I would probably back off and go away. Experiences like you state freak me out especially when they take these kinds of place way too seriously from the way you say it.
A couple of visits to their Plane'arium might change your mind:
I actually learnt the QWERTY layout from a free copy of that, while waiting excitedly for the actual computer (an expected Christmas present). Yes, I would tell you to get off my lawn, but I actually have a hedge maze patrolled by a dinosaur:
I noticed the other day he's also now listed as a MATE developer. He must be doing more than just about anyone else to bring our 'sane interfaces back', one way or another. Cinnamon looks an awful lot like what Unity should have been, an alternative shell for Gnome 3 that doesn't alienate the established user base. Neither Canonical nor the core Gnome 3 team seem to have fully realised the enormous power of natural selection in the Linux 'ecosystem' (apologies for the appalling term). MS can get away wih imposing stuff like the infamous Ribbon because they have a largely captive audience. Linux users are quite happy to jump ship at short notice rather than switching to a new and (in many cases) unwanted 'desktop paradigm'. The operating system should adapt to the user, not the other way around. I suspect Mint has a bright future.
According to this whitepaper, the DNA sequencing is "unequivocally uncopyable".
A bit further on, they only say 'resistant to reverse engineering or replication', which is probably closer to the truth. Here's a patent filed by the company, which looks like it might be referring to the same technology:
My reading of the simplest version of this is that they take some target DNA (e.g. derived from a plant genome, and possibly cut up and re-ligated to swap things around), and design a single 'forward' PCR primer and multiple 'reverse' primers that bind the target sequence at various positions. They retain the forward primer and template DNA , and paint the object to be protected with a pooled selection of the reverse primers (different objects or companies could use different selections of reverse primers).
To authenticate an object, they extract DNA from the object (i.e., the pool of reverse primers) and mix it together with their single forward primer, template, and standard PCR reagents. Running the PCR gives them a series of amplification products of defined sizes (determined by the selection of reverse primers), which effectively 'fingerprint' the object. To make things difficult for a forger, the pool of primers painted on the object will probably contain a complex mixture of confounding sequences that don't bind the target sequence, and there may also be multiple genuine primer sets designed to different target sequences. Since the forger won't have access to the target sequence(s), they'll have no way of knowing which primers are important, and will therefore have to determine the sequence of all of them and then have them re-synthesised.
Why haven't they already sequenced them? It takes a big chunk of time. I've been waiting for the past three months for the genomes of a set of strains I sent off for deep-sequencing.
If you're not tied to a local genome centre you might want to try a different service provider - if the project isn't huge there are companies that can deliver data a great deal faster than that (and plenty of competition for your business).
I'm betting they chose yeast because now they can get the interesting ones sequenced for a few thousand each, which is completely feasible even with a very modest grant compared to what it would cost for algae (or anything that isn't yeast or e. coli really).
Just skimmed through the paper and was almost surprised to see they haven't done the sequencing (yet?) - identifying the presumed mutations would have made this study much more interesting. A 12 Mb genome doesn't need much NGS capacity! Until then, I don't think we can rule out epigenetic inheritance, which has previously been demonstrated in yeast.
... right up until the day where they are done routinely at birth and you leave the hospital jugging a baby, birth certificate, and a flash drive containing its DNA sequence.
"Yale geneticist Richard Lifton, who was the first to document the use a DNA sequence to diagnose a disease, is looking at utilising the Proton for clinical work. In the state of Connecticut, where Yale is based, infants are tested for 43 different genetic mutations that need to be detected early in infancy. The Proton could be a better way to do that that traditional methods, especially given its ability to deliver results quickly."
There's going to come a point when even whole genomes are cheaper to do than a few dozen separate conventional tests.
