I can't believe that no one has talked about the success of red vs. blue. It would seem to be machinima (Halo) and it is hilarious and original. Although is does not seem to diverge very much from the game I could easily see the concept taken in many directions from what they have done. I think that it is an emerging field.
Re:Interesting discovery.
on
More Clones!
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· Score: 1
I do not know if the comment was meant as a troll or was an honest question, but I'll bite since I hesitated writing that line in the first place. I am a molecular geneticist and biochemist (i.e. studying a gene, its protein product, what other proteins interact with my protein of interest, and the implications that my protein has on the cell/organism both now and evolutionarily). By outside my field of expertise, I meant that I am not completely up to date on all of the intricacies involved in this branch of embryology and cell/developmental biology. In essence what I meant by my comment is that I am not an expert, but I do know what I am talking about.
If I was wrong on any point feel free to correct me.
Interesting discovery.
on
More Clones!
·
· Score: 1
This is an interesting discovery, in that it proved that specific technical limitations could be overcome. However, I don't really buy the reasoning that this discovery could lead to cancer treatments. Just because male horses do not develop prostate cancer, does not mean that there is something special about their cellular physiology per se. Most of the humans that I have heard of that have prostate cancer are over 50. I have not heard of many horses living over 50. I would think that in general horses have a lower incidence of cancer than say humans because they do not live as long.
However, I could very well be wrong. This subject is slightly outside my field of expertise, but I do understand the science behind this advance well enough to know why it is newsworthy. If the advance does lead to cancer treatments all the better, but I am not holding my breath.
As the director of MS security engineering says: 'Microsoft is a long way from its ultimate goal where users can take security for granted in its products...the majority of viruses written attack Microsoft products.'"
Personally, I do not think that security should ever be taken for granted. I think it has been proven that this lax security awareness leads to problems independent of the software (e.g. stolen credit card numbers and identity theft from insecure websites and to a lesser extent the proliferation of spam). Most people do not take the locks on their front dor for granted, why should the computer be any different. Especially now that many individuals use the computer as the primary portal to the outside world.
Well put. If your analysis of the paper is correct I am surprised that the paper was accepted to Nature. Nature Structure or Nature Biotechnology would have been more appropriate. Now if they had gotten significant levels of enzymatic activity then I would be impressed.
However, your math for the interacting amino acid residues while probably correct can be dealt with with various algorithms. Namely the Dead-End Elimination algorithm, which if I recall, will, with accurate rotamer library, elimate all possible combinations of interacting rotamers and thus energetically unfavorable amino-acid combinations. This I believes seeks a desired global energy minimum and a cuts down on the overhead of needless computational paths.
While this is a big step forward, it is not a humongous breakthrough. The big accomplishment is that the proteins were engineered to bind to socially relevent substate. There has been success in protein engineering for quite a while. Two big researchers are Stephen Mayo at CalTech ( http://www.mayo.caltech.edu ) and William DeGrado at the University of Pennsylvania. The true holy grail of this field is to create a functional protein from the ground up i.e. predict the three dimensinal structure from the amino acid sequence.
I think that genetics/ molecular biology and physics (especially quantum and astro) lend themselves to popular culture more so than chemistry, mathematics, and engineering. Mainly, because some of the concepts are easy to grasp or they have a philosophical or ethical component, which is the stuff that is actually written about. However, Linus Pauling's semi-autobiography "In His Own Words" is pretty good. Also Paul Erdos' (pronounced Air-Dish) biography, "The Man Who Knew Only Numbers", is excellent as well as being a case study of an "insane genius". Also Paulos' "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper" is pretty good.
Some of the books that I have found very influential are:
Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter - The parts on Godel were a little difficult for a non-mathematician, but an otherwise mind-blowing book. Truly one of the greatest books ever, science or otherwise.
Chaos by James Gleick - A history of the field of Chaos and its big players. By one of the most talented writers I have ever encountered (Faster is also a good book). There are ideas in this book that can be used in almost any field of research/science.
Information Theory and Molecular Biology by Hubert P. Yockey - While not explicitly stated this book really helped with the concepts of creationg ageing at the level of DNA. It also helped me to realize how many striking parallels can be drawn between computer science and molecular biological processes (i.e. ribosomes as compilers (or more acurately reverse compilers), catalytic RNA as interpreters, the interconversion of information between high-level and low-level formats).
Genome by Matt Ridley - Not as in depth as I would have liked, but he presents an interesting story for each human chromosome.
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins - Discussed ad nauseum on this site, specifically memes. Anything by Richard Dawkins is worth reading. However, I think that it is important to not be carried away with his ideas, they are most definitely not perfect.
Sociobiology by Edward O. Wilson - The title is self explanatory. This was and still is a very controversial book, especially the last chapter on genetic control of human behaviour. It sparked of a thirty year war between Stephen Jay Gould and E.O. Wilson.
Ants by Edward O. Wilson and Bert Somebody? - While not popular science per se. It is one of the few science related books to have won the pulitzer prize.
