There has been quite a bit of discussion here, on the possibility of this being a completely new type of life (no common ancestor with other life). That would have been mind-boggling amazing indeed - but from what I read, it sounded much more likely that what they found where an more or less ordinary microbe that have substituted phosphorous the chemically similar arsenic (and still have the same nucleic acids, base-pairing, ribosome, protein synthesis etc).
The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria. In the laboratory, the researchers successfully grew microbes from the lake on a diet that was very lean on phosphorus, but included generous helpings of arsenic. When researchers removed the phosphorus and replaced it with arsenic the microbes continued to grow. Subsequent analyses indicated that the arsenic was being used to produce the building blocks of new GFAJ-1 cells.
It's still amazingly cool, but life as we know it is not falling apart =)
After reading through the comments on this story, it appears to me that there is significant confusion over what exactly Open Access means and how the peer-review process is handled. I have published quite a few paper in Open Access journales (BMC Genomics, Genome Biology, Nucleic Acids Research to name a few), and this is how it works:
*) One of the key differences between publishing in a traditional journal vs. an Open Access journal is that the final publication is freely available for all in PDF format from the publishers website following publication. The peer-review process is exactly the same as with traditional journal - as somebody else have already mentioned in this thread. Peer-reviewing is NOT something you are paid to do - is is solely based on volunteers (who are expects within the relevant field of research).
*) With Open Access journals you pay to have the publication "printed" (only if it get accepted through the peer-review process). This fee covers the expenses of editing and administration that traditional journal covers through their subscription fees.
*) Almost everybody searches for research papers on-line these days - either through Google or searching a specialized database like MedLine/PubMed. For Open Access journals the scientific publication will be directly available for download in PDF format - for traditional journals a PDF file will also most likely be generated - but it will only be available to subscribers (usually the University Library).
The way I see it most journals (even the closed access ones) actually require that you make your data available. This is especially true for DNA microarray studies, where you will be required to deposit the data in a public database - for example ArrayExpress or the Gene Expression Omnibus at NCBI. Personally I see the publication of the data as a very important way to drive citation of your papers. When I link to data on the department webserver, I group the data into specific directories depending on the area of research - that way a person look for data from one particular paper will also find data and reference to our other papers within that area (for example see: Probe Design datasets and Cell Cycle datasets).
Regarding the fee for Open Access publication: In my personal experience this has not really been a problem - performing the experimental work behind the datasets has always been the expensive part and the Open Access fee has been paid using the same grant as the one paying of the experiment. For non-experimental papers ("pure" Bioinformatics) the department or the University pays the fee (of cause it may not be as easy everywhere - I work at the Technical University of Denmark).
It should also be notes that for some new grants your are actually required to publish your finding in an Open Access journal (I think this may the true for the EU grants, but I am not completely sure).
While it's certainly very nice that the big journals like Nature take steps towards offering Open Access to (some of) their material, it has already been a growing trend in certain research areas for the past, say, five years or so. I do research in the field of Bioinformatics/Molecular Biology and except for high-profile stuff that could go into Science or Nature, I simply will not publish anything in a journal that is not Open Access.
The journal being Open Access is of tremendous importance to the researcher as it makes it _much_ more likely, that your paper will actually be found and read by other scientists. I know this from my own literature searches: hits found the PubMed database links to the journal webpage, and if no Open Access version is available, it really have to look like a promising paper, before I spend my time ordering through the University Library.
Also, it should be noted that an ever increasing number of Open Access journal exists in the areas of Life Science in general - for example all the BMC journals, the PLoS journals and even journals from "old school" publishers such as Oxford University Press (e.g. Nucleic Acids Research) have gone Open Access. Also an increasing number of traditional journal now offer an Open Access option, where your pay to make your specific paper availably under Open Access.
I was under the impression that proper VISA debit cards (as apposed to visa electron) some transactions don't go through instantly with all merchants and therefore its possible to go into the red (or go over your overdafraft limit if you have one) and that was why VISA electron cards (which aren't accepted in anywhere near as many places as proper VISA debit cards at least here in the uk) exist for people the banks consider too risky to give a real VISA card to (kids and those with poor credit histories).
