This sort of stuff is part of my job. Full disclosure: I am a molecular modeler at a large pharmaceutical company. People always want this method to work, and it seldom does. Why? The models are too primitive, automated data analysis will miss true hits, signal to noise ratio is very high. First of all, what they are looking for is properly termed a hit, not a drug. The odds of a drug (i.e. the final chemical entity that gets FDA approval) coming out of this type of screen is beyond astronomic.
Secondly you need to understand what they're actually doing. They have a rigid model of a receptor/enzyme/protein that is relevant to malaria. Then they dock what's called a library of compounds into that receptor and compute a score based on various interactions and/or properties. Almost surely explicit solvent is not taken into account, amongs a host of other simplifications. Probably then they will have to use some kind of cut off. What will that be? Well it depends on the actual number of compounds they can test in a real assay. If it was this easy, don't you think there'd be way more drugs out there, and development wouldn't cost millions of dollars? Trust me, I see these kinds of kooky proposals all the time, and while I wish them the best, I don't hold out too much hope.
An experiment I've done myself: compare the results of an experimental high throughput screen on 1.5M compounds against a virtual screen (very much analogous to what was run here). Result: 1% overlap of the top 20% of compounds from either screen. Shouldn't the model be able to reproduce reality better?
This kind of method can work in limited cases and with much smaller numbers of compounds. Brute force rarely does.
A more important question for me: how/why does your wife let you play Eve-Online to your hearts content? This is something I wish I could do. What does she do when you play?
Given the fact that these extra-solar planetary bodies you propose have far less mass than an average star, there would have to be a phenomenal number of them to make a dent in the amount of non-hydrogen matter that exists.
Furthemore the most massive non-stellar objects are gas giants...and what do you suppose is the most common gas? According to NASA, Jupiters atmosphere is 90% hydrogen, and assuming most gas giants are similar in composition (which is not unreasonable), hydrogen would still be the most common element.
For example, organic chemists probably have no idea what a fast fourier transform is, although it powers one of their most important instruments, namely the NMR. And don't ever try to ask a chemist to explain quantum mechanics to you. They're taught a completely hand-waving version of it in school, and pass it on from generation to generation.
What a bunch of elitist crap. I'm a theoretical chemist, formerly synthetic. My god someone doesn't know all the nitty gritty behind an NMR, end of the world! Do you know exactly in engineering detail how every device you use works? Most people don't, and they shouldn't have to, because it's a waste of time. Organic chemists have specialized knowledge on how to make molecules, not how to run FFT's. But I suppose you've done many total syntheses all by yourself, right?
That said, sometimes it's pretty frustrating because while they don't seem to have as good a fundamental knowledge of the physics or math, they get a damn lot more money in grants etc. I guess practical things, like medicines, are important in that sense.
Practical things are important...there's an understatement. Pharma companies support much of the research with big money because drugs make big money, and quarks don't. This is not to say that fundamental physics is not important, but that is the reason why organic chemists are well funded.
You're bitter that the organic chemists have all the toys, and you have to scrounge to just get one machine from a grant. Tough shit dude. That's the scientific climate today, for better or worse.
The most important thing is what kind of a scientist someone is: open minded but skeptical, creative, inquisitive. Don't begrudge others success at what you percieve is your expense, it just shows you as being jealous and small minded.
Agree with you on The Disposessed. I got all excited about seeing a new book by her, but I found it to be rather underwhelming and disappointing. It was more of a political commentary than anything else...the SciFi aspect took a distant second place.
JB
Half the posts so far are making fun of MS, or the name of XP or some other gay shit. And this is going to be worth subscribing to? Yes we all know MS is an evil company, but that doesn't mean the OS is crap.
I've been using the Pro Corp version for a month, and honestly I can't think why in the world I would boot into FreeBSD/Gnome. Don't get me wrong, I love BSD/Gnome, but what is it that it offers me that is head and shoulders above XP? I think the answer, if you're using your computer as most do (for a workstation, NOT a server of ANY kind), is pretty much nothing.
And anyway, who the hell pays for an OS...commercial or not...if you're 3133+, as many think they are, then you can obtain whatever version you want for the same price as a Linux ISO.
I wish CmdrTaco and co. would write some kind of script to figure out how much time the average/. reader takes between reading the story and submitting a comment. I would wager it's pretty low, given the responses to this story.
This is merely one study that brings to light a possible complication to assumptions made about c-14 uptake by organisms. That's it. It doesn't invalidate c-14 dating at all.
