big science
pontiff | April 21, 2009In Vienna, Virginia on April 23-25th a workshop is being held in response to a report, "A Federal Vision for Quantum Information Science" issued by the United States National Science and Technology Council. While this workshop looks, from the outside, like any other typical quantum computing workshop, this is a bit deceiving, as from what I understand this workshop is supposed to provide the impetus for a report arguing for a major spending for quantum information science in the United States, especially from the National Science Foundation. The Quantum Pontiff, unfortunately, is stuck…
amillikan | January 16, 2009In the emergent era of Big Science, will the work of small-scale genetics labs be overwhelmed—or worse, rendered obsolete—by massive genome studies like the International HapMap Project? Dan MacArthur of Genetic Future thinks that a happy equilibrium could be reached between the two approaches. "Big Genetics generates far more data than its participants can ever hope to analyse themselves," he writes, "and the hefty remainder is fodder for a plethora of small labs exploring small but important facets of the bigger picture."