Most libraries use WorldCat, also known as the OCLC union catalog. Unfortunately, it's not available for free to the general public. However, you don't say what kind of school you're at--if you're at a college or university, there's a very good chance that they have WorldCat, and I believe most colleges/universities have licensed it for anyone in the college/university to use at no additional cost. Check with a librarian.
The Library of Congress catalog is searchable by ISBN, and it has a Z39.50 gateway. I'm not familiar with the details, but my understanding of Z39.50 is that it is a protocol for information retrieval often used for searching library catalogs (but not exclusively designed for that purpose), so that you can write your own client to search any library catalog with a Z39.50 gateway without having to go through their web interface, for example.
LOC should have all books published in the US, and a goodly number of those published outside the US (although the collection is nowhere near complete, nor is it intended to be, for OUS books). One caveat is that LOC is somewhat slow to catalog new books, so books published within the last month or two may not be in there.
A large number of other libraries also have Z39.50 gateways to their catalogs, so you could even sytematically try other libraries' catalogs if you don't find it in LOC.
The advancements that we have made here are amazing and I wouldn't want to be without them, but when leaders come forward and compare our understanding with diety I have to question it. At least God has something to show for his knowledge. We have nothing to show for it.
Au contraire. See this article from the Washington Post where doctors are already applying genetic tests to determine whether a leukemia-fighting drug is likely to be effective or highly toxic in children.
Quite so. I have no problem, and even agree with the attitude "We should be very careful with genetic engineering, because of the potential for deleterious side effects." It is the attitude "We should avoid genetic engineering entirely, because of the potential for deleterious side effects" that I object to.
It's also worth noting that genetic engineering is not the only application of the Human Genome Project. Another one--and one likely to find widespread practical application much sooner than genetic engineering--is pharmacogenomics. There's a good article in Saturday's Washington Post on the topic.
Well, yes. Just the same way the moon landing was largely hype, a symbolic milestone. Those moon colonies are still 50+ years off. But that doesn't mean it's not an important milestone.
There's already plenty of tools to compare genetic sequences. And much better than diff-like functions for the purpose, because they're specifically designed for DNA and protein sequences. What, you think molecular biologists have never heard of computers, and they've been doing all their work by hand? That molecular biologists have never enlisted programmers to do such things before?
There's a whole field devoted to this sort of thing, called bioinformatics. For one of the popular programs used to compare biosequences, do a web search for ClustalW.
First, I thought everyone had different genes? Isn't that what makes some people have blue eyes vs. brown eyes etc.? So if they map the gene sequence that determines eye color, aren't they mapping one person's gene sequence? I don't get it.
Yes, but every human's genes are more than 99.9% identical. If they sequence one person's genes, then they have >99.9% of your sequence too.
Now, knowing exactly where the differences lie, and what those differences mean, is not a trivial problem, and that will take years after the genome is completed. (Remember today's announcement is only that a "rough draft" has been completed.) But even though the HGP isn't copmleted, work has already begun towards identifying and mapping single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). SNPs are one type of difference between people's gene sequences. Not the only type, but one of the most important, and certainly the most common.
Second, how does gene therapy work? I saw a story on TV where they identified someone's defective genes and "inserted" good genes somehow. Well - how did they do that? Don't you have the same chromosomes in every cell? Wouldn't they have to replace all cells' chromosomes?
Well, that's a difficult question to answer fully without getting into a graduate-level discussion of molecular biology. But I'll try to give some idea here. First of all, although (nearly) every cell contains the complete DNA of its organism, not every gene is "turned on" in every cell. Each gene codes for a certain protein, and so, although every cell contains the code for every protein, in any given cell most genes will be turned off, and the cell only produces a subset of its possible proteins. So part of the answer to your question is that the "correct" gene only needs to be inserted into the cells that would use it anway.
Second, in many genetic diseases it's often enough to give a person some cells which produce the correct version of the faulty protein. For example, suppose a given protein was, normally, not used within the cell it was produced, but instead released into the bloodstream. A person that, due to a genetic defect, had *no* cells that made this particular protein would benefit from having *some* cells which produced this protein, even if most of their cells continued not making this protein. So (and depending on the particular defect, this is true for some and not for others) even for the subset of cells which ought to be making the protein in question, you don't need to get the "good" gene into all cells; it will be sufficient to get it into some of them.
