If they are just trying these techniques now, then paleontologists need to start visiting with other departments. The sciences have evolved so much over they last 20 years that in order to do any real work you have to associate with people outside your discipline.
LSCM has been used for ages outside of biology in quality control for chip manufactures. Laser Scanning Confocal Microscopy improves your Z resolution by eliminating light from above and below the plane of focus. This helps in thick biological samples. Usually you can only image up to 300 microns into a sample (sometimes up to 700 depending on objective and wavelength). Now, with fossils, I assume that you can only see the very top layer, because light wont penetrate rock that far.
Raman. The Raman effect was described in 1928. However, robust applications in conjunction with microscopy are somewhat new so I would say that this group is not coming on board to late in the game. Raman with microscopy is pretty cool because you can make chemical maps that correlate to images you have taken. See this paper .
Anyway , I'm glad to see that they are using some advanced techniques.
Thats a whole 'nuther can of worms. I have coax in the room, but RCN is like $80/mo for basic cable and internet (they dont sell internet alone) Comcast was 50, but they couldn't figure out how to install it (because they are stupid). So I have DSL from verizon (without phone service) for $35/month.
Anyway tv is not worth paying more than a few $ a month anyway.
I'm not sure where this fits in the buisness model with iTunes selling TV shows. While I think it would be nice to have a mini with a tuner, it makes more sense that Apple et al would go with the mini as a digital cable hub. IE.. you download your "on demand" content from either the iTunes store or cable provider so you can watch it on tv, puter or iPod.
Where this would fit in for me: I don't have or want a TV. I like to DL shows from the internet and watch on my powerbook, on headphones. That might be because I'm a grad student an have about 1hr a week for tv. (so like 2 episodes of lost)
Anyway I want an intel mini so I can load windows on a small partition for those rare times when I need it.
I like the form factor of a laptop, no messy wires and all that.. but having the screen so low is what sucks most for long term use. Not good for the neck. The cool thing about this Samsung laptop is that the screen comes off and you can put a base on it. If its a quick change, and doesnt break after the 20th time you switch it, it should be a good concept. But I wonder what sort of wire goes btwn the screen and rest of the computer while the display is off. It would sort of suck to carry around a regular DVI cord. About as much as it would suck to cart around a 19 inch laptop. Thats why i like my combo of a 15 powerbook and 20 inch cinema display. Leave the 20 at home and travel with the 15. And wide aspect ratio is really the way to go. I just wish macs had a way to rotate the screeen output, like for reading big pdf files at 1080X 1650...
Aside from the fact that this article had few if any facts, it seems to me that this is similar to the use of hypothermia to preserve tissue just more proactive this time. It reminds me of the EMS adage "Their not dead until they are warm and dead". Often, one must wait to warm a person who as drown in order to successfully revive them. I seem to remember that if you decrease a human's core temp to 60 F you can stop the circulation for hours at a time without brain damage. I just wonder if they put the blood back after they take it out:)
While I love the idea of a decent search system, the time honored forlder hierarchy works because thats how people think. For instance, pictures. For these meta based search systems each picture needs to have a comment attatched (if not searching by date).. and who really does that? I tried adding notes to my pics in iphoto but after a while it gets tiresome.
And backups.. in a workflow.. every project has its own file and subfolders, makes it easy for backup and finding files.
Anywho... folder hierarchy works great and is here to stay for most people. (except for those people who just save everything to the desktop.)
If you don't need lots of computing power, ie.. just for office stuff I would probably say that with todays prices I would buy. I work at a big biotech, and have a brand new 3ghz pc with win2k, but I really dont need anything more than a P-133 and win95 for most of the stuff that I do *at my desk that is*. If you need to stay ahead of the curve on speed, like if you do imaging, then I would lease. You say that you the machines are in a heavy industrial area, so you would probably need to calculate failure rate along with the cost of fixing the machine (time, parts, etc.) All in all I would say buying is better, but then again, leasing might look better on the books, and we all know how important that is these days. They would say, better take a constant, slight hit every quarter than to possibly tank stock prices because of a huge equipment purchase.
but what do i know. The only 2 reasons I don't use a NeXT for every day stuff is ordering on the web and mp3s. Other than that a nice NeXTSTATION is all anyone really needs.
