the virus. This way the virus will kill (by lysis) the cancer cells and infect the other cells nearby but will not lyse the healthy (telomerase-deactive) cells.
Even though this is not a major scientific breakthrough I still hope this works and think it's clearly worth a patent.
Distributed genotyping sounds like a good idea at first but you should be woried about quality controls. I mean I've seen "Molecular biology for Computer Scientists (PhDs)" courses where people sequence their own (as in "..flesh and blood") samples and after a BLAST search find out that they are more of an E.Coli than Human.
Actually this remainds me of Chinas "Great Leap Forward" when Mao thought it would be a great idea to have people produce steel in their backyards. Needless to say the little steel produced was useless and lot of time and resources were waisted.
So how long before someone develops a cell phone that can be dunked in alcohol or run through the autoclave to sterilize it?
Do you mean something like Nokia 6250? Anyways, at least Finnish hospitals don't allow GSM phones on their premises. Worry about mixing radio transmitters and heart monitors, I guess.
In Finland, the company that loses a customer, can charge the porting fees from the telco that receives the number. The standard fee is negotiated beforehand between the telcos and no company dares to (directly) charge the fee from the customer they are about to receive.
This way the telcos can't rise and obscure the prices by claiming it's because of the number portability.
Finland
Population: 5,183,545
Land Area: 305,470 sq km
Population Density: 16.96 (55% of the United States)
Gasoline price: 1.1EUR/litre (about 4.1USD/Gallon 297% of the United States. avg. 1.38USD/Gallon)
And Finland does have very good public transport system. In the capital area I don't really need a car and trains and busses take you to even smallest towns.
We've had some pretty clear distinctions between Science and philosophy for a long time now.
Scientists like Newton would be good to read as an introduction.
You mean Newton's Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (The Mathematical Principles of
Natural Philosophy, 1687)? That sure makes a clear distinction between Science and philosophy.;)
While I do agree, that the philosophy they write in philosophy departments around the world is mostly useless, I still consider philosophy as the foundation of all (both axiomatic and natural) sciences. As philosophy means "the love of wisdom" it should be the cornerstone of all science (and life in general).
The Brand for modern technology. For example the Trabant was a car with no competitor in the west. The Trabant was the only car in the world that didn't need a metaljob. (Because it was made of plastic)
Why do people bash everything thats in any way related to Micro$oft? Okey, they are evil and all that but every university could be proud of having a CS department like MS Research.
In case you don't know, the MSR does not make applications but the do Research. I'd much rather read the research papers about this thing than just very limited opinions of some zealots who don't know anything about the matter but that the research is done by Micro$oft.
The fact is that MSR makes supprisingly high quality research for a commercial company. Especially their work on Bayesian Networks is of very high standard. If you're interrested in computer science you should find MSRs publications noteworthy.
How long before we see robots driving taxis a la Total Recall?
They're working on it! In UC Berkeley they have a BATmobile (Bayesian Automated Taxi) project. No hardware though. And for an off-topic note I'd say that slashdot is too hardware centric anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
True, but a bit of Cellulase, Hydrogenase and some genetic engineering might make the hydrogen economy viable.
Where does it say that the camp is restricted to US Citizens? I can't find it anywhere (e.g. from "How do I get selected?") Considering how rare it is for Americans to have passports and how common it is to be non-citizen in US, I'd be quite surprised for the Citizenship requirement.
at least back in time.
a -search&q=Gain-assisted+superluminal+light+propaga tion
"This week" (when the Nature article was published) was 7 years ago: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?sourceid=Mozill
There's few things you have to know about viruses and cancer to understand this thing:
First: The viruses (adenoviruses to be specific) work by infecting the host (human) cell and by forcing the host to replicate the viral DNA and to produce the proteins coded in the DNA. After few days of this, a lot of new viruses form inside the host cell and the cell gets broken up (lysed) relasing a lot of new viruses to infect the nearby cells.
Second: Cancer is uncontrolled replication of cells. Actually quite many genes must be deactivated (like p53) and activated (like telomerase) to produce a bad type (neoplastic) tumor. The telomerase is needed in the cancer cells because it extends the ends of the chromosomes in the cell after each replication, thus allowing a cell to replicate more.
Prior art: Some people have taken the promoter (DNA sequence that activates a gene) from human telomerase and put it in an adenovirus (that was mutated to be non-replicating) together with cell-suicide inducing gene. By infecting a cancer cell with this virus, you can kill it nicely if the cell expresses telomerase (i.e. is replicated i.e. is a cancer cell)
The problem with the prior art is that producing non-replicating viruses is difficult and expensive and you have to infect all of the cells more or less individually.
Invention: Use the telomerase promoter to drive a gene required for the DNA replication in the virus. This way the virus will kill (by lysis) the cancer cells and infect the other cells nearby but will not lyse the healthy (telomerase-deactive) cells.
Even though this is not a major scientific breakthrough I still hope this works and think it's clearly worth a patent.
Actually this remainds me of Chinas "Great Leap Forward" when Mao thought it would be a great idea to have people produce steel in their backyards. Needless to say the little steel produced was useless and lot of time and resources were waisted.
Do you mean something like Nokia 6250? Anyways, at least Finnish hospitals don't allow GSM phones on their premises. Worry about mixing radio transmitters and heart monitors, I guess.
This way the telcos can't rise and obscure the prices by claiming it's because of the number portability.
Finland
Population: 5,183,545
Land Area: 305,470 sq km
Population Density: 16.96 (55% of the United States)
Gasoline price: 1.1EUR/litre (about 4.1USD/Gallon 297% of the United States. avg. 1.38USD/Gallon)
And Finland does have very good public transport system. In the capital area I don't really need a car and trains and busses take you to even smallest towns.
Noticed an interesting thing: They link to Iranian news agency. Is that freedom of press or what!
Not to offend anyone but that's not what I expected from an american company (or from an Iranian news buro for that matter)
Og: I didn't know it was loaded!
--
As annoying as it is, it's nothing new or generally disapproved. Even mozilla has it.
Kimmo
--
You mean Newton's Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, 1687)? That sure makes a clear distinction between Science and philosophy. ;)
While I do agree, that the philosophy they write in philosophy departments around the world is mostly useless, I still consider philosophy as the foundation of all (both axiomatic and natural) sciences. As philosophy means "the love of wisdom" it should be the cornerstone of all science (and life in general).
--
Just look at the exchange rates between USD and EUR (Euro, the common currency for almost all western Europe, except England, Sweden, Norway..)
- 1.12.1998 1USD=0.85EUR
- 1.12.1999 1USD=0.97EUR
- 1.12.2000 1USD=1.12EUR
Today you get 25% discount for euros compared to situation two years ago.On the other hand; if you're working you get less money!
--
--
In case you don't know, the MSR does not make applications but the do Research. I'd much rather read the research papers about this thing than just very limited opinions of some zealots who don't know anything about the matter but that the research is done by Micro$oft.
The fact is that MSR makes supprisingly high quality research for a commercial company. Especially their work on Bayesian Networks is of very high standard. If you're interrested in computer science you should find MSRs publications noteworthy.
--
--
They're working on it! In UC Berkeley they have a BATmobile (Bayesian Automated Taxi) project. No hardware though. And for an off-topic note I'd say that slashdot is too hardware centric anyway.
--