What I get from this is that PubChem is trying to be for molecular information what PubMed is for bibliographic data: a source for searching for information concerning the life-sciences fields only.
I myself am working in a field that's not only in the field of life sciences, but also touches many other fields. I would therefore rather not constrain myself here by searching only PubMed for data, and therefore use the non-free but comprehensive bibiliographic data service (web of science) that is available at my working place. Though I can imagine that people in fully pharmaceutical/biomedical environments don't need more than the data from PubMed.
Since not everything is life sciences (yet), there still will be a need for something like CAS and the ACS will be able to keep this up in one way or another. Furthermore, reasoning that the government kills 1300 jobs this way doesn't make much sense. These jobs are in a similar non-profit sector as the jobs that are created by the governmental funding, and if the NIH is capable of doing the same amount of work with less people it might just mean that the ACS is doing this work not efficient enough, and also asking too much for its service.
By the way, the taxpayers also pay for the fees for all governmental institutions that have to access the CAS system.
There are some things going on in the scientific world, take for example the strange money flow at scientific journals:
a research group prepares an article
the research group sends the article to a journal, neither the researchers, nor the journal pays for this
the journal sends the article to other research groups for refereeing, the referee doesn't get paid for this
after a review process, which mostly requires only little interaction of the journal editors, the article gets accepted - at least, that's what you hope for;) - the researches have to pay for publication in the journal, color pictures can make this cost in the direction of $1000, which is a lot if you are a small research group in a not-so rich university.
article gets published, research groups all over the world get to read this if they have a paid subscription to the journal
Now, as you can see, from a financial point of view, the only one who gets richer from publishing your research data is the publisher itself. But one needs access to these journals to do your research, and you need to publish to get your work known and get funding... But where is it written that publishing in a journal should be such a costly process? Opening things up here with low-cost alternatives can make life for e.g. university libraries and start-up companies a lot easier. Projects like these NIH initiatives are probably a step in the right direction.
Actually, I could bother not to have this. I just looked at the website of the company that makes these xbox selling displays ( http://www.neoluxiim.com/english/index.html )
and I got a bit disturbed by the effect that this would have on your live.
How many people out here actually like the flashy web-banners which blink continuously? Just imagine that you would have these things not only on the internet, but everywhere in real life! In the bus, in the supermarkt, on billboards, bumper stickers, you could even put them on the pavement, since they are so cheap. If you would want to have the proverbial beowolf cluster of these, you would just have to go to your local mall. I don't think your eyes and mind are ready for heaps of blinking signs asking for your attention...
There is a similar technique developed in the Netherlands, but it still depends on 3d-glasses:
http://homepages.cwi.nl/~robertl/pss/pss.html
This looks much more crude than the video, but although the thing shown in the video here is nice for demostrations etc, for work like practicing operations the most important thing is that the one who's doing the movements actually sees a virtual reality that is coupled to his/her movements, not just the public on a separate screen. I thought there was one similar design were people could actually work on a table top and see their virtual reality while they were looking at the table in real time, but I can't find it anymore.
google tips: "3d interaction", "augmented reality"
I have a tremor since my youth, mouse usage goes without problems, though. Touchpads are a nightmare for me, as well as the small trackballs that were used at notebooks. I have a tablet, drawing straight lines is a bit of a problem, just as in normal life, it would be nice if there was some sort of software adjustment for this.
Don't know how this device shown here would help, I can imagine that it is a bit difficult for the elderly to work with. And it could be done by software as well.
I was also thinking that I was watching some 13 in a dozen laywer series instead of sci-fi. Two weeks ago I saw the DVD of the original 1978 movie ( hidden away on imdb http://www.imdb.com/title/ tt0076984/ ) and I must say I was pretty impressed by it, exciting storyline, interesting plot, and good effects. Ok, maybe the bad-destroying-all-humans-without-a-cause-robot-gu ys were not exactly the most intriguing enemies one can think of, and they probably improved that in the new series.
But why is everyone talking so softly, should that make it more (artistically) interesting? Does that girl have to wear that dress all the time? Really, they've been messing their genres up on this one.
BTW: apples and oranges are experimentally proven to be pretty similar, maybe you'd better use another terminology:
http://www.improb.com/airchives/paperair/volume1/v 1i3/air-1-3-apples.html
Anyone else noting the strange url for the talon robot website? Are they ment to replace the human 'lemmings' that'd normally would be used in such missions?
http://www.foster-miller.com/lemming.htm
You'd probably need a good few layers of carbon atoms to make sure no oxygen, nitrogen or even hydrogen atoms sneaked in. Not forgetting the byproducts of cosmic rays. My guess is that the total mass of the casing / volume would exceed the density of the surrounding air.
In a perfect structure without faults, one layer would be enough (think buckyballs), but the diamond-lattice wouldn't be stable at all that way.
Even then if you would make structures where the mass / volume would be lower than the density of air it would be difficult to get it to float in the air. Just try it, if you make a hollow object, and try to scale it up, the surface will scale with the power of two, while the volume will scale with the power of three. So, at large enough scales any vacuum hollow object can have a mass/volume lower than the density of air. If this would work, this would be a cheap and safe way to build zeppelins;) I guess it really only works for objects which are in the gas phase at air temperature, and diamond doesn't really fall in that category.
On the article itself: why should this be news? Any scientist in nano-assembly will say that his/her research results will change the world. This goes in steps, but if just any step will be posted on slashdot they might be better of just forwarding their site to web of science / current contents / pubmed in the long run...
