Definitely has to have a firewall where personal information is protected, yet maybe some AI will have to come first if people have expectations of alerting medical/police but only when something really bad actually has happened. And voice activated enhancement of photos is a must.
I think population dynamics show that in times of plenty (little natural selection, abundant food) populations explode, what the human population has been doing the last 100+ years. It's the spring that doesn't come or massive outbreak of disease or new dominant predator that culls the population, when that selection occurs the random genetic variations may give rise to competitive advantages. It is only after the population goes through the selection event that any mutations that proved advantageous will spread right through the population, then the population has evolved. Before the selection event the population is just randomly diverging.
Surely the NSA could verify that it was all non-work related "tapping"? And isn't "tapping" slang for "laying some pipe" which is slang for "rooting" which is slang for...
Just thought I would point out some techniques that can quickly(?) tell you a great deal about the quantities of various proteins, iTRAQ is one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITRAQ. So an effective assay might look at the ratios of dozens of proteins and their relative abundance, not that iTRAQ is scalable for regular clinical tests. It is quite expensive as kits. On the other hand if twenty proteins seem to be key indicators of cancer a protocol using antibodies for each to partially purify the proteins followed by iTRAQ and MALDI mass spectrometry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maldicould be reasonably cost effective. It depends on how remarkable the differences are between well:sick people. A simple elisa test is all you need is a yes/no question on if a protein is there. The next step is just looking for good correlations between people having diseases and changes from the "fingerprint" of what is normal, it seems quite promising.
I've heard of Open Access, but it hasn't exactly taken off yet. I look for papers on Pubmed quite often and almost every serious paper is in a pay-to-access journal. Fortunately there are site licenses for accessing these online, and if you really have to read something most big journals are at the local university libraries. Archived on paper!
I agree all government funded research should be freely accessable, and the "big journals" (Nature, Science, Biochemistry, JBC) could probably still sell subscriptions with additional editorial content, pretty pictures etc. It is up to individuals where they publish, so there is a lot of inertia to overcome as people publish where there field has always published. Being in the proteomics field currently there is a short list of journals we would like to publish in, and nothing open access has climbed onto the radar, but scientific communities will undoubtedly manage to increase some journals such as this to higher status. If it doesn't remain too fragmented into lots of small e-journals little better than science blogs for articles rejected elsewhere.
I never heard of "PLoS ONE", it claims to be a peer reviewed journal at least. If this was ground breaking I'd expect it to be published in Nature though. The "PLoS ONE" website isn't loading for me at the moment, but hopefully I'll be able to read the actual article. This seems to be hoopla over definitions though, we can sort organisms into kingdoms and phyla any way we like, this seems identical to the tug-of-war over whether Pluto is a planet or a planetoid. Is it the size of the planet? Is it if an organism has x+2 mutations in a histone protein/gene it gets slotted into one kingdom or another?
It may not be as expensive as you think, especially if it uses a bioanalyser useful for other research. This reminds me of some of the new techniques for DNA sequencing http://www.454.com/, but is probably just beads with anywhere from 20 to 100 nucleotide pieces of DNA attached, each bead specific to one virus. If a PCR product http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction/ attaches to the single stranded DNA on the bead then a stain like ethidium bromide will light up the bead (under UV light in the bioanalyzer). Anyway my point on the expense is that machines with UV lamps and cameras are not that pricey, just marked up that way.:P
I think, since as you point out few viruses are specifically treatable, this might be more useful for use at selected hospitals across a country or the world to track the dispersion and spread of viruses. Especcially since scaling up the kit to include many hundreds of viruses and/or bacteria should be easy, look at how many beads the 454 DNA sequencing chips fit, it's amazing.
IAAB (I am a biochemist), but I don't work on medical diagnostics, cheers!