First of all, the fact that Clinton and Blair have stated that they want to make the information free does not mean that it's happened.
More importantly, however, is that there are multiple organizations working on sequencing the human genome. Do not confuse them.
Celera is a private, for-profit corporation. They would like to patent as much as they can (and already have, for some genes).
The Human Genome Project is a project being run at a number of labs, mostly university research labs. They are committed to releasing genetic sequences freely. They published the map of human chromosome 22 a few months ago in Nature. It is funded partly by government grants, but also by a consortium of many large, traditional pharmaceutical corporations. (Large pharma, which has not been doing genomic sequencing, does not want to have to pay Celera for use of the information any more than other research labs do. Corporations aren't evil, just self-interested. Sometimes that self-interest leads to evil, and sometimes to good.)
The problem with selecting based on intelligence, looks, or athletic ability is that most likely, we will not know what side effects this will have.
Ah, but the exact same thing is true with conventional drug testing. We can test a new drug in animals all we want, but we can't know for sure how a human will respond until the drug is given to humans. And even then, we can't predict with certainty how other people will respond to it. There's a number of drugs which were withdrawn from the market because they produced serious side effects or even death in a very small fraction of the populace (I'm talking on the order of one in a hundred thousand here), because that fraction was too small to be detected in clinical trials.
My point is that in spite of these risks, society has made the decision to pursue new drug development. We do what we can to minimize the risk, of course, but they can't be eliminated entirely.
Yes, there are risks with genetic engineering as well, but there is also the potential for great good. How is that any different than traditional pharmaceutical research?
I hate to respond to a troll, but it's worth pointing out that genetic engineering is not the only application of the HGP. Saturday's Washington Post had an excellent article on another potential application of HGP: pharmacogenomics. Essentially, pharmacogenomics is using the genetic identity of an individual to determine what drugs the person is likely to respond favorably to. Tody, we have only a limited understanding of why some people respond well to treatment X, while others have severe side effects.
It's harder to write briefly, while still effectively making your point, then to write lengthily.
Example: all through high school and college, where a good portion of the students had mediocre writing skills, I was assigned papers with minimum lengths.
When I got to graduate school--where, presumably, most students have some measure of proficiency at writing--the assigned papers were given with maximum lengths.
Did Katz actually do any research to see whether governments are moving to online transactions? If he did, he doesn't present any evidence of it in this article. As far as I can tell, he just assumes that governments aren't doing anything online. (Katz's motto: never let the facts get in the way of a provocative story.)
To the score or so of counterexamples which have already been posted, I'll add the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles. I renewed my license plate online this year, and the sticker arrived in the mail a mere two days later.
The lack of research here is very sloppy, but sadly typical of Katz.
A spoiler isn't necessary in perpetuity. I've never seen any credible guide to nettiquette that required a spoiler for any revelation of any plot in any story, no matter how old.
Maybe not, but it should be in there. I agree with YASD.
It's been 15 years. If you didn't read it yet, nobody cares.
Maybe I've only been reading SF for 6 months, and haven't gotten to that book yet?
I've always wanted to sock the guy who wrote the essay I read years ago which gave away what "Rosebud" is in Citizen Kane before I saw it--even though it was 50+ years after the movie came out.
I always cringe when I see the Simpsons episode where, in a flashback, Homer comes out of a movie theater showing The Empire Strikes Back and spoils the Big Secret for everyone standing in line...and everyone watching the Simpsons episode too. Just think that each time that episode airs, the Big Secret is ruined for some eight-year-old who hasn't seen TESB yet, but will.
Um, guys, if I filed a lawsuit, I would expect to need to take part in depositions. Course, I'm just one of them evil reverse-engineering-supporting hackers...
It's a lot easier to type luser@machine.place.blah.gronk.org than to type Bob and come up with a list of 48967 Bob's.
That's a very good reason why we still use addresses today. I never said addresses would disappear tomorrow.
Now ask yourself which is easier: to type "luser@machine.place.blah.gronk.org" and get a single user, or to type "Bob" and get a single user? (Oh wait, even the most primitive email programs allow aliases that already do that.)