In Denmark the VISA card (usually made as a dual DanKort/VISA card) is by default a debit card, no matter who you are and how much the bank trust you. It's up to the bank to decide how much they will allow the balance to go into the negative.
I believe you can get some of the other international cards (Diners/MaterCard etc) as a "real" credit card. But the DanKort/VISA card combination is the most widespread one.
A perhaps rather naive question from a non-american: Isn't it possible to get a simple debit-card to go along with a bank-account?
This is the default situation here in Denmark. Virtually everybody have the national debit-card ("DanKort") which give access to your money for pretty much all purposes (including online shopping). The important thing to notice is that since it's a DEBIT rather than a CREDIT card, you cannot use more money that what's available on you account (the bank _may_ allow the balance to be slightly negative). This is ALSO the situation with my VISA card - it's also a debit card in Denmark.
It does support column selection (hold down control and select with the mouse). It is very fast and nice for basic text-editing, and it contains a large set of syntax-coloring modes, for programming / HTML editing.
It's a modern C64, but perphaps the most interesting fact is that it can be modified with different CPUs.
From http://www.geocities.com/profdredd/commodoreone/cm drone.html:
"What's this I hear about a 6510 being used as a second processor?
I've added a port that a cpu card will plug into on the new revision and someone can plug a 6809, 6502 or what ever into it. The CPU card will be able to carry the 65816, 6502, 65C02, Z80 and 6809. This will enable the C-One to act like nearly any computer of the 80s just by exchanging the CPU card and the program in the CF card. And yes, the 6510 ports are simulated, and yes, it's possible to add interfaces on the CPU card. The slot will be documented, so third party companys can produce hardware for it"
I recently tried out some of my old C64 discs (1985-1995), and they all worked OK.
I has always been my impression that the 5,25" (C64) discs where more stable then 3,5" (Amiga). Yes - I know part of this is because of the lower data-density on the C64 discs.
Well it's been a while since I used TP, but at my prevoius job we coded and maintained a _large_ calendar/project manager application ("TaskTimer").
Half a million lines of Delphi code (Borlands variant of Object Pascal), would compile in ~30 seconds (1/2 min), when we did a complete re-build. This was on a 500Mhz PIII.
Borlands Pascal compilers have alway been exceptionally fast - but I do not know how their C++ compiler perfomrs.
In my experience it IS a Unix [was:MacOSX vs Unix]
on
A Linux User Goes Back
·
· Score: 1
I recently got an iBook, and using only my Unix knowledge (I've never been a Mac person before), it only took me a day and a half, to fully integrate it to our mixed Irix/Linux network (NIS, NFS, X, python etc).
When I work from home, I just tunnel everything through ssh (works right out of the box).
There has been a lot of discussion on slashdot lately about progressive taxation. I fail to see why this should be evil, socialist etc.
I live in Denmark, and we have had such a taxation system for generations, and it works very well. I belive the same is the case for the rest of (at least) the scandinavian countries. Notice that we're talking about some of the richest countries in the world.
Well, I have to agree on this one. I live in Denmark and we have such a tax system. I have a rather well-paying job as a programmer, and I pay my ~50% tax with no anger. After all the state payed for my entire University education =)
As far as I know all the scandinavian countries have a high tax - free education and hospitals system.
BTW: I'm a bit puzzled by the Pascal history: Object
Pascal branches off Pascal in ~1985, but Delphi (which basically is Object
Pascal with a huge library (the VCL)) braches off the original Pascal in ~1992.
I have some time ago - right out of the box - installed RedHat 6.0 on my Dell Latitude CP (233MHz). I runs wolderfully, and network is 100% OK on my docking station.
Yesterday I installed RedHat 6.1 and the only small problem I have discovered is that spmd (daemon for monitoring battery) hangs, and needs a pathch to run normally.
I started out with 300.000 DKr/Year (~42K $), when I got my first job after graduating from the University. Last month I was offered a company car as a pay-rise:)
I general the salaries are very good for the skilled programmer i Denmark. (But the taxes are high: 50-60%, depending on your income).
Let me see if I remember this right, from my molecular biology classes:
1) The firefly gene you use for making plants glow encodes the enzyme Luceferase.
2) The (greenish) ligth is emitted when the enzyme breaks down the compound Luceferin.