A (biological) virus does not eat or photosynthesize or have any metabolism at all. That's why they are virus particles, other than the slow degradation of all complex molecules if you have a tube full of virii they will just sit in the tube forever. Doing nothing. If you add sugar, protein, complex carbohydrates and sunlight to the tube of virii they will... sit there. Doing nothing. Not eating. Not metabolizing. Not replicating. Living things would either die, metabolize, or replicate, the virii do not. The virii does contain genetic information, if inserted into a cell the information is used to hijack the cell into making more copies of the virus. The virus may only encode a handful of proteins, but it uses the ribosomes and other protein building apparatus of the infected cell to make the viral proteins, and more copies of the viral genetic info (DNA or RNA) which is packaged and released from the cell (sometimes killing the cell in the process, sometimes not). Does this mean the virus is alive? All the protein synthesis, and packaging of the virus is done by the infected cell, the virus does not technically replicate itself, which is part of what we define as "life as we know it". They are not dead they just exist as a glitch. A primordial cell probably had a mutation that produced lots of particles that happened to be capable of causing the same glitch in other cells they encountered, virii are perhaps analagous to a "goto" loop that somehow copies itself to other programs, more than to actual computer viruses which imitate their biological namesake only to a certain degree. Maybe when the sony robot dogs start giving each other roborabies via bluetooth the analogy will be closer...
IAABC - I am a biochemist - but genetic coding is still trickier than php scripting:P
They should arrest people taking pictures of Federation Square http://www.federationsquare.com.au/, a travesty of modern design that the gov't here seem to think is the best feature of Melbourne. The old architecture here is great, the best terrorist targets are few and obvious, so forget about the whole photography issue and get a grip. Better aiport, border, and sensitive location security to prevent wankers from barging in and actually terrorizing, that's what's needed.
If we really are hitting peak oil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil, with developing countries set to steadily increase demand in the supply/demand equation with no additional supply, then every bit of fuel that can be extracted will be used. The increase in price as demand outstrips supply will force companies to increase efficiency, but you cannot decrease CO2 being dumped in the atmosphere if any reduction in use of oil by country A simply is used by country B. Under peak oil conditions we simply cannot meet demand, and that will continue until the oil really runs out (or gets more expensive than a hydrogen economy). It may be nihilist, but face it, if using oil damages the world either talk everyone into living like the Amish or use what oil you can for something useful before someone else does.
Slashdot Mirror
Definitely has to have a firewall where personal information is protected, yet maybe some AI will have to come first if people have expectations of alerting medical/police but only when something really bad actually has happened. And voice activated enhancement of photos is a must.
I think population dynamics show that in times of plenty (little natural selection, abundant food) populations explode, what the human population has been doing the last 100+ years. It's the spring that doesn't come or massive outbreak of disease or new dominant predator that culls the population, when that selection occurs the random genetic variations may give rise to competitive advantages. It is only after the population goes through the selection event that any mutations that proved advantageous will spread right through the population, then the population has evolved. Before the selection event the population is just randomly diverging.
Surely the NSA could verify that it was all non-work related "tapping"? And isn't "tapping" slang for "laying some pipe" which is slang for "rooting" which is slang for...
Just thought I would point out some techniques that can quickly(?) tell you a great deal about the quantities of various proteins, iTRAQ is one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITRAQ. So an effective assay might look at the ratios of dozens of proteins and their relative abundance, not that iTRAQ is scalable for regular clinical tests. It is quite expensive as kits. On the other hand if twenty proteins seem to be key indicators of cancer a protocol using antibodies for each to partially purify the proteins followed by iTRAQ and MALDI mass spectrometry http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maldi could be reasonably cost effective. It depends on how remarkable the differences are between well:sick people. A simple elisa test is all you need is a yes/no question on if a protein is there. The next step is just looking for good correlations between people having diseases and changes from the "fingerprint" of what is normal, it seems quite promising.
I've heard of Open Access, but it hasn't exactly taken off yet. I look for papers on Pubmed quite often and almost every serious paper is in a pay-to-access journal. Fortunately there are site licenses for accessing these online, and if you really have to read something most big journals are at the local university libraries. Archived on paper!
I agree all government funded research should be freely accessable, and the "big journals" (Nature, Science, Biochemistry, JBC) could probably still sell subscriptions with additional editorial content, pretty pictures etc. It is up to individuals where they publish, so there is a lot of inertia to overcome as people publish where there field has always published. Being in the proteomics field currently there is a short list of journals we would like to publish in, and nothing open access has climbed onto the radar, but scientific communities will undoubtedly manage to increase some journals such as this to higher status. If it doesn't remain too fragmented into lots of small e-journals little better than science blogs for articles rejected elsewhere.