Yes, if "Bob" is all you know about the person, then you'll come up with a list of thousands of people. But just how did you find this person's address in the first place? And wouldn't it work just as well with a link to the address, invisible to the user, as with having to manually retype the address every time you want to use it??!
Do you really manually type addresses every time you email someone? Things are already moving in the direction I outlined. Or perhaps you've never heard of an address book or aliases?
Please, try to have some semblance of an imagination and see where technology will be more than a week from now. Apparently you aren't capable of looking ahead further than that.
You know, I posted for months as an anonymous coward and never got flamed like that. I'll take it as a compliment that someone gave me enough notice to hate me so much.
Slashdot Mirror
You're thinking of CO2.
Most libraries use WorldCat, also known as the OCLC union catalog. Unfortunately, it's not available for free to the general public. However, you don't say what kind of school you're at--if you're at a college or university, there's a very good chance that they have WorldCat, and I believe most colleges/universities have licensed it for anyone in the college/university to use at no additional cost. Check with a librarian.
LOC should have all books published in the US, and a goodly number of those published outside the US (although the collection is nowhere near complete, nor is it intended to be, for OUS books). One caveat is that LOC is somewhat slow to catalog new books, so books published within the last month or two may not be in there.
A large number of other libraries also have Z39.50 gateways to their catalogs, so you could even sytematically try other libraries' catalogs if you don't find it in LOC.
Au contraire. See this article from the Washington Post where doctors are already applying genetic tests to determine whether a leukemia-fighting drug is likely to be effective or highly toxic in children.
Ah, a law, not a fact!!! You yourself demanded facts as evidence. Laws can be repealed.
Oh, and the answers you want are not in any book? How do you know? Have you read every book ever published??
It's also worth noting that genetic engineering is not the only application of the Human Genome Project. Another one--and one likely to find widespread practical application much sooner than genetic engineering--is pharmacogenomics. There's a good article in Saturday's Washington Post on the topic.
I think you will find that most /.ers believe the former, and a rather smaller number believe the latter.
Read a bit about evolution rather than attacking the strawmen creationists set up; don't show your ignorance.
Well, yes. Just the same way the moon landing was largely hype, a symbolic milestone. Those moon colonies are still 50+ years off. But that doesn't mean it's not an important milestone.
Evolution is just a theory the same way gravity is just a theory. I would like people to think about that.
There's a whole field devoted to this sort of thing, called bioinformatics. For one of the popular programs used to compare biosequences, do a web search for ClustalW.
Yes, but every human's genes are more than 99.9% identical. If they sequence one person's genes, then they have >99.9% of your sequence too.
Now, knowing exactly where the differences lie, and what those differences mean, is not a trivial problem, and that will take years after the genome is completed. (Remember today's announcement is only that a "rough draft" has been completed.) But even though the HGP isn't copmleted, work has already begun towards identifying and mapping single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). SNPs are one type of difference between people's gene sequences. Not the only type, but one of the most important, and certainly the most common.
Second, how does gene therapy work? I saw a story on TV where they identified someone's defective genes and "inserted" good genes somehow. Well - how did they do that? Don't you have the same chromosomes in every cell? Wouldn't they have to replace all cells' chromosomes?
Well, that's a difficult question to answer fully without getting into a graduate-level discussion of molecular biology. But I'll try to give some idea here. First of all, although (nearly) every cell contains the complete DNA of its organism, not every gene is "turned on" in every cell. Each gene codes for a certain protein, and so, although every cell contains the code for every protein, in any given cell most genes will be turned off, and the cell only produces a subset of its possible proteins. So part of the answer to your question is that the "correct" gene only needs to be inserted into the cells that would use it anway.
Second, in many genetic diseases it's often enough to give a person some cells which produce the correct version of the faulty protein. For example, suppose a given protein was, normally, not used within the cell it was produced, but instead released into the bloodstream. A person that, due to a genetic defect, had *no* cells that made this particular protein would benefit from having *some* cells which produced this protein, even if most of their cells continued not making this protein. So (and depending on the particular defect, this is true for some and not for others) even for the subset of cells which ought to be making the protein in question, you don't need to get the "good" gene into all cells; it will be sufficient to get it into some of them.
