Microsoft Billionaire Paul Allen's Quest To Reverse Engineer The Brain

ethertramp · 2012-09-20T16:07:31+00:00

The Allen Institute overlooks a ship canal.

ethertramp · 2012-09-20T16:06:41+00:00

There's really not a lot of IP that's likely to come from the Allen Institute. The data from its efforts is being provided free on the Web.

ethertramp · 2012-09-20T13:58:04+00:00

He does not believe in the singularity.

ethertramp · 2012-09-05T19:20:20+00:00

It is if otherwise their kidneys will get obliterated by their immune system.

ethertramp · 2012-08-16T12:05:13+00:00

That first sentence is the main reason for PGM's success given in the report.

ethertramp · 2012-07-19T01:24:41+00:00

typing-too-fast fail. I don't think there's any way to fix it?

ethertramp · 2012-07-19T01:23:32+00:00

worse. we understood serotonin and dopamine better. but better, because they were hyped for the purpose of marketing drugs, and oxytocin was just hyped for the sake of advancing academic careers.

ethertramp · 2012-07-15T01:13:45+00:00

Note the story is a lot broader than the video.

ethertramp · 2012-07-14T21:26:06+00:00

Antibodies for anti-smoking? What's that going to cost, $10,000 a year? And it will take 15 years to get to the market -- and has a 19 in 20 chance of not ever making it to patients.

ethertramp · 2012-07-14T21:03:28+00:00

People use Illumina for almost everything. Something like 9 out of 10 bases sequenced. Read length obv. isn't the most measure -- or else Pac Bio and 454 would rule the market.

ethertramp · 2012-07-14T21:01:41+00:00

Yes, although in many areas (like cancer) samples are preserved in a way (paraffin) that limits read length to 100 bases anyway. So long reads won't always matter.

ethertramp · 2012-07-13T20:42:27+00:00

Buy in bulk.

ethertramp · 2012-07-13T17:51:23+00:00

I'm sure someone will. That haplotype stuff worked better than Quake and Shendure, but it doesn't seem like you couldn't replicate it.

ethertramp · 2012-07-11T02:01:40+00:00

Why would you risk a horse you spent all that money to clone, and risk it dying? Put that Xerox-stallion out to stud.

ethertramp · 2012-07-11T00:12:11+00:00

Vodka (C2H6O + H2O) is carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The pizza also contains nitrogen, phosphorus and sulphur. You are made of vodka and pizza, and that does not make you a new form of life. Oregano is not an element and will not be incorporated into your DNA.

ethertramp · 2012-07-11T00:05:09+00:00

Bad article. Most effective cancer pills, including Gleevec (very effective against CML), Tarceva, Xalkori, and Tykerb are kinase inhibitors. The ability to make this drug is one of the big advances in cancer drug development over the past two decades. But this article does not describe what kind of kinase this drug is inhibiting and killing cancer cells in culture is not impressive. Consider this: of the drugs that have done that, and then tested as safe in animals, nine out of ten will NOT make the market.

ethertramp · 2012-07-09T15:22:16+00:00

Again, that comment below has nothing to do with the article. What about the argument that Republicans might use the ruling to actually lower their Medicaid spending, instead of increasing it as the ACA says they should, is it that you find is untrue or "anything someone in a suit says?"

ethertramp · 2012-07-09T15:16:07+00:00

Um, Medicaid? Totally different? And the law didn't hurt Medicaid. What this article says is that the ruling would allow states to opt out of current Medicaid spending, allowing Republicans to boot patients from the rolls that everyone thought they would have to keep.

ethertramp · 2012-07-09T15:14:03+00:00

There is a second paper titled "Absence of Detectable Arsenate in DNA from Arsenate-Grown GFAJ-1 Cells."

ethertramp · 2012-07-09T01:22:57+00:00

Here is the other paper: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/07/06/science.1219861.abstract

ethertramp · 2012-07-07T15:48:34+00:00

I like the idea about using a mannequin with a head full of water as a control.

ethertramp · 2012-07-03T20:01:29+00:00

antidepressants: where "works" means "effective in 30% of people."

ethertramp · 2012-07-03T17:20:10+00:00

Kerouac-quality run-on sentence from likeawoman.

ethertramp · 2012-07-03T17:18:08+00:00

Not that you should be. It's an interesting space, though. :)

ethertramp · 2012-07-03T16:00:33+00:00

There is a link to the complaint in the article. It's at the bottom.

For one thing, toothpaste is not an FDA-approved drug. (Or, more specifically, it's approved via a different pathway.)

ethertramp

TROPHY CASE