And aside from that, I simply can't understand why people argue religion vs. science. If you believe that God created everything, then who do you think made particles act the way they do? To make things interact in the way we observe them? God obviously. Then every theory we come up with is based on things God created. So why argue that they are somehow false? Our *interpretation* may be off (or wrong) due to previously undiscovered factors (as in this case), but the fundamentals (radioisotope decay) are correct. So if you believe in God, you must believe in that enormous mish-mash of facts and theories called "science".
The $30/year is NOT just so that there won't be any more ads. That is just a small perk they are adding. Yes you can get rid of the ads for free. Big deal. The point is that they have trouble staying afloat because net advertising is complete BS and is not a sustainable model of revenue for the vast majority of sites.
I will pay because I love Salon, I love the contect, the articles, the opinions. I happen to think it's some of the best stuff on the web today. I read it every day. Why SHOULDN'T I pay $30/year to help support something I enjoy so much?
Why the hell is every so upset at the notion of paying for something? If you think it's good you should want to support it financially, and if you think it sucks, don't read it. And my God, $30 a year. Wow, that is like so outrageous!
I think a lot of you need to take off your Open Source glasses and face reality.
And I would never pay $30 or $3 for slashdot, since it provides NO original content 95% of the time. I find maybe one story per month that is of interest to me that I probably would not have found if I did't read slashdot. But hey, that's just me.
This is kind of cool, but I really wonder if anyone is really interested in making hypersonic passenger vehicles. Wasn't the X-30 (or something) cancelled?
Of course I bet if it costs $1M Aus to make, it will cost the US Military about $50M US to make.:)
A lot of the issues you cite are human issues, rather than technical ones. People like to use the things they're comfortable with, even if something else is better. Linux has a greater marketshare than FreeBSD, but Windows has a much larger market share than either, should we use Windows?
I would say that Windows out of the box is more friendly than most Linux or FreeBSD distributions, another argument for Windows? Certainly MacOS is "friendlier" than either.
This wouldn't be such a silly discussion topic if it didn't inavriably degenerate into a dick-waving fest. Both Linux and FreeBSD are good. Maybe one is faster than the other in some things, but so what?
Finland has it backwards. If you're rich, you should pay *less*, not more. I mean, the US has it down pat. If you're rich and famous, you can get away with robbing a bank (or murder). Meanwhile the less well-off have to struggle with ugly things like fairness and justice.
1) For a very small subset of catalysts. Don't forget this takes place at 20K on a Cu surface. As a general method of probing the mechanism of catalysis, this isn't terribly useful.
2) Biochemical reactions tend to take place in solution. Taking an enzyme-substrate complex at low temperatures in a vacuum on a solid surface does not seem to me to be a good method for detecting intermediates.
3) Yeah, you could make funky stuff.:)
I think the thing to realize is that this experiment forces to things to react by literally moving/changing them. If you wish to see how things react under "normal" circumstances, you need a different technique, such as femtosecond spectroscopy. I would direct you to the work of Ahmed Zewail (Scripps I think), who received a Nobel prize for his work a couple of years ago.
No, it's not a good method to create a new molecule (in general). No one in their right mind would synthesize molecules with an STM. It's a good method for gaining further understanding into chemical bonding. This technique is supplemental rather than revolutionary.
A few weeks ago TT reported that the Thermaltake Golden Orb cooler destroyed CPU's because it was grinding against them. That may be true for the coolers they received, but mine has been working fine, and the place I ordered it from (which is by the way the kickest-ass place to get custom systems from) never experienced it either. So be careful about what you read.
I think it's really interesting that recently we're discovering so many planets. Just think, in the 80's, there were NO known planets orbiting other stars. Of course they can most easily detect large planets because they have the largest effect on the stars brightness (whis I believe is how they detect them). There may be just as many undiscovered planets about the size of the earth.
I really hope they'll discover some form of life somewhere...even some sludge sucking germ on Titan would have drastic implications.
Actually, he did say "bub" once. It was when he was fighting Sabertooth on the statue of liberty.
Dennis
I don't think they knew their target audience
on
Review: 'Titan A.E.'
·
· Score: 1
I saw the movie. Waste of $8. It was far too babyish, with a simplistic and wholly illogical plot. Bad dialogue too. I think boys aged 5-10 might enjoy this movie.
Can't we read reviews in a million other places? I guess JK's logic is: animated == "geek".