3) No luceferin = no light. You need to water the plant with a luceferin solution in order to make them glow. As far as I remember luceferin STINKS LIKE HELL:) I wonder how much succes a stinky X-mas tree will get...
Besides, the tree needs to be alive in order to take up Leceferin and glow.
In how many European countries do you actually have unmetered local calls?. I live in Denmark, and here you get charged a fee per minute for all types of calls (the fee varies if it is long distance or local).
I think it the same story in my neighbour countries, but I could be wrong.
For everyone interested in astronomy I'll recommend this site (Astronomy Picture of the Day ) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html. Each day there's a new picture along with lots of interesting info (with links) written by astronomers. I usually spot the newest NASA pictures here.
This means that at address $a000-$bfff, and $e000-$ffff there was two layers of memory, and at $d400-$d7ff there was three layers of memory.
To switch between the layers you change the bits of address $01. Maybe the 6510 modification really was about this and not the timers. Hmmm. I don't auite remember anymore.
The C64 used the 6510 CPU, which is a slightly modified 6502. As far as I remember, Commodore modified it a bit in order to work with the CIA chips (generation of timer-dependant IRQs).
The 6510 also had a lot of undocumented opcodes, some with rather strange effects (e.g. what happens depends on where in the memory the opcode is located). I found an excellent review of all the opcodes on the Web a year ago or so. The author had taken the time and trouble to measure exactly what was going on inside the CPU. For example he was able to determine the opcode XYZ is really a corrupted LDY (or LDA or whatever) which do not store the result etc. However, I've lost the link. Does anybody know the whereabouts of this document?
Slashdot Mirror
There has been quite a bit of discussion here, on the possibility of this being a completely new type of life (no common ancestor with other life). That would have been mind-boggling amazing indeed - but from what I read, it sounded much more likely that what they found where an more or less ordinary microbe that have substituted phosphorous the chemically similar arsenic (and still have the same nucleic acids, base-pairing, ribosome, protein synthesis etc).
Looking at the press release from Nasa, this is indeed the case:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/universe/features/astrobiology_toxic_chemical.html
The newly discovered microbe, strain GFAJ-1, is a member of a common group of bacteria, the Gammaproteobacteria. In the laboratory, the researchers successfully grew microbes from the lake on a diet that was very lean on phosphorus, but included generous helpings of arsenic. When researchers removed the phosphorus and replaced it with arsenic the microbes continued to grow. Subsequent analyses indicated that the arsenic was being used to produce the building blocks of new GFAJ-1 cells.
It's still amazingly cool, but life as we know it is not falling apart =)
After reading through the comments on this story, it appears to me that there is significant confusion over what exactly Open Access means and how the peer-review process is handled. I have published quite a few paper in Open Access journales (BMC Genomics, Genome Biology, Nucleic Acids Research to name a few), and this is how it works:
*) One of the key differences between publishing in a traditional journal vs. an Open Access journal is that the final publication is freely available for all in PDF format from the publishers website following publication. The peer-review process is exactly the same as with traditional journal - as somebody else have already mentioned in this thread. Peer-reviewing is NOT something you are paid to do - is is solely based on volunteers (who are expects within the relevant field of research).
*) With Open Access journals you pay to have the publication "printed" (only if it get accepted through the peer-review process). This fee covers the expenses of editing and administration that traditional journal covers through their subscription fees.
*) Almost everybody searches for research papers on-line these days - either through Google or searching a specialized database like MedLine/PubMed. For Open Access journals the scientific publication will be directly available for download in PDF format - for traditional journals a PDF file will also most likely be generated - but it will only be available to subscribers (usually the University Library).
I hope this clears up a few things.
-Rasmus
The way I see it most journals (even the closed access ones) actually require that you make your data available. This is especially true for DNA microarray studies, where you will be required to deposit the data in a public database - for example ArrayExpress or the Gene Expression Omnibus at NCBI. Personally I see the publication of the data as a very important way to drive citation of your papers. When I link to data on the department webserver, I group the data into specific directories depending on the area of research - that way a person look for data from one particular paper will also find data and reference to our other papers within that area (for example see: Probe Design datasets and Cell Cycle datasets).