First, you have an ibook wich are not meant to be upgraded. The power book line is user serviceable in this manner, the bottom comes off with a few screws and the HDD is right there. On the g3 powerbooks (the best they ever made) the HDD, and RAM are right under the KB and are easy to get at, AND it has modular bays that can be for drives or TWO Batteries at once (for up to 9hrs of bat life)
Still... the ibook does suck to upgrade, but it can be done!!:)
Its nice to see that there is no creativity left in the movie industry. Why not come up with something new instead of redoing movies that there perfectly good to begin with. that means: Willy wonka.... War of the worlds... Oceans 11.. Manchurian candidate. Star Wars special editions.
While we are at it might as well remake casablanca. And teen wolf.
I would say that this is pretty accurate. In 2001 academic positions for a BS with no experience were starting at 25K or 23K if you work at cheap ass Brigham and womans.
I now get paid somewhere around 30K, and I think I should be able to command around 35-40K in an industry job. (In fact with 3 years exp and my skills I would be insulted to get any less than 35K)
Anyway.. Academic jobs are lower paid because you are only supposed to be in them for 2-3 years as a training position. You are then supposed to go off to higher education. If you want to work in biotech as a leader in research you need a Ph.D,
but if you want a nice job where you don't have to make hard decisions a masters will do nicely. And by the way PhDs are paid about 20K living stipend while in grad school (TUFTS pais 25K... Umass pays 19K)
Overall not too bad. (unless you like want to buy a house or something silly like that in boston:) )
BLAST doesnt take that long anymore.. well at least not for some things. We use it all the time to compare our DNA products to all known Gnomes. It takes like 30 seconds. (300 BP search against the whole library takes less than 40 seconds. using http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST/) Maybe its much longer for other things ?
The article does not describe Optical tweezers.. but I just wanted to note that Optical Tweezers are cool, and you can move nano particles around in cells and solutions with light using this device. We used them to measure the binding force of cell surface receptors.
Now I wasn't meaning to Troll by saying that providing WIFI was not the purpose of government. That being said, its like electricity. Providing of electricity is also not the purpose of government. Government is for the protection of citizens and the facilitation of trade. (and a few other things like social services that no one else would do because its not profitable.) Like education. On the other hand. If, as one poster hinted at, all the citizens go together and said that the city should provide this out of the tax revenue, (or bake sale..whatever) then yeah, go for it.
I personally think it would be great if somehow you paid whichever company provided the WIFI that you can access from you house (probably where you would use the "internet" most.) Then, if you feel the need to roam about the city and use internet, you would have free roaming access. This way it remains economically viable for the service to be provided, and convenient for people to use. I would be against this sort of thing being provided by the local government. This is not the purpose of government.
I think the idea of city wide WIFI is nice, but how is it paid for? Do people still have cable modem at home? (or that silly phone line thing) With whole city wifi.. will people even use land lines for home telephone?
My Samsung Uproar (works on sprint) holds 64 megs, and I sync it with iTunes (although mp3 only) via uproar x
Uproar specs UproarX Homepage
Anyway its a great phone and had good battery life. but now i have an ipod.
And on windows it uses music match.
I cant belive that these amounts are even a little accurate... If a help desk person is making more than $7 an hour then something is wrong. I say that because they dont exactly put the "help" in help desk. (I will qualify that by saing that i am talking about the partners.org people) Anyway.. I make a bit under $30K and I'm a Research Technologist... what are others getting paid?
There are really cool technologies that are being molded into fantastic new medical treatments and diagnostic equipment. Some of these are Plasmon Resonance, Optical Coherence Tomography, Photodynamic Therapy just to name a few. You can read more about these at http://www.massgeneral.org/wellman/
also take a look at
www.nextmuseum.com
and most questions can be answerd at :
http://www.nextmusuem.com/archive/html/english/
--ah.. too much next stuff for the day!
Slashdot Mirror
If they are just trying these techniques now, then paleontologists need to start visiting with other departments. The sciences have evolved so much over they last 20 years that in order to do any real work you have to associate with people outside your discipline.
Confocal:
LSCM has been used for ages outside of biology in quality control for chip manufactures.