Reports elsewhere suggest they'll be selling a "$75,000 server" with this machine, which will apparently be able to spit out a fully processed whole genome in a day, and lets them market the whole thing as an 'appliance'. This will be enough for many labs. But if the Proton is anything like their previous sequencer, the unaligned sequence data will just be in a standard text file format that can be uploaded to the local cluster (if you have one) and processed any way you like. Large genome centres may go this route if the basic technology lives up to the hype.
For disease specific mutations such as cancer the only way to detect the mutations is with long reads.
This really isn't true. Though it would be nicer to have longer reads, short read sequencing (exomes or whole genomes) is actually proving to be very successful at picking up many novel mutations in cancer. Discovering tumour-specific somatic mutations is a particularly nice application for this technology, as you can often do a direct pairwise comparison with the patient's normal germline DNA (e.g. blood DNA if you're working with solid tumours). Typically results will be validated by another technique (e.g. conventional Sanger sequencing), but with a decent analysis pipeline you shouldn't get too many false positives from the NGS.
If the 'Proton 2' chip (which we probably won't see this year) lives up to the hype, then with reasonable assumptions about read length and numbers of active sites, it may manage whole genome at 30x:
With whole exome sequencing like this, you pay the fee once, and have all* the data medical science will ever need about you...* Not counting repetitive elements, promoter regions, UTRs, spacer DNA, or the epigenome
Not just exome, but whole genome in about a year (they claim), so everything except the epigenome. Some interesting discussion here:
'You were going to pay the same price over that period for service ANYWAY. It doesn't cost you more because you got the phone as well.
Is that how it works in the US? Then you're getting screwed by the carriers. In many parts of the world you can get basic SIM only monthly plans (or even PAYG with data) that cost a lot less than the contracts that include 'free' iPhones (or decent Android phones).
At least one of the telescopes already seems to be in operation elsewhere:
"We are lucky to possess a fine observatory is situated at the Fairwood playing fields of the University College of Swansea; which is equipped with a 12" Meade Schmidt Cassegrain catadioptric telescope. Regular observing evenings are held at the Fairwood site...Please note that the Society no longer has any involvement with the Marina Towers Observatory on Swansea Bay"
Looks like these astronomers would rather get on with looking at stars, rather than playing games with a local council that has decided to put the squeeze on them over rent at the Swansea Bay site (which they have already vacated). They'd probably be happy to continue to contribute to public education by running events at Marina Towers, but not if they have to bear the greatly increased costs the council has now decided to levy.
I'm sure there are excellent 'mirrorless' cameras too, but a dSLR doesn't require any great technical expertise. Just pick up one of the entry-level Nikon or Canon models (which are pretty small, and typically come as kits with versatile standard zooms). You can start off shooting in program mode with the kit zoom, which is no more difficult than using a phone camera. If you choose, you can add dedicated macro and telephoto (or longer zoom) lenses later.
Slashdot Mirror
Mageia is the real story here, and it was covered over a year ago:
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/10/09/18/1437248/developers-fork-mandriva-linux-creating-mageia
Mandriva is now in much the same position as Xfree86, OpenOffice, or Detroit. And Mageia has a cooler name.
I would probably back off and go away. Experiences like you state freak me out especially when they take these kinds of place way too seriously from the way you say it.
A couple of visits to their Plane'arium might change your mind:
http://creationmuseum.org/whats-here/exhibits/planetarium/
"Even if you've been to the planetarium before, come join us again and see the universe in a whole new light."
...and it still hasn't found what it's looking for.
Often wondred if that approach would actually be more effective.