Regarding the fee for Open Access publication: In my personal experience this has not really been a problem - performing the experimental work behind the datasets has always been the expensive part and the Open Access fee has been paid using the same grant as the one paying of the experiment. For non-experimental papers ("pure" Bioinformatics) the department or the University pays the fee (of cause it may not be as easy everywhere - I work at the Technical University of Denmark).
It should also be notes that for some new grants your are actually required to publish your finding in an Open Access journal (I think this may the true for the EU grants, but I am not completely sure).
While it's certainly very nice that the big journals like Nature take steps towards offering Open Access to (some of) their material, it has already been a growing trend in certain research areas for the past, say, five years or so. I do research in the field of Bioinformatics/Molecular Biology and except for high-profile stuff that could go into Science or Nature, I simply will not publish anything in a journal that is not Open Access.
The journal being Open Access is of tremendous importance to the researcher as it makes it _much_ more likely, that your paper will actually be found and read by other scientists. I know this from my own literature searches: hits found the PubMed database links to the journal webpage, and if no Open Access version is available, it really have to look like a promising paper, before I spend my time ordering through the University Library.
Also, it should be noted that an ever increasing number of Open Access journal exists in the areas of Life Science in general - for example all the BMC journals, the PLoS journals and even journals from "old school" publishers such as Oxford University Press (e.g. Nucleic Acids Research) have gone Open Access. Also an increasing number of traditional journal now offer an Open Access option, where your pay to make your specific paper availably under Open Access.
I was under the impression that proper VISA debit cards (as apposed to visa electron) some transactions don't go through instantly with all merchants and therefore its possible to go into the red (or go over your overdafraft limit if you have one) and that was why VISA electron cards (which aren't accepted in anywhere near as many places as proper VISA debit cards at least here in the uk) exist for people the banks consider too risky to give a real VISA card to (kids and those with poor credit histories).
In Denmark the VISA card (usually made as a dual DanKort/VISA card) is by default a debit card, no matter who you are and how much the bank trust you. It's up to the bank to decide how much they will allow the balance to go into the negative.
I believe you can get some of the other international cards (Diners/MaterCard etc) as a "real" credit card. But the DanKort/VISA card combination is the most widespread one.
A perhaps rather naive question from a non-american: Isn't it possible to get a simple debit-card to go along with a bank-account?
This is the default situation here in Denmark. Virtually everybody have the national debit-card ("DanKort") which give access to your money for pretty much all purposes (including online shopping). The important thing to notice is that since it's a DEBIT rather than a CREDIT card, you cannot use more money that what's available on you account (the bank _may_ allow the balance to be slightly negative). This is ALSO the situation with my VISA card - it's also a debit card in Denmark.
NEdit should be just perfect.
It does support column selection (hold down control and select with the mouse). It is very fast and nice for basic text-editing, and it contains a large set of syntax-coloring modes, for programming / HTML editing.
Link: http://www.nedit.org/
You might be interested in taking a look at the CommodoreOne project:
e s.com/cm_easy/comone.htm
m drone.html:
http://www.commodoreone.com
http://www.geociti
It's a modern C64, but perphaps the most interesting fact is that it can be modified with different CPUs.
From http://www.geocities.com/profdredd/commodoreone/c
"What's this I hear about a 6510 being used as a second processor?
I've added a port that a cpu card will plug into on the new revision and someone can plug a 6809, 6502 or what ever into it. The CPU card will be able to carry the 65816, 6502, 65C02, Z80 and 6809. This will enable the C-One to act like nearly any computer of the 80s just by exchanging the CPU card and the program in the CF card. And yes, the 6510 ports are simulated, and yes, it's possible to add interfaces on the CPU card. The slot will be documented, so third party companys can produce hardware for it"
I recently tried out some of my old C64 discs (1985-1995), and they all worked OK.
I has always been my impression that the 5,25" (C64) discs where more stable then 3,5" (Amiga). Yes - I know part of this is because of the lower data-density on the C64 discs.
Well it's been a while since I used TP, but at my prevoius job we coded and maintained a _large_ calendar/project manager application ("TaskTimer").
Half a million lines of Delphi code (Borlands variant of Object Pascal), would compile in ~30 seconds (1/2 min), when we did a complete re-build. This was on a 500Mhz PIII.
Borlands Pascal compilers have alway been exceptionally fast - but I do not know how their C++ compiler perfomrs.
