There are a lot of amateur geneticists out there. Quoting from Nature
Hours after Joseph Pickrell put his genome on the internet, an anonymous blogger took the data and concluded that he came from Ashkenazi Jewish stock. Pickrell, a genetics graduate student at the University of Chicago, Illinois, was sceptical about the claim. But after talking to relatives, he discovered that he had a Jewish great-grandfather who had moved to the United States from Poland at the turn of the nineteenth century. "It was a part of my ancestry I was totally unaware of," he says.
The blogger, who writes under the pseudonym Dienekes Pontikos at http://dodecad.blogspot.com/ had commandeered Pickrell's DNA as part of the Dodecad Ancestry Project, an ambitious project in which cutting-edge genomic analysis meets Web 2.0. Pontikos analyses genetic data submitted by followers of his blog to reconstruct personal ancestry and human population history — and reports his findings online. He is part of a small but growing group of 'genome bloggers', a mix of professional scientists and hobbyists proving that widely available tools for computational biology could enable recreational bioinformaticians to make new discoveries.
"They are not amateurs. They are far from being amateurs," says Doron Behar, a population geneticist at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, who studies human history. "I cannot stress enough the level of appreciation I have for their efforts."
Pontikos has so far analysed several hundred thousand single-letter DNA variations from more than 2,200 individuals. That includes more than 200 submitted to him by readers of his blog, who had had their genomes analysed by genetics testing firms such as 23AndMe, based in Mountain View, California, with the remainder coming from publicly available datasets. The readers volunteering their genomes (identities stay private) are mostly keen to delve into their own ancestry. But Pontikos, who is from Greece and describes himself as an "anthropology dilettante", is more interested in unfurling the history of populations that tend to be overlooked by human-population geneticists. For instance, his analysis of genomes from people living in northern Eurasia reveals a genetic connection between populations in northern Finland and central Siberia (see 'Meet the ancestors').
David Wesolowski, a 31-year-old Australian who runs the Eurogenes ancestry project (http://bga101.blogspot.com), also focuses on understudied populations. "It's a response, in a way, to the lack of formal work that's been done in certain areas, so we're doing it ourselves," he says. Wesolowski and a colleague have drilled into the population history of people living in Iran and eastern Turkey who identify as descendants of ancient Assyrians, and who sent their DNA for analysis. Preliminary findings suggest their ancestors may have once mixed with local Jewish populations, and Wesolowski plans to submit these results to a peer-reviewed journal.
But Pontikos sees little point in formally publishing his findings. "I can bypass them entirely, and have the entire world review what I write," he wrote in an e-mail. Indeed, comments on his blog — "could you please provide the eigenvalues for the principal component analysis", for instance — read like the niggling recommendations of a manuscript reviewer....
Maybe he is opening his genome to anybody who wants to study it. Since it is the only Open Source genome, I'm sure there will be plenty of research, and he could benefit from it (not financially, but it's a nice relief to be assured that you can not have alzehimer, diabetes or whatever.)
I know one of the perhaps 20 industrialized countries in the Worl has an obsession with cars; but less cars means less travel? I say non sequitur. Ever heard of trains and planes?
Also, the 8k miles/car/capita in USA vs 2k in Japan is meaningless: in Japan you never need to travel very far because it is smaller and has a higher density.
To study how random people choose their passwords. Bruce Schneier has a very interesting article about that.
"How good are the passwords people are choosing to protect their computers and online accounts?
It's a hard question to answer because data is scarce. But recently, a colleague sent me some spoils from a MySpace phishing attack: 34,000 actual user names and passwords."
So is this the origin of the flood myth? It seems more plausible than the south-east indian origin. I see it as a middle-point between Egypt's myth of Atlantis and the Sumerian flood tale as told in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
I'd be more worried if the feds hadn't access to 4chan.
I sicerely hope that all those "dump CP here" threads are started by the police, in order to find pedophiles.
