The actual article is funny because they never would have gotten it published if they didn't propose the mechanism for DNA replication in the same breath.
At the time, crystallography was something geologists did in order to study the composition of rocks. The idea of using xrays to study the crystal patterns of biological molecules was really new at the time. Franklin deserves credit for being innovative in that regard. The real credit that Watson and Crick deserve was that once Crick saw that the structure was a double helix, they were able to put together a decent model for DNA replication. Something people had only guessed about before. Their model wasa still a guess, at best, but they turned out to be right!
The funny part about the whole thing is that the diffraction pattern that they analyzed was no bigger than your fingernail. The picture in the Nature article has actually been blown up from its original size, if you can believe that. Kind of scary how something so important could have been determined by studying something so blurry and small...
so you've got a good formula and I like your estimates. But where did you get 250 cars/gas station? Also, something tells me there are more than 1.16M active cars in the US.
Sounds like you need the proper motivation! You're in ther perfect position to add your company's data to the global archive. Don't whine about how hard it is to do, just do it! What a great weekend project than to get all of that code out in the open! I'm envious.
Where can I find a list of the fastest computers? Is there some sort of regulating committee on this? My department just got a 256 node Beowulf cluster. Where does that fit on the list?
Speaking as an expert in the field of genetics and information science, I can honestly tell you all that this whole "fractals in the exons" crap is just that: crap. There are a few basic problems with the article posted here:
There are many names for the stretches of DNA in our cells. The genome is made up of more than exons and introns, as the article would have you believe. Exons are the part of a gene that gets translated into protein. Introns are the parts of the gene that get "spliced" out by our bodies' natural processes. (they are not just "everything left over")
It's long been known that non-gene portions of the genome play important roles. Genes contain the information to make proteins, but other DNA around the gene dictates things like: "where", "when", and "how much"
There's 6 gigabits of information in the human genome. Some genes cluster together, other genes have huge stretches of non-coding DNA between them. If you look hard enough, you can make any mathematical formaula apply somewhere.
There's plenty of stuff left in our genome left to discover. Sure, we know most of the genome, and we need new methods to discover what different sections of it mean. But using fractals? Come on, we have more specific and more well-trained methods of searching the genome that trusting our discoveries to pure guesswork. What basis is there for using fractals, other than it sounds really cool?
"similarity" in finding a cure for cancer. post a reply or email me to clarify, b/c I think I can answer your question.
a quick bio summary:
There are about 35,000 genes in the human genome, which means there are >35,000 different kinds of proteins in our bodies over our lifetime. Each of these proteins has a 3-dimensional structure that is nearly impossible to predict from genetic information alone. The 3-dimensional structure of a protein, along with its composition, determines the functionality of the protein. Determining the 3D structure of a protein and discovering the steps necessary for a peptide chain to wriggle up into a mature protein is called the "Protein Folding Problem"
In many kinds of Cancer, genetic mutations have occurred that cause either a problem with the way a protein folds up and thus changed its functionality; or a mutation has occurred such that the genetic instructions have changed, causing some proteins to be made more or less often than usual. Usually what happens is a whole lot of things get changed before cancer is diagnosed.
I've always thought an elegant solution would be to have an in the wall ventilation system sort of like those built in vaccumes. The noise would be in the basement, and you'd just hook up a hose that would draw air through whatever component needed air, and exhaust it elsewhere.
I've lived in a house with those "in the wall" vacuum cleaners and they're far from elegant. The noise from those things permeates through the walls of the entire house, and not just the basement. It's pretty much guaranteed that the noise level will be out of acceptable limits.
I don't believe Venter's idea is to sequence someone's entire genome. I think Venter plans to sequences the sections of people's genomes that contain known genes. You see, even though there are 4 billion base pairs, There are still only about 30,000 genes. Even at 1000bp per gene (which is a good average if you want to include exons and introns), that's still only about 30 million base pairs.
All they have to do is have the right set of primers on hand (which they already do because they sequenced the whole thing already). So Celera is in a unique position to do this without too much of a startup or operating cost.