Laser Scanning Confocal Microscopy improves your Z resolution by eliminating light from above and below the plane of focus. This helps in thick biological samples. Usually you can only image up to 300 microns into a sample (sometimes up to 700 depending on objective and wavelength).
Now, with fossils, I assume that you can only see the very top layer, because light wont penetrate rock that far.
Raman.
The Raman effect was described in 1928. However, robust applications in conjunction with microscopy are somewhat new so I would say that this group is not coming on board to late in the game. Raman with microscopy is pretty cool because you can make chemical maps that correlate to images you have taken. See this paper .
Anyway , I'm glad to see that they are using some advanced techniques.
Thats a whole 'nuther can of worms. I have coax in the room, but RCN is like $80/mo for basic cable and internet (they dont sell internet alone) Comcast was 50, but they couldn't figure out how to install it (because they are stupid). So I have DSL from verizon (without phone service) for $35/month.
Anyway tv is not worth paying more than a few $ a month anyway.
I'm not sure where this fits in the buisness model with iTunes selling TV shows. While I think it would be nice to have a mini with a tuner, it makes more sense that Apple et al would go with the mini as a digital cable hub. IE.. you download your "on demand" content from either the iTunes store or cable provider so you can watch it on tv, puter or iPod.
Where this would fit in for me: I don't have or want a TV. I like to DL shows from the internet and watch on my powerbook, on headphones. That might be because I'm a grad student an have about 1hr a week for tv. (so like 2 episodes of lost)
Anyway I want an intel mini so I can load windows on a small partition for those rare times when I need it.
I like the form factor of a laptop, no messy wires and all that.. but having the screen so low is what sucks most for long term use. Not good for the neck.
The cool thing about this Samsung laptop is that the screen comes off and you can put a base on it. If its a quick change, and doesnt break after the 20th time you switch it, it should be a good concept. But I wonder what sort of wire goes btwn the screen and rest of the computer while the display is off. It would sort of suck to carry around a regular DVI cord. About as much as it would suck to cart around a 19 inch laptop.
Thats why i like my combo of a 15 powerbook and 20 inch cinema display. Leave the 20 at home and travel with the 15.
And wide aspect ratio is really the way to go. I just wish macs had a way to rotate the screeen output, like for reading big pdf files at 1080X 1650...
I'm curious about the external part of the implant. Do they have ones with bluetooth?
I would think that would be pretty cool.
All white and promising good stuff. then you get really disappointed by the quality and want to knife your dealer.
Aside from the fact that this article had few if any facts, it seems to me that this is similar to the use of hypothermia to preserve tissue just more proactive this time. :)
It reminds me of the EMS adage "Their not dead until they are warm and dead".
Often, one must wait to warm a person who as drown in order to successfully revive them.
I seem to remember that if you decrease a human's core temp to 60 F you can stop the circulation for hours at a time without brain damage.
I just wonder if they put the blood back after they take it out
While I love the idea of a decent search system, the time honored forlder hierarchy works because thats how people think. For instance, pictures. For these meta based search systems each picture needs to have a comment attatched (if not searching by date).. and who really does that? I tried adding notes to my pics in iphoto but after a while it gets tiresome.
And backups.. in a workflow.. every project has its own file and subfolders, makes it easy for backup and finding files.
Anywho... folder hierarchy works great and is here to stay for most people. (except for those people who just save everything to the desktop.)
If you don't need lots of computing power, ie.. just for office stuff I would probably say that with todays prices I would buy. I work at a big biotech, and have a brand new 3ghz pc with win2k, but I really dont need anything more than a P-133 and win95 for most of the stuff that I do *at my desk that is* .
If you need to stay ahead of the curve on speed, like if you do imaging, then I would lease.
You say that you the machines are in a heavy industrial area, so you would probably need to calculate failure rate along with the cost of fixing the machine (time, parts, etc.)
All in all I would say buying is better, but then again, leasing might look better on the books, and we all know how important that is these days.
They would say, better take a constant, slight hit every quarter than to possibly tank stock prices because of a huge equipment purchase.
but what do i know. The only 2 reasons I don't use a NeXT for every day stuff is ordering on the web and mp3s. Other than that a nice NeXTSTATION is all anyone really needs.