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I can't believe that no one has talked about the success of red vs. blue. It would seem to be machinima (Halo) and it is hilarious and original. Although is does not seem to diverge very much from the game I could easily see the concept taken in many directions from what they have done. I think that it is an emerging field.
I do not know if the comment was meant as a troll or was an honest question, but I'll bite since I hesitated writing that line in the first place. I am a molecular geneticist and biochemist (i.e. studying a gene, its protein product, what other proteins interact with my protein of interest, and the implications that my protein has on the cell/organism both now and evolutionarily). By outside my field of expertise, I meant that I am not completely up to date on all of the intricacies involved in this branch of embryology and cell/developmental biology. In essence what I meant by my comment is that I am not an expert, but I do know what I am talking about. If I was wrong on any point feel free to correct me.
This is an interesting discovery, in that it proved that specific technical limitations could be overcome. However, I don't really buy the reasoning that this discovery could lead to cancer treatments. Just because male horses do not develop prostate cancer, does not mean that there is something special about their cellular physiology per se. Most of the humans that I have heard of that have prostate cancer are over 50. I have not heard of many horses living over 50. I would think that in general horses have a lower incidence of cancer than say humans because they do not live as long.
However, I could very well be wrong. This subject is slightly outside my field of expertise, but I do understand the science behind this advance well enough to know why it is newsworthy. If the advance does lead to cancer treatments all the better, but I am not holding my breath.
As the director of MS security engineering says: 'Microsoft is a long way from its ultimate goal where users can take security for granted in its products...the majority of viruses written attack Microsoft products.'"
Personally, I do not think that security should ever be taken for granted. I think it has been proven that this lax security awareness leads to problems independent of the software (e.g. stolen credit card numbers and identity theft from insecure websites and to a lesser extent the proliferation of spam). Most people do not take the locks on their front dor for granted, why should the computer be any different. Especially now that many individuals use the computer as the primary portal to the outside world.
Well put. If your analysis of the paper is correct I am surprised that the paper was accepted to Nature. Nature Structure or Nature Biotechnology would have been more appropriate. Now if they had gotten significant levels of enzymatic activity then I would be impressed. However, your math for the interacting amino acid residues while probably correct can be dealt with with various algorithms. Namely the Dead-End Elimination algorithm, which if I recall, will, with accurate rotamer library, elimate all possible combinations of interacting rotamers and thus energetically unfavorable amino-acid combinations. This I believes seeks a desired global energy minimum and a cuts down on the overhead of needless computational paths.
While this is a big step forward, it is not a humongous breakthrough. The big accomplishment is that the proteins were engineered to bind to socially relevent substate. There has been success in protein engineering for quite a while. Two big researchers are Stephen Mayo at CalTech ( http://www.mayo.caltech.edu ) and William DeGrado at the University of Pennsylvania. The true holy grail of this field is to create a functional protein from the ground up i.e. predict the three dimensinal structure from the amino acid sequence.
I think that genetics/ molecular biology and physics (especially quantum and astro) lend themselves to popular culture more so than chemistry, mathematics, and engineering. Mainly, because some of the concepts are easy to grasp or they have a philosophical or ethical component, which is the stuff that is actually written about. However, Linus Pauling's semi-autobiography "In His Own Words" is pretty good. Also Paul Erdos' (pronounced Air-Dish) biography, "The Man Who Knew Only Numbers", is excellent as well as being a case study of an "insane genius". Also Paulos' "A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper" is pretty good.
Some of the books that I have found very influential are: Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter - The parts on Godel were a little difficult for a non-mathematician, but an otherwise mind-blowing book. Truly one of the greatest books ever, science or otherwise. Chaos by James Gleick - A history of the field of Chaos and its big players. By one of the most talented writers I have ever encountered (Faster is also a good book). There are ideas in this book that can be used in almost any field of research/science. Information Theory and Molecular Biology by Hubert P. Yockey - While not explicitly stated this book really helped with the concepts of creationg ageing at the level of DNA. It also helped me to realize how many striking parallels can be drawn between computer science and molecular biological processes (i.e. ribosomes as compilers (or more acurately reverse compilers), catalytic RNA as interpreters, the interconversion of information between high-level and low-level formats). Genome by Matt Ridley - Not as in depth as I would have liked, but he presents an interesting story for each human chromosome. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins - Discussed ad nauseum on this site, specifically memes. Anything by Richard Dawkins is worth reading. However, I think that it is important to not be carried away with his ideas, they are most definitely not perfect. Sociobiology by Edward O. Wilson - The title is self explanatory. This was and still is a very controversial book, especially the last chapter on genetic control of human behaviour. It sparked of a thirty year war between Stephen Jay Gould and E.O. Wilson. Ants by Edward O. Wilson and Bert Somebody? - While not popular science per se. It is one of the few science related books to have won the pulitzer prize.
...use SAP's db at their corporate site? If Microsoft still does, I can't imagine that this would help the relationship.