I never heard of "PLoS ONE", it claims to be a peer reviewed journal at least. If this was ground breaking I'd expect it to be published in Nature though. The "PLoS ONE" website isn't loading for me at the moment, but hopefully I'll be able to read the actual article. This seems to be hoopla over definitions though, we can sort organisms into kingdoms and phyla any way we like, this seems identical to the tug-of-war over whether Pluto is a planet or a planetoid. Is it the size of the planet? Is it if an organism has x+2 mutations in a histone protein/gene it gets slotted into one kingdom or another?
:P
Hey the journal finally loaded, here is a link to the actual paper: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0000790, although its taking a long time to load for me, and it's not even slashdotted yet.
It may not be as expensive as you think, especially if it uses a bioanalyser useful for other research. This reminds me of some of the new techniques for DNA sequencing http://www.454.com/, but is probably just beads with anywhere from 20 to 100 nucleotide pieces of DNA attached, each bead specific to one virus. If a PCR product http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymerase_chain_reaction/ attaches to the single stranded DNA on the bead then a stain like ethidium bromide will light up the bead (under UV light in the bioanalyzer). Anyway my point on the expense is that machines with UV lamps and cameras are not that pricey, just marked up that way. :P
I think, since as you point out few viruses are specifically treatable, this might be more useful for use at selected hospitals across a country or the world to track the dispersion and spread of viruses. Especcially since scaling up the kit to include many hundreds of viruses and/or bacteria should be easy, look at how many beads the 454 DNA sequencing chips fit, it's amazing.
IAAB (I am a biochemist), but I don't work on medical diagnostics, cheers!
Slashdotters behold!
Go back to nature,
Go forth naked into the world thereby shattering the lenses of your oppressors!
So it is key-logged, so let it be done!
If the developer is named Ben Dover they get the Wii all right...
Nobody expects the Wii in the middle of the night!
And yes, after playing Groo,
This is the best I can do.
A (biological) virus does not eat or photosynthesize or have any metabolism at all. That's why they are virus particles, other than the slow degradation of all complex molecules if you have a tube full of virii they will just sit in the tube forever. Doing nothing. If you add sugar, protein, complex carbohydrates and sunlight to the tube of virii they will... sit there. Doing nothing. Not eating. Not metabolizing. Not replicating. Living things would either die, metabolize, or replicate, the virii do not. The virii does contain genetic information, if inserted into a cell the information is used to hijack the cell into making more copies of the virus. The virus may only encode a handful of proteins, but it uses the ribosomes and other protein building apparatus of the infected cell to make the viral proteins, and more copies of the viral genetic info (DNA or RNA) which is packaged and released from the cell (sometimes killing the cell in the process, sometimes not). Does this mean the virus is alive? All the protein synthesis, and packaging of the virus is done by the infected cell, the virus does not technically replicate itself, which is part of what we define as "life as we know it". They are not dead they just exist as a glitch. A primordial cell probably had a mutation that produced lots of particles that happened to be capable of causing the same glitch in other cells they encountered, virii are perhaps analagous to a "goto" loop that somehow copies itself to other programs, more than to actual computer viruses which imitate their biological namesake only to a certain degree. Maybe when the sony robot dogs start giving each other roborabies via bluetooth the analogy will be closer... IAABC - I am a biochemist - but genetic coding is still trickier than php scripting :P
Let's see... 1. Drive away current users with high dial up prices 2. Watch them sign up with other competitive broadband providers 3. ...
4. Profit?
They should arrest people taking pictures of Federation Square http://www.federationsquare.com.au/, a travesty of modern design that the gov't here seem to think is the best feature of Melbourne. The old architecture here is great, the best terrorist targets are few and obvious, so forget about the whole photography issue and get a grip. Better aiport, border, and sensitive location security to prevent wankers from barging in and actually terrorizing, that's what's needed.
If we really are hitting peak oil http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil, with developing countries set to steadily increase demand in the supply/demand equation with no additional supply, then every bit of fuel that can be extracted will be used. The increase in price as demand outstrips supply will force companies to increase efficiency, but you cannot decrease CO2 being dumped in the atmosphere if any reduction in use of oil by country A simply is used by country B. Under peak oil conditions we simply cannot meet demand, and that will continue until the oil really runs out (or gets more expensive than a hydrogen economy). It may be nihilist, but face it, if using oil damages the world either talk everyone into living like the Amish or use what oil you can for something useful before someone else does.