First, you have an ibook wich are not meant to be upgraded.
:)
The
power book line is user serviceable in this manner, the bottom comes off with a few screws and the HDD is right there.
On the g3 powerbooks (the best they ever made) the HDD, and RAM are right under the KB and are easy to get at, AND it has modular bays that can be for drives or TWO Batteries at once (for up to 9hrs of bat life)
Still... the ibook does suck to upgrade, but it can be done!!
Its nice to see that there is no creativity left in the movie industry. Why not come up with something new instead of redoing movies that there perfectly good to begin with.
that means:
Willy wonka....
War of the worlds...
Oceans 11..
Manchurian candidate.
Star Wars special editions.
While we are at it might as well remake casablanca.
And teen wolf.
What benefits will this new format pose? Is it needed or Just a name change?
I would say that this is pretty accurate. In 2001 academic positions for a BS with no experience were starting at 25K or 23K if you work at cheap ass Brigham and womans.
:) )
I now get paid somewhere around 30K, and I think I should be able to command around 35-40K in an industry job. (In fact with 3 years exp and my skills I would be insulted to get any less than 35K)
Anyway.. Academic jobs are lower paid because you are only supposed to be in them for 2-3 years as a training position. You are then supposed to go off to higher education. If you want to work in biotech as a leader in research you need a Ph.D,
but if you want a nice job where you don't have to make hard decisions a masters will do nicely.
And by the way PhDs are paid about 20K living stipend while in grad school
(TUFTS pais 25K... Umass pays 19K)
Overall not too bad. (unless you like want to buy a house or something silly like that in boston
BLAST doesnt take that long anymore.. well at least not for some things.
We use it all the time to compare our DNA products to all known Gnomes. It takes like 30 seconds.
(300 BP search against the whole library takes less than 40 seconds. using http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/BLAST/)
Maybe its much longer for other things ?
The article does not describe Optical tweezers.. but I just wanted to note that Optical Tweezers are cool, and you can move nano particles around in cells and solutions with light using this device. We used them to measure the binding force of cell surface receptors.
(Receptors are springs... horse is sphere)
Now I wasn't meaning to Troll by saying that providing WIFI was not the purpose of government.
That being said, its like electricity. Providing of electricity is also not the purpose of government. Government is for the protection of citizens and the facilitation of trade. (and a few other things like social services that no one else would do because its not profitable.) Like education.
On the other hand. If, as one poster hinted at, all the citizens go together and said that the city should provide this out of the tax revenue, (or bake sale..whatever) then yeah, go for it.
I personally think it would be great if somehow you paid whichever company provided the WIFI that you can access from you house (probably where you would use the "internet" most.) Then, if you feel the need to roam about the city and use internet, you would have free roaming access. This way it remains economically viable for the service to be provided, and convenient for people to use.
I would be against this sort of thing being provided by the local government. This is not the purpose of government.
I think the idea of city wide WIFI is nice, but how is it paid for? Do people still have cable modem at home? (or that silly phone line thing)
With whole city wifi.. will people even use land lines for home telephone?
My Samsung Uproar (works on sprint) holds 64 megs, and I sync it with iTunes (although mp3 only) via uproar x Uproar specs
UproarX Homepage
Anyway its a great phone and had good battery life. but now i have an ipod. And on windows it uses music match.
I cant belive that these amounts are even a little accurate...
If a help desk person is making more than $7 an hour
then something is wrong. I say that because they dont exactly put the "help" in help desk. (I will qualify that by saing that i am talking about the partners.org people)
Anyway..
I make a bit under $30K and I'm a Research Technologist... what are others getting paid?
There are really cool technologies that are being molded into fantastic new medical treatments and diagnostic equipment.
Some of these are Plasmon Resonance, Optical Coherence Tomography, Photodynamic Therapy just to name a few.
You can read more about these at http://www.massgeneral.org/wellman/
also take a look at www.nextmuseum.com and most questions can be answerd at : http://www.nextmusuem.com/archive/html/english/ --ah.. too much next stuff for the day!
Due to a period of imense free time i decided to play with dhtml and do a virtual interface.. http://rice0067.dsl.visi.com/bill/next/index.html