Slashdot Mirror
I myself am working in a field that's not only in the field of life sciences, but also touches many other fields. I would therefore rather not constrain myself here by searching only PubMed for data, and therefore use the non-free but comprehensive bibiliographic data service (web of science) that is available at my working place. Though I can imagine that people in fully pharmaceutical/biomedical environments don't need more than the data from PubMed.
Since not everything is life sciences (yet), there still will be a need for something like CAS and the ACS will be able to keep this up in one way or another. Furthermore, reasoning that the government kills 1300 jobs this way doesn't make much sense. These jobs are in a similar non-profit sector as the jobs that are created by the governmental funding, and if the NIH is capable of doing the same amount of work with less people it might just mean that the ACS is doing this work not efficient enough, and also asking too much for its service. By the way, the taxpayers also pay for the fees for all governmental institutions that have to access the CAS system.
There are some things going on in the scientific world, take for example the strange money flow at scientific journals:
- a research group prepares an article
- the research group sends the article to a journal, neither the researchers, nor the journal pays for this
- the journal sends the article to other research groups for refereeing, the referee doesn't get paid for this
- after a review process, which mostly requires only little interaction of the journal editors, the article gets accepted - at least, that's what you hope for;) - the researches have to pay for publication in the journal, color pictures can make this cost in the direction of $1000, which is a lot if you are a small research group in a not-so rich university.
- article gets published, research groups all over the world get to read this if they have a paid subscription to the journal
Now, as you can see, from a financial point of view, the only one who gets richer from publishing your research data is the publisher itself. But one needs access to these journals to do your research, and you need to publish to get your work known and get funding... But where is it written that publishing in a journal should be such a costly process? Opening things up here with low-cost alternatives can make life for e.g. university libraries and start-up companies a lot easier. Projects like these NIH initiatives are probably a step in the right direction.Actually, I could bother not to have this. I just looked at the website of the company that makes these xbox selling displays ( http://www.neoluxiim.com/english/index.html ) and I got a bit disturbed by the effect that this would have on your live. How many people out here actually like the flashy web-banners which blink continuously? Just imagine that you would have these things not only on the internet, but everywhere in real life! In the bus, in the supermarkt, on billboards, bumper stickers, you could even put them on the pavement, since they are so cheap. If you would want to have the proverbial beowolf cluster of these, you would just have to go to your local mall. I don't think your eyes and mind are ready for heaps of blinking signs asking for your attention...
There is a similar technique developed in the Netherlands, but it still depends on 3d-glasses: http://homepages.cwi.nl/~robertl/pss/pss.html This looks much more crude than the video, but although the thing shown in the video here is nice for demostrations etc, for work like practicing operations the most important thing is that the one who's doing the movements actually sees a virtual reality that is coupled to his/her movements, not just the public on a separate screen. I thought there was one similar design were people could actually work on a table top and see their virtual reality while they were looking at the table in real time, but I can't find it anymore. google tips: "3d interaction", "augmented reality"
in english: http://www.kinepolis.be/index.cfm?ThemeID=605
I have a tremor since my youth, mouse usage goes without problems, though. Touchpads are a nightmare for me, as well as the small trackballs that were used at notebooks. I have a tablet, drawing straight lines is a bit of a problem, just as in normal life, it would be nice if there was some sort of software adjustment for this. Don't know how this device shown here would help, I can imagine that it is a bit difficult for the elderly to work with. And it could be done by software as well.
I was also thinking that I was watching some 13 in a dozen laywer series instead of sci-fi. Two weeks ago I saw the DVD of the original 1978 movie ( hidden away on imdb http://www.imdb.com/title/ tt0076984/ ) and I must say I was pretty impressed by it, exciting storyline, interesting plot, and good effects. Ok, maybe the bad-destroying-all-humans-without-a-cause-robot-gu ys were not exactly the most intriguing enemies one can think of, and they probably improved that in the new series.
But why is everyone talking so softly, should that make it more (artistically) interesting? Does that girl have to wear that dress all the time? Really, they've been messing their genres up on this one.
BTW: apples and oranges are experimentally proven to be pretty similar, maybe you'd better use another terminology: http://www.improb.com/airchives/paperair/volume1/v 1i3/air-1-3-apples.html
Anyone else noting the strange url for the talon robot website? Are they ment to replace the human 'lemmings' that'd normally would be used in such missions? http://www.foster-miller.com/lemming.htm
*agrees* BTW: They also have a more permanent link: http://www.somethingawful.com/fake/epharmacy/
In a perfect structure without faults, one layer would be enough (think buckyballs), but the diamond-lattice wouldn't be stable at all that way.
Even then if you would make structures where the mass / volume would be lower than the density of air it would be difficult to get it to float in the air. Just try it, if you make a hollow object, and try to scale it up, the surface will scale with the power of two, while the volume will scale with the power of three. So, at large enough scales any vacuum hollow object can have a mass/volume lower than the density of air. If this would work, this would be a cheap and safe way to build zeppelins ;) I guess it really only works for objects which are in the gas phase at air temperature, and diamond doesn't really fall in that category.
On the article itself: why should this be news? Any scientist in nano-assembly will say that his/her research results will change the world. This goes in steps, but if just any step will be posted on slashdot they might be better of just forwarding their site to web of science / current contents / pubmed in the long run...