Don't worry, though. This kind of thing will remain cost-prohibitive for almost everyone else for centuries.
My best guess is that Balloons just won't get high enough. Or maybe they can pilot a 747 to go exactly where they want it to go without getting blown off course as easily as a balloon. Or maybe the cost of jet fuel is much less than the cost of filling a balloon with helium
That last one is supposed to be a joke.
Maybe the Lens is just too big for any existing Balloon?
edremy was very close to being right when he said "computational chemistry"
I study bioinformatics, which might be considered computational biology. I compile and run programs that perform some heavy-duty computation. A lot of the algorithms I require are either non-parallellizable (aligning multiple protein sequences) or trivially parallelizable (making multiplt pairwise alignments). The faster the proceesor, the faster I can report my results
But, guys, let's not make them too fast. I still want to run jobs in the batch queue and go out for lunch while I wait!
Hey KoopaTroopa, You should enjoy this precious time while you can. I use Perl every day to write scripts and widgets and whatnot. It's not going to change incredibly much from version 5.6 to version 6, so just go ahead and learn it until they change it. Chances are you'll not have mastered all the 5.6 features before they toss a bunch of new ones at you in v6.0.
Happy Hunting, Rob
the one and true text creation method...
on
Vi IMproved -- Vim
·
· Score: 1
At 25,000 feet, the earth's atmosphere is significantly thinner than at ground level. So there's an interesting effect going on here: When the skydiver jumps from the plane, he'll accelerate until he's falling at "terminal velocity". But as he falls, the atmosphere will be thickening around him, and the "terminal velocity" will decrease. Which is kind of cool, because he'll be slowing down as he's falling! The atmosphere is like a big, airy sponge around the Earth...
Sounds like the Babel Fish to me! Does this mean we now have a proof of why God does not exist? Or perhaps now there will be more wars because we can actually understand what people are really saying about us?
When I was a lad, I built my own interface and controller boards from scratch. I remember scavenging old printers for stepper motors, burning my fingers on overloaded chips, inhaling fumes from the soldering iron...ah, sweet nostalgia.
It think it's great that kids today can focus more on programming aspect of robotics rather than the nitty-gritty details of circuit design, but I think any robotics set (like lego mindstorms) should come with complete schematics of their hardware, so kids can learn something about what they're playing with.
Can I get a witness?
Seeing the preview video of Zelda reminded me of Those old Don Bluth games Space Ace and Dungeons & Dragons. They had comic humor, but more improtantly, they were completely animated (hand-drawn) games. The new Link has the animated look you might see in a cartoon rather than a video game. Even the new Samas Aran looks more stylish than real.
I like this approach to V/G design. Sacrificing realism for style is definitely something that adds to the replay value of a game. I hate to sound like a Nintendo worshipper, but I think they've hit the nail on the head with these 2.
And incedentally, if I mysteriously disappear for a few days when these games come out... Tell my parents that I'm very very happy:)
Wait. What is that called where people do things without some tangible benefit for themselves? Communism? No. Communitarianism? Maybe. Oh yeah...That was an episode of Star Trek Hoe could I forget?
I can't remember the name of the book or the issue number, but it was definitely a Lobo special. He killed the rest of the X-men (and evil mutants) in that issue as well. Wolvie was close to the last one when Lobo tossed him into an electric fence.
This is a wonderful announcement, but as I can see from the lack of comments in this discussion, not an exciting one.
About 5 years ago, the unveiling of a newly sequenced bacterial genome was cause for great celebration. Today, there are over 40 species of bacteria whose genome has been completely sequenced. While the addition of one more "bug" might not be that exciting nowadays, one must realize that the compilation of this kind of information has far-reaching effects in the fields of medicine and biology.
As far as I can tell, STL is supposed to be standardized, but there are different implementations out there. You must always be wary when migrating your code. Different compilers will implement the STL, well, differently. This basically means that you'll always have to debug and test your code on every OS and with every compiler.
Another drawback is that STL methods don't parallelize that well.