No kidding! Recently I had to replace the RAM on my P200, and I was shocked to find that 2 32MB EDO SIMMS were more than 1 64MB SDRAM DIMM. Luckily I had a DIMM slot. Crazy.
They say they make a copper complex of the organic ligand. The removal/addition of an electron is without a doubt the oxidation/reduction of the copper center. A change in oxidation state may lead to a corresponding change in coordination geometry around the Cu atom. It's probably the case that both complexes are chiral, but that they are NOT enantiomers of each other (i.e. mirror images of each other). They may simply be two DIFFERENT chiral complexes that fortuitously rotate plane polarized light in opposite directions.
It's L and D, and R and S. L and D is notation for which direction a chiral molecule rotates plane-polarize light: Levo (left) or Dextro (right). R and S refer to the absolute configuration of a molecule according to a systematic naming system. There is no correspondence/relationship between L & D and R & S.
You too huh? I think I have every hardcover book ever released for the 1st edition. Let me see if I can list them all here, just for fun:
Players Handbook Dungeon Masters Guide (green robe one, not the even more ancient efreet/City of Brass one) Monster Manual (original cover) Monster Manual II Fiend Folio Dieties & Demigods (original cover) Unearthed Arcana Oriental Adventures Wilderness Survival Guide Dungeoneers Survival Guide Greyhawk Legends Dragonlance (forget the exact title of this one) Manual of the Planes (not 100% sure if this is the right title)
My dad kept telling me to throw them away! Never I say.:)
Maybe it's just because I know what's involved with this experiment on a practical level that makes me think that something really big is going to need to happen before q-computing makes any significant dent in anything.
The experiment is done in an NMR, which is completely impractical for any kind of device for widespread use. Any extension to higher qbits involving the same type of experiment seems to me to be of very limited value.
Conceptually it's interesting, but until the principle can be demonstrated completely at room temperature (the sample is at RT, but the magnets in the NMR are liquid nitrogen and liquid helium cooled), I don't think it's going anywhere.
Slashdot Mirror
This sort of stuff is part of my job. Full disclosure: I am a molecular modeler at a large pharmaceutical company. People always want this method to work, and it seldom does. Why? The models are too primitive, automated data analysis will miss true hits, signal to noise ratio is very high. First of all, what they are looking for is properly termed a hit, not a drug. The odds of a drug (i.e. the final chemical entity that gets FDA approval) coming out of this type of screen is beyond astronomic.
Secondly you need to understand what they're actually doing. They have a rigid model of a receptor/enzyme/protein that is relevant to malaria. Then they dock what's called a library of compounds into that receptor and compute a score based on various interactions and/or properties. Almost surely explicit solvent is not taken into account, amongs a host of other simplifications. Probably then they will have to use some kind of cut off. What will that be? Well it depends on the actual number of compounds they can test in a real assay. If it was this easy, don't you think there'd be way more drugs out there, and development wouldn't cost millions of dollars? Trust me, I see these kinds of kooky proposals all the time, and while I wish them the best, I don't hold out too much hope.
An experiment I've done myself: compare the results of an experimental high throughput screen on 1.5M compounds against a virtual screen (very much analogous to what was run here). Result: 1% overlap of the top 20% of compounds from either screen. Shouldn't the model be able to reproduce reality better?
This kind of method can work in limited cases and with much smaller numbers of compounds. Brute force rarely does.
A more important question for me: how/why does your wife let you play Eve-Online to your hearts content? This is something I wish I could do. What does she do when you play?
JB
Given the fact that these extra-solar planetary bodies you propose have far less mass than an average star, there would have to be a phenomenal number of them to make a dent in the amount of non-hydrogen matter that exists.
Furthemore the most massive non-stellar objects are gas giants...and what do you suppose is the most common gas? According to NASA, Jupiters atmosphere is 90% hydrogen, and assuming most gas giants are similar in composition (which is not unreasonable), hydrogen would still be the most common element.
For example, organic chemists probably have no idea what a fast fourier transform is, although it powers one of their most important instruments, namely the NMR. And don't ever try to ask a chemist to explain quantum mechanics to you. They're taught a completely hand-waving version of it in school, and pass it on from generation to generation.
What a bunch of elitist crap. I'm a theoretical chemist, formerly synthetic. My god someone doesn't know all the nitty gritty behind an NMR, end of the world! Do you know exactly in engineering detail how every device you use works? Most people don't, and they shouldn't have to, because it's a waste of time. Organic chemists have specialized knowledge on how to make molecules, not how to run FFT's. But I suppose you've done many total syntheses all by yourself, right?