Well, they pretty much tried it last time:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1
...but I don't see my favourite piece of ZX81 ephemera, the promotional poster that placed on some sort of darkly psychedelic space opera lectern:
http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/userdata/images/large/PRODPIC-9064.jpg
I actually learnt the QWERTY layout from a free copy of that, while waiting excitedly for the actual computer (an expected Christmas present). Yes, I would tell you to get off my lawn, but I actually have a hedge maze patrolled by a dinosaur:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKvd0zPfBE4
I noticed the other day he's also now listed as a MATE developer. He must be doing more than just about anyone else to bring our 'sane interfaces back', one way or another. Cinnamon looks an awful lot like what Unity should have been, an alternative shell for Gnome 3 that doesn't alienate the established user base. Neither Canonical nor the core Gnome 3 team seem to have fully realised the enormous power of natural selection in the Linux 'ecosystem' (apologies for the appalling term). MS can get away wih imposing stuff like the infamous Ribbon because they have a largely captive audience. Linux users are quite happy to jump ship at short notice rather than switching to a new and (in many cases) unwanted 'desktop paradigm'. The operating system should adapt to the user, not the other way around. I suspect Mint has a bright future.
...but he really just wants the old Ubuntu back.
He can have it with just three commands:
http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/doku.php/download#ubuntu
More details:
http://mate-desktop.org/
According to this whitepaper, the DNA sequencing is "unequivocally uncopyable".
A bit further on, they only say 'resistant to reverse engineering or replication', which is probably closer to the truth. Here's a patent filed by the company, which looks like it might be referring to the same technology:
http://www.google.com/patents/US20100285985
My reading of the simplest version of this is that they take some target DNA (e.g. derived from a plant genome, and possibly cut up and re-ligated to swap things around), and design a single 'forward' PCR primer and multiple 'reverse' primers that bind the target sequence at various positions. They retain the forward primer and template DNA , and paint the object to be protected with a pooled selection of the reverse primers (different objects or companies could use different selections of reverse primers).
To authenticate an object, they extract DNA from the object (i.e., the pool of reverse primers) and mix it together with their single forward primer, template, and standard PCR reagents. Running the PCR gives them a series of amplification products of defined sizes (determined by the selection of reverse primers), which effectively 'fingerprint' the object. To make things difficult for a forger, the pool of primers painted on the object will probably contain a complex mixture of confounding sequences that don't bind the target sequence, and there may also be multiple genuine primer sets designed to different target sequences. Since the forger won't have access to the target sequence(s), they'll have no way of knowing which primers are important, and will therefore have to determine the sequence of all of them and then have them re-synthesised.
tl;dr - Replicating the label is not trivial.
Couldn't they just avoid it?:
http://www.amazon.com/Avoid-Huge-Ships-John-Trimmer/dp/0870334336/
Why haven't they already sequenced them? It takes a big chunk of time. I've been waiting for the past three months for the genomes of a set of strains I sent off for deep-sequencing.
If you're not tied to a local genome centre you might want to try a different service provider - if the project isn't huge there are companies that can deliver data a great deal faster than that (and plenty of competition for your business).
I'm betting they chose yeast because now they can get the interesting ones sequenced for a few thousand each, which is completely feasible even with a very modest grant compared to what it would cost for algae (or anything that isn't yeast or e. coli really).
Just skimmed through the paper and was almost surprised to see they haven't done the sequencing (yet?) - identifying the presumed mutations would have made this study much more interesting. A 12 Mb genome doesn't need much NGS capacity! Until then, I don't think we can rule out epigenetic inheritance, which has previously been demonstrated in yeast.
I wonder if it's a full blown linux OS or some cut down version with limited capabilities?
Well, looks it's going to run Unity so it'll be nearly impossible to tell.
Expect a new story in the Buffy/West Wing crossover fanfic series any minute now:
http://www.fanfiction.net/Buffy_The_Vampire_Slayer_and_West_Wing_Crossovers/13/288/
'Is the deal the same with this sequencer? (IE once you have the machine and the guy to run it a single sequence basically costs nothing.)
No, the $1000 (or whatever the figure turns out to be) is just for consumables. You need to spend this on every run.
... right up until the day where they are done routinely at birth and you leave the hospital jugging a baby, birth certificate, and a flash drive containing its DNA sequence.