It is because the imperialization wanted an English speaking world, but they did not consider that many people would hire English teachers. English teachers teach the English from England.
Admittedly I didn't know much about Stuxnet until after reading more about it and it seems to me just yet another windows virus that hasn't until now been discovered and mistakenly spread via contractors laptops.
Seems to me that this worm wasn't designed for a specific target and is like any other virus.. well that or this is how Skynet starts becoming self-aware and begins manufacturing terminators..
A recent slashdot article linked to a lenghty pdf description of Stuxnet by Symantec. This worm is incredibly complex. It loads itself into memory in a very clever way so that anti viruses can't find any strange behaviour, then checks if there's any newer version installed on the computer, or if it can reach a newer version of itself through P2P in networked computers. After self-updating, it looks for a specific software in the computer, which is used to program the industrial machines and everything that works in an industrial plant (called PLCs). Then it infectes that software in order to add malicious code to the controllers. The ultimate objective is to make them overload the industrial facility they want to attack.
Stuxnet is written in 3 programming languages, including an arcane assembly language; it's the first PLC rootkit and one of the most robust windows rootkits, and according to Symantec, developers needed to replicate the plant's compuetr's layout in order to test their worm (and previously had to develop another virus, just to map their network). It's been under active development for at least 2 years, by a team of 10+ professionals with big funding. I don't think it is just another windows virus.
Slashdot Mirror
Hours after Joseph Pickrell put his genome on the internet, an anonymous blogger took the data and concluded that he came from Ashkenazi Jewish stock. Pickrell, a genetics graduate student at the University of Chicago, Illinois, was sceptical about the claim. But after talking to relatives, he discovered that he had a Jewish great-grandfather who had moved to the United States from Poland at the turn of the nineteenth century. "It was a part of my ancestry I was totally unaware of," he says. The blogger, who writes under the pseudonym Dienekes Pontikos at http://dodecad.blogspot.com/ had commandeered Pickrell's DNA as part of the Dodecad Ancestry Project, an ambitious project in which cutting-edge genomic analysis meets Web 2.0. Pontikos analyses genetic data submitted by followers of his blog to reconstruct personal ancestry and human population history — and reports his findings online. He is part of a small but growing group of 'genome bloggers', a mix of professional scientists and hobbyists proving that widely available tools for computational biology could enable recreational bioinformaticians to make new discoveries. "They are not amateurs. They are far from being amateurs," says Doron Behar, a population geneticist at Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, who studies human history. "I cannot stress enough the level of appreciation I have for their efforts." Pontikos has so far analysed several hundred thousand single-letter DNA variations from more than 2,200 individuals. That includes more than 200 submitted to him by readers of his blog, who had had their genomes analysed by genetics testing firms such as 23AndMe, based in Mountain View, California, with the remainder coming from publicly available datasets. The readers volunteering their genomes (identities stay private) are mostly keen to delve into their own ancestry. But Pontikos, who is from Greece and describes himself as an "anthropology dilettante", is more interested in unfurling the history of populations that tend to be overlooked by human-population geneticists. For instance, his analysis of genomes from people living in northern Eurasia reveals a genetic connection between populations in northern Finland and central Siberia (see 'Meet the ancestors'). David Wesolowski, a 31-year-old Australian who runs the Eurogenes ancestry project (http://bga101.blogspot.com), also focuses on understudied populations. "It's a response, in a way, to the lack of formal work that's been done in certain areas, so we're doing it ourselves," he says. Wesolowski and a colleague have drilled into the population history of people living in Iran and eastern Turkey who identify as descendants of ancient Assyrians, and who sent their DNA for analysis. Preliminary findings suggest their ancestors may have once mixed with local Jewish populations, and Wesolowski plans to submit these results to a peer-reviewed journal. But Pontikos sees little point in formally publishing his findings. "I can bypass them entirely, and have the entire world review what I write," he wrote in an e-mail. Indeed, comments on his blog — "could you please provide the eigenvalues for the principal component analysis", for instance — read like the niggling recommendations of a manuscript reviewer. ...
