Technology
sciencepunk | April 8, 2010Given that the much-reviled Digital Economy Bill has been forced through Parliament into law, I thought I'd share the very long and very thoughtful email I received from my MP Richard Younger-Ross after I wrote to him in protest of some measures included in this proposed legislation (particularly odious is making the account-holder responsible for whatever allegedly happens through their connection, a plan that will likely wipe out wifi sharing in this country). Ross doesn't seem to have turned up to vote on the bill, but I don't hold much of a grudge against him for that: scheduling a vote…
clock | April 7, 2010Our April Science Café (description below) will be held on Tuesday 4/20 at the Irregardless Cafe on Morgan Street. Our café speaker for that night is Rogelio Sullivan, Associate Director of the Advanced Transportation Energy Center and also of the Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management Systems Center (FREEDM) at NCSU. Come and learn how our country is dealing with our ever-increasing energy consumption, and of ways that we may be able to reduce our dependence on foreign oil using a combination of innovative alternative energy cars and changes in our daily transportation…
bioephemera | April 5, 2010This is kind of cool:
For the second year in a row, AAAS [the American Association for the Advancement of Science] will be arranging hands-on science activities for children attending the White House Easter Egg Roll.AAAS was invited by the Office of Science and Technology Policy to help infuse science into the event on Monday 5 April. In partnership with AAAS, the Lawrence Hall of Science at the University of California, Berkeley, also will be participating in the event.With the theme "The Science of Spring," AAAS staffers have arranged activities, such as bean dissection and viewing of seeds…
oracknows | April 1, 2010One of the most persistent and prevalent examples of a modern myth that will not die is the story of Area 51. So ingrained in our culture has it become that nearly everyone (at least in the U.S.) knows what you are talking about when you refer to it. It's been featured in movies as diverse as Independence Day (one of my favorite big budget, brain-meltingly silly end-of-the-world movies about alien invasion) and, of course, Area 51. Forests of trees have been slain in order to publish books on the subject, and cable TV channels serve up near constant stream of documentaries either about Area…
revere | March 31, 2010The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano is asking academics to work with her agency to develop "innovative initiatives" to protect the nation from terrorist threats. This is what I would call a faith-based initiative, in this case, faith in the technological fix. DHS could certainly use some help. It's one of the most clueless and incompetent agency in the federal government. But I don't think the answer to the problem is going to be found in nanotechnology, computer science or micrcomputer circuitry:
The DHS noted that the cooperation between its departments and…
cagapakis | March 25, 2010
Cellularity is a new project by James King, a speculative designer working on biotechnology and interaction design. The project focuses on the potential future of smart pharmaceuticals, drug molecules surrounded by membranes that over time as technology advances may come to more and more closely resemble actually living things. He proposes a cellularity scale from totally non-living to really alive artificial cells. This quantification of "aliveness" in a way is something that may need to be done if some of the proposals of synthetic biology come to fruition. When does a membrane surrounding…
clock | March 22, 2010The new issue of Journal of Science Communication is now online (Open Access, so you can download all PDFs for free). Apart from the article on blogging that we already dissected at length, this issue has a number of interesting articles, reviews, perspectives and papers:
Users and peers. From citizen science to P2P science:
This introduction presents the essays belonging to the JCOM special issue on User-led and peer-to-peer science. It also draws a first map of the main problems we need to investigate when we face this new and emerging phenomenon. Web tools are enacting and facilitating new…
dgmacarthur | March 18, 2010Update: Dan Vorhaus has a brilliantly thorough post outlining the implications of the registry.
NIH Director Francis Collins has announced the creation of a voluntary registry for genetic testing services, with the details of each service being made fully available in a public database.
Much depends on the details, but if this database is done right it will be good news both for consumers and for reputable genetic testing companies. The press release states that one aim of the database is to "[e]ncourage providers of genetic tests to enhance transparency by publicly sharing information…
dgmacarthur | March 10, 2010Lupski, J.R., et al. (2010). Whole-genome sequencing in a patient with Charcot-Marie-Tooth neuropathy. New England Journal of Medicine advance online 10.1056/nejmoa0908094
Roach, J.C., & et al. (2010). Analysis of genetic inheritance in a family quartet by whole-genome sequencing. Science : 10.1126/science.1186802
Two new papers out today - the first ever studies to employ whole-genome sequencing for disease gene discovery - neatly illustrate both the promise and the challenges lying ahead both for clinical and personal genomics.
The first paper presents the final - and successful…
dgmacarthur | March 10, 2010Dan Koboldt has a very nice recap of the various sequencing technologies presented at last week's Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting. I totally agree with his central point:
Something had been bothering me about the sequencing-company presentations this year, and I finally realized what it was. During AGBT 2009, every player was gunning to take over the world. This year it seems like every sequencing platform has a niche in mind.