That said, sometimes it's pretty frustrating because while they don't seem to have as good a fundamental knowledge of the physics or math, they get a damn lot more money in grants etc. I guess practical things, like medicines, are important in that sense.
Practical things are important...there's an understatement. Pharma companies support much of the research with big money because drugs make big money, and quarks don't. This is not to say that fundamental physics is not important, but that is the reason why organic chemists are well funded.
You're bitter that the organic chemists have all the toys, and you have to scrounge to just get one machine from a grant. Tough shit dude. That's the scientific climate today, for better or worse.
The most important thing is what kind of a scientist someone is: open minded but skeptical, creative, inquisitive. Don't begrudge others success at what you percieve is your expense, it just shows you as being jealous and small minded.
Agree with you on The Disposessed. I got all excited about seeing a new book by her, but I found it to be rather underwhelming and disappointing. It was more of a political commentary than anything else...the SciFi aspect took a distant second place. JB
Half the posts so far are making fun of MS, or the name of XP or some other gay shit. And this is going to be worth subscribing to? Yes we all know MS is an evil company, but that doesn't mean the OS is crap.
I've been using the Pro Corp version for a month, and honestly I can't think why in the world I would boot into FreeBSD/Gnome. Don't get me wrong, I love BSD/Gnome, but what is it that it offers me that is head and shoulders above XP? I think the answer, if you're using your computer as most do (for a workstation, NOT a server of ANY kind), is pretty much nothing.
And anyway, who the hell pays for an OS...commercial or not...if you're 3133+, as many think they are, then you can obtain whatever version you want for the same price as a Linux ISO.
Um, plutonium has a half-life of thousands of years. Are you willing to eat some plutonium?
Yeah, I didn't think so.
D.O.
I wish CmdrTaco and co. would write some kind of script to figure out how much time the average /. reader takes between reading the story and submitting a comment. I would wager it's pretty low, given the responses to this story.
This is merely one study that brings to light a possible complication to assumptions made about c-14 uptake by organisms. That's it. It doesn't invalidate c-14 dating at all.
And aside from that, I simply can't understand why people argue religion vs. science. If you believe that God created everything, then who do you think made particles act the way they do? To make things interact in the way we observe them? God obviously. Then every theory we come up with is based on things God created. So why argue that they are somehow false? Our *interpretation* may be off (or wrong) due to previously undiscovered factors (as in this case), but the fundamentals (radioisotope decay) are correct. So if you believe in God, you must believe in that enormous mish-mash of facts and theories called "science".
i.e. It's all good.
Dennis
The $30/year is NOT just so that there won't be any more ads. That is just a small perk they are adding. Yes you can get rid of the ads for free. Big deal. The point is that they have trouble staying afloat because net advertising is complete BS and is not a sustainable model of revenue for the vast majority of sites.
I will pay because I love Salon, I love the contect, the articles, the opinions. I happen to think it's some of the best stuff on the web today. I read it every day. Why SHOULDN'T I pay $30/year to help support something I enjoy so much?
Why the hell is every so upset at the notion of paying for something? If you think it's good you should want to support it financially, and if you think it sucks, don't read it. And my God, $30 a year. Wow, that is like so outrageous!
I think a lot of you need to take off your Open Source glasses and face reality.
And I would never pay $30 or $3 for slashdot, since it provides NO original content 95% of the time. I find maybe one story per month that is of interest to me that I probably would not have found if I did't read slashdot. But hey, that's just me.
D.
This is kind of cool, but I really wonder if anyone is really interested in making hypersonic passenger vehicles. Wasn't the X-30 (or something) cancelled?
:)
Of course I bet if it costs $1M Aus to make, it will cost the US Military about $50M US to make.
A lot of the issues you cite are human issues, rather than technical ones. People like to use the things they're comfortable with, even if something else is better. Linux has a greater marketshare than FreeBSD, but Windows has a much larger market share than either, should we use Windows?
:)
I would say that Windows out of the box is more friendly than most Linux or FreeBSD distributions, another argument for Windows? Certainly MacOS is "friendlier" than either.
This wouldn't be such a silly discussion topic if it didn't inavriably degenerate into a dick-waving fest. Both Linux and FreeBSD are good. Maybe one is faster than the other in some things, but so what?
Can't we all just get along?
Dennis
You couldn't log in as root with ssh because by default, root logins are (and should be) disabled with ssh. This is a good thing.