I think it's fair to say that Lucas is trying to protect his own creative vision by not allowing new "stories" in his universe.
Lucas created it, and if he wants to have a limited contest, then he can. I don't see what the big deal is. How many novels set in places like Middle-Earth weren't sanctioned by Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien?
I'm sure Harlan Ellison would have a few things to say about this. Get him to post here!
Slashdot Mirror
The actual article is funny because they never would have gotten it published if they didn't propose the mechanism for DNA replication in the same breath.
At the time, crystallography was something geologists did in order to study the composition of rocks. The idea of using xrays to study the crystal patterns of biological molecules was really new at the time. Franklin deserves credit for being innovative in that regard. The real credit that Watson and Crick deserve was that once Crick saw that the structure was a double helix, they were able to put together a decent model for DNA replication. Something people had only guessed about before. Their model wasa still a guess, at best, but they turned out to be right!
The funny part about the whole thing is that the diffraction pattern that they analyzed was no bigger than your fingernail. The picture in the Nature article has actually been blown up from its original size, if you can believe that. Kind of scary how something so important could have been determined by studying something so blurry and small...
I long suspected that Netflix only had 1 copy each of these DVDs. They've been at the top of my queue for moths now.
/.ers to watch and return Phantom Cuticle as soon as you can. Thanks!
Now I know better. I should have watched "Lodoss War" first and "The Sopranos" second.
In any case, I'd like to ask any of you
so you've got a good formula and I like your estimates. But where did you get 250 cars/gas station? Also, something tells me there are more than 1.16M active cars in the US.
Sounds like you need the proper motivation! You're in ther perfect position to add your company's data to the global archive. Don't whine about how hard it is to do, just do it! What a great weekend project than to get all of that code out in the open! I'm envious.
Where can I find a list of the fastest computers? Is there some sort of regulating committee on this? My department just got a 256 node Beowulf cluster. Where does that fit on the list?
"similarity" in finding a cure for cancer. post a reply or email me to clarify, b/c I think I can answer your question.
a quick bio summary:
There are about 35,000 genes in the human genome, which means there are >35,000 different kinds of proteins in our bodies over our lifetime. Each of these proteins has a 3-dimensional structure that is nearly impossible to predict from genetic information alone. The 3-dimensional structure of a protein, along with its composition, determines the functionality of the protein. Determining the 3D structure of a protein and discovering the steps necessary for a peptide chain to wriggle up into a mature protein is called the "Protein Folding Problem"
In many kinds of Cancer, genetic mutations have occurred that cause either a problem with the way a protein folds up and thus changed its functionality; or a mutation has occurred such that the genetic instructions have changed, causing some proteins to be made more or less often than usual. Usually what happens is a whole lot of things get changed before cancer is diagnosed.
I've lived in a house with those "in the wall" vacuum cleaners and they're far from elegant. The noise from those things permeates through the walls of the entire house, and not just the basement. It's pretty much guaranteed that the noise level will be out of acceptable limits.
I don't believe Venter's idea is to sequence someone's entire genome. I think Venter plans to sequences the sections of people's genomes that contain known genes.
You see, even though there are 4 billion base pairs, There are still only about 30,000 genes. Even at 1000bp per gene (which is a good average if you want to include exons and introns), that's still only about 30 million base pairs.
All they have to do is have the right set of primers on hand (which they already do because they sequenced the whole thing already). So Celera is in a unique position to do this without too much of a startup or operating cost.
Don't worry, though. This kind of thing will remain cost-prohibitive for almost everyone else for centuries.
My best guess is that Balloons just won't get high enough.
Or maybe they can pilot a 747 to go exactly where they want it to go without getting blown off course as easily as a balloon.
Or maybe the cost of jet fuel is much less than the cost of filling a balloon with helium
That last one is supposed to be a joke.
Maybe the Lens is just too big for any existing Balloon?
edremy was very close to being right when he said "computational chemistry"
I study bioinformatics, which might be considered computational biology. I compile and run programs that perform some heavy-duty computation. A lot of the algorithms I require are either non-parallellizable (aligning multiple protein sequences) or trivially parallelizable (making multiplt pairwise alignments).