Well there actually is a danish band playing C64 music on real instruments:
www.pressplayontape.com
I just love their version of Warhawk =)
-Raz
I recently got an iBook, and using only my Unix knowledge (I've never been a Mac person before), it only took me a day and a half, to fully integrate it to our mixed Irix/Linux network (NIS, NFS, X, python etc).
:)
When I work from home, I just tunnel everything through ssh (works right out of the box).
Oh and I just LOVE the Java support
-Raz
There has been a lot of discussion on slashdot lately about progressive taxation. I fail to see why this should be evil, socialist etc.
I live in Denmark, and we have had such a taxation system for generations, and it works very well. I belive the same is the case for the rest of (at least) the scandinavian countries. Notice that we're talking about some of the richest countries in the world.
Any comments from other europeans?
-Raz
Well, I have to agree on this one. I live in Denmark and we have such a tax system. I have a rather well-paying job as a programmer, and I pay my ~50% tax with no anger. After all the state payed for my entire University education =)
As far as I know all the scandinavian countries have a high tax - free education and hospitals system.
-Raz
There actually is a map of programming on the same website (http://perso.wanadoo.fr/levenez/unix/). Follow the link Computer Languages History near the bottom.
BTW: I'm a bit puzzled by the Pascal history: Object Pascal branches off Pascal in ~1985, but Delphi (which basically is Object Pascal with a huge library (the VCL)) braches off the original Pascal in ~1992.
I have some time ago - right out of the box - installed RedHat 6.0 on my Dell Latitude CP (233MHz). I runs wolderfully, and network is 100% OK on my docking station.
Yesterday I installed RedHat 6.1 and the only small problem I have discovered is that spmd (daemon for monitoring battery) hangs, and needs a pathch to run normally.
I started out with 300.000 DKr/Year (~42K $), when I got my first job after graduating from the University. Last month I was offered a company car as a pay-rise :)
I general the salaries are very good for the skilled programmer i Denmark. (But the taxes are high: 50-60%, depending on your income).
Let me see if I remember this right, from my molecular biology classes:
:) I wonder how much succes a stinky X-mas tree will get...
1) The firefly gene you use for making plants glow encodes the enzyme Luceferase.
2) The (greenish) ligth is emitted when the enzyme breaks down the compound Luceferin.
3) No luceferin = no light. You need to water the plant with a luceferin solution in order to make them glow. As far as I remember luceferin STINKS LIKE HELL
Besides, the tree needs to be alive in order to take up Leceferin and glow.
In how many European countries do you actually have unmetered local calls?. I live in Denmark, and here you get charged a fee per minute for all types of calls (the fee varies if it is long distance or local).
I think it the same story in my neighbour countries, but I could be wrong.
For everyone interested in astronomy I'll recommend this site (Astronomy Picture of the Day ) http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html. Each day there's a new picture along with lots of interesting info (with links) written by astronomers. I usually spot the newest NASA pictures here.
The C64 had up to 3 different layers of memory:
Ram: $0000-$ffff (Normal RAM - mostly: $d000-$d3ff deals with video, timers and sound)
$d400-$d7ff (4bit color-ram)
Rom: $a000-$bfff (mostly BASIC)
$e000-$ffff (mostly KERNAL)
$d000-$d7ff (charset -also mirrored at $1000)
This means that at address $a000-$bfff, and $e000-$ffff there was two layers of memory, and at $d400-$d7ff there was three layers of memory.
To switch between the layers you change the bits of address $01. Maybe the 6510 modification really was about this and not the timers. Hmmm. I don't auite remember anymore.
The C64 used the 6510 CPU, which is a slightly modified 6502. As far as I remember, Commodore modified it a bit in order to work with the CIA chips (generation of timer-dependant IRQs).
The 6510 also had a lot of undocumented opcodes, some with rather strange effects (e.g. what happens depends on where in the memory the opcode is located). I found an excellent review of all the opcodes on the Web a year ago or so. The author had taken the time and trouble to measure exactly what was going on inside the CPU. For example he was able to determine the opcode XYZ is really a corrupted LDY (or LDA or whatever) which do not store the result etc. However, I've lost the link. Does anybody know the whereabouts of this document?
-Raz (Old C64 game- and democoder).