More importantly, however, is that there are multiple organizations working on sequencing the human genome. Do not confuse them.
Celera is a private, for-profit corporation. They would like to patent as much as they can (and already have, for some genes).
The Human Genome Project is a project being run at a number of labs, mostly university research labs. They are committed to releasing genetic sequences freely. They published the map of human chromosome 22 a few months ago in Nature. It is funded partly by government grants, but also by a consortium of many large, traditional pharmaceutical corporations. (Large pharma, which has not been doing genomic sequencing, does not want to have to pay Celera for use of the information any more than other research labs do. Corporations aren't evil, just self-interested. Sometimes that self-interest leads to evil, and sometimes to good.)
Ah, but the exact same thing is true with conventional drug testing. We can test a new drug in animals all we want, but we can't know for sure how a human will respond until the drug is given to humans. And even then, we can't predict with certainty how other people will respond to it. There's a number of drugs which were withdrawn from the market because they produced serious side effects or even death in a very small fraction of the populace (I'm talking on the order of one in a hundred thousand here), because that fraction was too small to be detected in clinical trials.
My point is that in spite of these risks, society has made the decision to pursue new drug development. We do what we can to minimize the risk, of course, but they can't be eliminated entirely.
Yes, there are risks with genetic engineering as well, but there is also the potential for great good. How is that any different than traditional pharmaceutical research?
I hate to respond to a troll, but it's worth pointing out that genetic engineering is not the only application of the HGP. Saturday's Washington Post had an excellent article on another potential application of HGP: pharmacogenomics. Essentially, pharmacogenomics is using the genetic identity of an individual to determine what drugs the person is likely to respond favorably to. Tody, we have only a limited understanding of why some people respond well to treatment X, while others have severe side effects.
Example: all through high school and college, where a good portion of the students had mediocre writing skills, I was assigned papers with minimum lengths.
When I got to graduate school--where, presumably, most students have some measure of proficiency at writing--the assigned papers were given with maximum lengths.
To the score or so of counterexamples which have already been posted, I'll add the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles. I renewed my license plate online this year, and the sticker arrived in the mail a mere two days later.
The lack of research here is very sloppy, but sadly typical of Katz.
Maybe not, but it should be in there. I agree with YASD.
It's been 15 years. If you didn't read it yet, nobody cares.
Maybe I've only been reading SF for 6 months, and haven't gotten to that book yet?
I've always wanted to sock the guy who wrote the essay I read years ago which gave away what "Rosebud" is in Citizen Kane before I saw it--even though it was 50+ years after the movie came out.
I always cringe when I see the Simpsons episode where, in a flashback, Homer comes out of a movie theater showing The Empire Strikes Back and spoils the Big Secret for everyone standing in line...and everyone watching the Simpsons episode too. Just think that each time that episode airs, the Big Secret is ruined for some eight-year-old who hasn't seen TESB yet, but will.
President Clinton isn't deposed every time the U.S. is involved in a lawsuit.
The MPAA filed a lawsuit.
Jack Valenti did not file a lawsuit.
Why depose Jack Valenti?
Haiku purists whine:
"Needs season!" Bah. All you need
Is five seven five.
Once a land of thought
Perpetual September
Killed the Internet
That's a very good reason why we still use addresses today. I never said addresses would disappear tomorrow.
Now ask yourself which is easier: to type "luser@machine.place.blah.gronk.org" and get a single user, or to type "Bob" and get a single user? (Oh wait, even the most primitive email programs allow aliases that already do that.)
Yes, if "Bob" is all you know about the person, then you'll come up with a list of thousands of people. But just how did you find this person's address in the first place? And wouldn't it work just as well with a link to the address, invisible to the user, as with having to manually retype the address every time you want to use it??!
Do you really manually type addresses every time you email someone? Things are already moving in the direction I outlined. Or perhaps you've never heard of an address book or aliases?
Please, try to have some semblance of an imagination and see where technology will be more than a week from now. Apparently you aren't capable of looking ahead further than that.
You know, I posted for months as an anonymous coward and never got flamed like that. I'll take it as a compliment that someone gave me enough notice to hate me so much.
Anecdotal evidence is saying "I survived Russian Roulette, therefore it's safe."