Maybe he is opening his genome to anybody who wants to study it. Since it is the only Open Source genome, I'm sure there will be plenty of research, and he could benefit from it (not financially, but it's a nice relief to be assured that you can not have alzehimer, diabetes or whatever.)
Haha go tell a Chilean or a Peruvian, or anyone in Italy besides Sardinia-Piedmont, go tell France and Eastern Germany... you see my point?
The less apt individuals don't pass on their genes. That's the whole point of the Darwin Awards.
AND how heavy it is.
There's only one of me
How's this any different from the typical Microsoft behavior?
Come on, Bill gates more popular than the pope, Total Cost of ownership bullshit... I agree this is news for nerds but, is it stuff that matters? No.
no married priests? This week I read on a newspaper (it is in reuters too) that anglican priests becoming catholic stay married.
ought to be enough for everybody
I know one of the perhaps 20 industrialized countries in the Worl has an obsession with cars; but less cars means less travel? I say non sequitur. Ever heard of trains and planes?
Also, the 8k miles/car/capita in USA vs 2k in Japan is meaningless: in Japan you never need to travel very far because it is smaller and has a higher density.
I think it its "free from American companies" that counts.
In the black hat jargon impossible means that nobody has done it yet.
DDoS is against the law too. That doesn't stop them from doing it.
That's why a database dump is better: you get everything.
To study how random people choose their passwords. Bruce Schneier has a very interesting article about that. "How good are the passwords people are choosing to protect their computers and online accounts? It's a hard question to answer because data is scarce. But recently, a colleague sent me some spoils from a MySpace phishing attack: 34,000 actual user names and passwords."
Oh my God, you are SO right. In fact, it is impossible that any land west of Europe exists at all, it's just an old viking myth.... Oh wait
So is this the origin of the flood myth? It seems more plausible than the south-east indian origin. I see it as a middle-point between Egypt's myth of Atlantis and the Sumerian flood tale as told in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
I'd be more worried if the feds hadn't access to 4chan.
I sicerely hope that all those "dump CP here" threads are started by the police, in order to find pedophiles.
In universitatibus discipuli auctorabant magistri. Post multiplos annos, scientia probata et a magistris examinata, nomen "baccalaureus" merebant.
Well, you don't have to go back to latin; but that kind of "wiki-university" should have strong tests before giving out a degree.
The 5th slide has content "best designed for Google Chrome"...
It is because the imperialization wanted an English speaking world, but they did not consider that many people would hire English teachers. English teachers teach the English from England.
...to politics!
Admittedly I didn't know much about Stuxnet until after reading more about it and it seems to me just yet another windows virus that hasn't until now been discovered and mistakenly spread via contractors laptops.
Seems to me that this worm wasn't designed for a specific target and is like any other virus.. well that or this is how Skynet starts becoming self-aware and begins manufacturing terminators..
A recent slashdot article linked to a lenghty pdf description of Stuxnet by Symantec. This worm is incredibly complex. It loads itself into memory in a very clever way so that anti viruses can't find any strange behaviour, then checks if there's any newer version installed on the computer, or if it can reach a newer version of itself through P2P in networked computers. After self-updating, it looks for a specific software in the computer, which is used to program the industrial machines and everything that works in an industrial plant (called PLCs). Then it infectes that software in order to add malicious code to the controllers. The ultimate objective is to make them overload the industrial facility they want to attack.
Stuxnet is written in 3 programming languages, including an arcane assembly language; it's the first PLC rootkit and one of the most robust windows rootkits, and according to Symantec, developers needed to replicate the plant's compuetr's layout in order to test their worm (and previously had to develop another virus, just to map their network). It's been under active development for at least 2 years, by a team of 10+ professionals with big funding. I don't think it is just another windows virus.
Yes, and it should be called a GNU/Mac Book.
what about this: http://slashdot.org/~rms?