Dennis
Finland has it backwards. If you're rich, you should pay *less*, not more. I mean, the US has it down pat. If you're rich and famous, you can get away with robbing a bank (or murder). Meanwhile the less well-off have to struggle with ugly things like fairness and justice.
You crazy Finns! Damn you ALLLL!
-JB
1) For a very small subset of catalysts. Don't forget this takes place at 20K on a Cu surface. As a general method of probing the mechanism of catalysis, this isn't terribly useful.
:)
2) Biochemical reactions tend to take place in solution. Taking an enzyme-substrate complex at low temperatures in a vacuum on a solid surface does not seem to me to be a good method for detecting intermediates.
3) Yeah, you could make funky stuff.
I think the thing to realize is that this experiment forces to things to react by literally moving/changing them. If you wish to see how things react under "normal" circumstances, you need a different technique, such as femtosecond spectroscopy. I would direct you to the work of Ahmed Zewail (Scripps I think), who received a Nobel prize for his work a couple of years ago.
No, it's not a good method to create a new molecule (in general). No one in their right mind would synthesize molecules with an STM. It's a good method for gaining further understanding into chemical bonding. This technique is supplemental rather than revolutionary.
180F heat? Maybe in a 120F room. My A7V mobo and 800MHz T-bird typically run at 105F.
A few weeks ago TT reported that the Thermaltake Golden Orb cooler destroyed CPU's because it was grinding against them. That may be true for the coolers they received, but mine has been working fine, and the place I ordered it from (which is by the way the kickest-ass place to get custom systems from) never experienced it either. So be careful about what you read.
envision computer systems
If you're gonna order a system, consider them. I only recommend them because they are truly exceptional.
I think it's really interesting that recently we're discovering so many planets. Just think, in the 80's, there were NO known planets orbiting other stars. Of course they can most easily detect large planets because they have the largest effect on the stars brightness (whis I believe is how they detect them). There may be just as many undiscovered planets about the size of the earth.
I really hope they'll discover some form of life somewhere...even some sludge sucking germ on Titan would have drastic implications.
Dennis
Actually, he did say "bub" once. It was when he was fighting Sabertooth on the statue of liberty.
Dennis
I saw the movie. Waste of $8. It was far too babyish, with a simplistic and wholly illogical plot. Bad dialogue too. I think boys aged 5-10 might enjoy this movie.
Can't we read reviews in a million other places? I guess JK's logic is: animated == "geek".
*sigh* Where has all the cool content gone?
Dennis
No kidding! Recently I had to replace the RAM on my P200, and I was shocked to find that 2 32MB EDO SIMMS were more than 1 64MB SDRAM DIMM. Luckily I had a DIMM slot. Crazy.
They say they make a copper complex of the organic ligand. The removal/addition of an electron is without a doubt the oxidation/reduction of the copper center. A change in oxidation state may lead to a corresponding change in coordination geometry around the Cu atom. It's probably the case that both complexes are chiral, but that they are NOT enantiomers of each other (i.e. mirror images of each other). They may simply be two DIFFERENT chiral complexes that fortuitously rotate plane polarized light in opposite directions.
It's L and D, and R and S. L and D is notation for which direction a chiral molecule rotates plane-polarize light: Levo (left) or Dextro (right). R and S refer to the absolute configuration of a molecule according to a systematic naming system. There is no correspondence/relationship between L & D and R & S.
You too huh? I think I have every hardcover book ever released for the 1st edition. Let me see if I can list them all here, just for fun:
:)
Players Handbook
Dungeon Masters Guide (green robe one, not the even more ancient efreet/City of Brass one)
Monster Manual (original cover)
Monster Manual II
Fiend Folio
Dieties & Demigods (original cover)
Unearthed Arcana
Oriental Adventures
Wilderness Survival Guide
Dungeoneers Survival Guide
Greyhawk Legends
Dragonlance (forget the exact title of this one)
Manual of the Planes (not 100% sure if this is the right title)
My dad kept telling me to throw them away! Never I say.
Maybe it's just because I know what's involved with this experiment on a practical level that makes me think that something really big is going to need to happen before q-computing makes any significant dent in anything.
The experiment is done in an NMR, which is completely impractical for any kind of device for widespread use. Any extension to higher qbits involving the same type of experiment seems to me to be of very limited value.
Conceptually it's interesting, but until the principle can be demonstrated completely at room temperature (the sample is at RT, but the magnets in the NMR are liquid nitrogen and liquid helium cooled), I don't think it's going anywhere.
Dennis