The faster the proceesor, the faster I can report my results
But, guys, let's not make them too fast. I still want to run jobs in the batch queue and go out for lunch while I wait!
Hey KoopaTroopa,
You should enjoy this precious time while you can. I use Perl every day to write scripts and widgets and whatnot.
It's not going to change incredibly much from version 5.6 to version 6, so just go ahead and learn it until they change it. Chances are you'll not have mastered all the 5.6 features before they toss a bunch of new ones at you in v6.0.
Happy Hunting,
Rob
cat >
^d
not for the weak of heart!
At 25,000 feet, the earth's atmosphere is significantly thinner than at ground level. So there's an interesting effect going on here: When the skydiver jumps from the plane, he'll accelerate until he's falling at "terminal velocity".
But as he falls, the atmosphere will be thickening around him, and the "terminal velocity" will decrease. Which is kind of cool, because he'll be slowing down as he's falling!
The atmosphere is like a big, airy sponge around the Earth...
Sounds like the Babel Fish to me!
Does this mean we now have a proof of why God does not exist? Or perhaps now there will be more wars because we can actually understand what people are really saying about us?
When I was a lad, I built my own interface and controller boards from scratch. I remember scavenging old printers for stepper motors, burning my fingers on overloaded chips, inhaling fumes from the soldering iron...ah, sweet nostalgia.
It think it's great that kids today can focus more on programming aspect of robotics rather than the nitty-gritty details of circuit design, but I think any robotics set (like lego mindstorms) should come with complete schematics of their hardware, so kids can learn something about what they're playing with.
Can I get a witness?
- The Ewok Adventure
- Ewoks: The Battle for Endor
Funny how noboy ever counts these. Or is it that you don't want to remember?Seeing the preview video of Zelda reminded me of Those old Don Bluth games Space Ace and Dungeons & Dragons. They had comic humor, but more improtantly, they were completely animated (hand-drawn) games. The new Link has the animated look you might see in a cartoon rather than a video game. Even the new Samas Aran looks more stylish than real.
:)
I like this approach to V/G design. Sacrificing realism for style is definitely something that adds to the replay value of a game. I hate to sound like a Nintendo worshipper, but I think they've hit the nail on the head with these 2.
And incedentally, if I mysteriously disappear for a few days when these games come out...
Tell my parents that I'm very very happy
Wait. What is that called where people do things without some tangible benefit for themselves?
Communism?
No.
Communitarianism? Maybe.
Oh yeah...That was an episode of Star Trek Hoe could I forget?
I can't remember the name of the book or the issue number, but it was definitely a Lobo special. He killed the rest of the X-men (and evil mutants) in that issue as well. Wolvie was close to the last one when Lobo tossed him into an electric fence.
This is a wonderful announcement, but as I can see from the lack of comments in this discussion, not an exciting one.
About 5 years ago, the unveiling of a newly sequenced bacterial genome was cause for great celebration. Today, there are over 40 species of bacteria whose genome has been completely sequenced. While the addition of one more "bug" might not be that exciting nowadays, one must realize that the compilation of this kind of information has far-reaching effects in the fields of medicine and biology.
For more info, check out The Institute for Genomic Research
Depending on the storyline, wolverine has been
can anbody think of any more?
As far as I can tell, STL is supposed to be standardized, but there are different implementations out there. You must always be wary when migrating your code. Different compilers will implement the STL, well, differently. This basically means that you'll always have to debug and test your code on every OS and with every compiler.
Another drawback is that STL methods don't parallelize that well.
I think it's fair to say that Lucas is trying to protect his own creative vision by not allowing new "stories" in his universe.
Lucas created it, and if he wants to have a limited contest, then he can. I don't see what the big deal is.
How many novels set in places like Middle-Earth weren't sanctioned by Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien?
I'm sure Harlan Ellison would have a few things to say about this. Get him to post here!
Dude, you rhymed spoken with spoken.