The recent proliferation of sequencing technologies - each with their own characteristic profile of strengths and weaknesses - has been bewildering…
lbock | March 8, 2010
I remember, all too painfully, in many of my high tech and life science start-ups, a common refrain from the scientists would be, "We got the device to work....it's just engineering from here." Then, invariably - millions of dollars later - I would learn (as the CEO): that's when the hard work really begins. It's one thing to get one device to work; it's another big thing to get the next hundred devices to all work.
When I set out to start the "USA Science Festival" and received a phone call from Chuck Vest, the President of the National Academy of Engineering, suggesting that I should…
terrasig | March 6, 2010When I first started my independent academic laboratory in 1992, it was in a brand new facility across the parking lot from a then 40-year-old building named in honor of the woman to the right. I took on a big teaching load from day one and while I had some cash left from the $50,000 start-up package, I didn't hire a technician immediately. So it fell upon me to do all the ordering of the basic supplies to get the operation rolling. No problem, right? I ordered much of my own stuff as a postdoc so it should be no problem to get everything I need to start the lab from scratch.
One of the…
clock | March 2, 2010Duke's Periodic Tables at the Broad Street Cafe
March 9, 2010 | 7:00 P.M.
Nanomaterials in Ecosystems: Should we worry?
Nanotechnology has the enormous potential to change our society. New advances in medicine, energy production, environmental cleanup and better access to clean water are just a few of the many possibilities. According to the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies, the number of products that use nanomaterials has increased almost 380% since 2006. But, is it the same special properties that make nanoscale materials so useful that also pose potential risks to humans…
bioephemera | March 2, 2010This may appeal to some of you:
The 15th biannual conference of the European Association of Museums for the History of Medical Sciences (EAMHMS) will be held at the University of Copenhagen, 16-18 September, 2010. This year's conference focuses on the challenge to museums posed by contemporary developments in medical science and technology.The image of medicine that emerges from most museum galleries and exhibitions is still dominated by pre-modern and modern understandings of an anatomical and physiological body, and by the diagnostic and therapeutical methods and instruments used to…
dgmacarthur | February 28, 2010The main theme of this year's Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting should come as no surprise to regular readers: sequencing. Generating as many bases of DNA sequence as quickly, cheaply and accurately as possible is the goal of the moment, and the number of companies jostling to achieve that goal is growing rapidly.
The meeting saw impressive performances from established players in the field, especially Illumina: their new HiSeq 2000 instrument seems to have dug in as the platform of choice for generating vast amounts of high-quality short-read data. Life Technologies seem to…
razib | February 27, 2010Check out Dr. Dan MacArthur's assessment of the Pacific Biosciences presentation at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology conference. Also check out Genetic Inferences take on AGBT (yes, they're really original with catchy blog names at the Sanger Institute!). In any case, a friend of mine was raving about Pacific Biosciences a few months ago, so I assumed it would blow up soon.
dgmacarthur | February 26, 2010I've been remiss in blogging from the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting here in Marco Island, Florida, primarily due to some panic-stricken last-minute changes to the slides for my own presentation last night.
Fortunately the conference has been extremely well-covered by others: Sanger colleague Luke Jostins has blog posts up summarising day 1 and day 2 of the meeting; Dan Koboldt from MassGenomics has his first impressions and a review of the cancer genomics session; and Anthony Fejes is continuing the tradition of publishing extensive notes on every talk he attends.
There…
terrasig | February 23, 2010As I wrote on Twitter yesterday, I am sending hugs, salutes, and immense respect to Dr. Chris Gunter and her colleagues at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Alabama.
Gunter, a self-described "recovering Nature editor" who serves as Director of Research Affairs at HudsonAlpha, is working with several of her colleagues at the institute to finish teaching an undergraduate neuroscience course that was left without a professor following the UAHuntsville tragedy.
Practical things first: Chris has sent out a call to any educators out there who have syllabi or slides for…
dgmacarthur | February 22, 2010I'll be at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting in Marco Island, Florida for the next week, soaking up sun and genomics, keeping my eye out for the anticipated major announcements from sequencing companies and researchers, and quietly panicking about my presentation on Thursday. You'll hear more about the meeting from me and the other bloggers there - Luke Jostins, David Dooling, Dan Koboldt and Anthony Fejes - over the next week.
It's amazing to think that it was at the same meeting in 2009 - just one year ago - that Complete Genomics emerged dramatically from stealth mode…
bioephemera | February 22, 2010
Feb 23rd (tomorrow) is the last day to snag advance tickets to the Seven on Seven conference in NYC:
Seven on Seven will pair seven leading artists with seven game-changing technologists in teams of two, and challenge them to develop something new --be it an application, social media, artwork, product, or whatever they imagine-- over the course of a single day. The seven teams will unveil their ideas at a one-day event at the New Museum on April 17th.
If you go, let me know how it is!