Which might happen sooner rather than later:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewherper/2012/01/10/not-quite-the-1000-genome-but-maybe-close-enough/
"Yale geneticist Richard Lifton, who was the first to document the use a DNA sequence to diagnose a disease, is looking at utilising the Proton for clinical work. In the state of Connecticut, where Yale is based, infants are tested for 43 different genetic mutations that need to be detected early in infancy. The Proton could be a better way to do that that traditional methods, especially given its ability to deliver results quickly."
There's going to come a point when even whole genomes are cheaper to do than a few dozen separate conventional tests.
Reports elsewhere suggest they'll be selling a "$75,000 server" with this machine, which will apparently be able to spit out a fully processed whole genome in a day, and lets them market the whole thing as an 'appliance'. This will be enough for many labs. But if the Proton is anything like their previous sequencer, the unaligned sequence data will just be in a standard text file format that can be uploaded to the local cluster (if you have one) and processed any way you like. Large genome centres may go this route if the basic technology lives up to the hype.
For disease specific mutations such as cancer the only way to detect the mutations is with long reads.
This really isn't true. Though it would be nicer to have longer reads, short read sequencing (exomes or whole genomes) is actually proving to be very successful at picking up many novel mutations in cancer. Discovering tumour-specific somatic mutations is a particularly nice application for this technology, as you can often do a direct pairwise comparison with the patient's normal germline DNA (e.g. blood DNA if you're working with solid tumours). Typically results will be validated by another technique (e.g. conventional Sanger sequencing), but with a decent analysis pipeline you shouldn't get too many false positives from the NGS.
If the 'Proton 2' chip (which we probably won't see this year) lives up to the hype, then with reasonable assumptions about read length and numbers of active sites, it may manage whole genome at 30x:
http://seqanswers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16709
With whole exome sequencing like this, you pay the fee once, and have all* the data medical science will ever need about you...* Not counting repetitive elements, promoter regions, UTRs, spacer DNA, or the epigenome
Not just exome, but whole genome in about a year (they claim), so everything except the epigenome. Some interesting discussion here:
http://pathogenomics.bham.ac.uk/blog/2012/01/ion-torrent-proton-the-chip-is-not-the-machine/
http://seqanswers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16709
'You were going to pay the same price over that period for service ANYWAY. It doesn't cost you more because you got the phone as well.
Is that how it works in the US? Then you're getting screwed by the carriers. In many parts of the world you can get basic SIM only monthly plans (or even PAYG with data) that cost a lot less than the contracts that include 'free' iPhones (or decent Android phones).
At least one of the telescopes already seems to be in operation elsewhere:
"We are lucky to possess a fine observatory is situated at the Fairwood playing fields of the University College of Swansea; which is equipped with a 12" Meade Schmidt Cassegrain catadioptric telescope. Regular observing evenings are held at the Fairwood site...Please note that the Society no longer has any involvement with the Marina Towers Observatory on Swansea Bay"
http://www.swanastro.org.uk/
Looks like these astronomers would rather get on with looking at stars, rather than playing games with a local council that has decided to put the squeeze on them over rent at the Swansea Bay site (which they have already vacated). They'd probably be happy to continue to contribute to public education by running events at Marina Towers, but not if they have to bear the greatly increased costs the council has now decided to levy.
I'm sure there are excellent 'mirrorless' cameras too, but a dSLR doesn't require any great technical expertise. Just pick up one of the entry-level Nikon or Canon models (which are pretty small, and typically come as kits with versatile standard zooms). You can start off shooting in program mode with the kit zoom, which is no more difficult than using a phone camera. If you choose, you can add dedicated macro and telephoto (or longer zoom) lenses later.
Yes: http://www.techdigest.tv/ironic-3.5-inch-disc-posters.jpg
'... who wants you to declare independence and try to be seen as a Nordic country.'
This probably just means Alex Salmond has given his 'Braveheart' DVD a rest and got hooked by 'The Killing' like the rest of us:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_(Danish_TV_series)#UK_success
In case this is still puzzling anyone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vbd3E6tK2U