Molecularist

"Ray was just a few days younger than the oldest person in the world, Kama Chinen of Japan, who is 114 years and 303 days. There are now 75 people aged 110 or older in the world (known as supercentenarians), according to the Gerontology Research Group in Los Angeles. All but three are women."

"Young scientists at a Chinese genomics institute are foregoing conventional postgraduate training for the chance to be part of major scientific initiatives. Is this the way of the future?"

Maybe it's just time to re-evaluate our structure and flow of academic apprenticeship. I keep comparing the impact DIYBio can have to mainstream science akin to the impact blogs and the like had on mainstream media.

Time for a new type of science guild?

Interesting background into academic degrees

“Making media now is a powerful way of participating in all kinds of life, including civic and political life,’’ said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. “These people are now deeply connected to the political process in a way that their parents, at their age, could never be.’’

Hm. One more thing that proves I'm a thinker and not a do-er. I was thinking how cool would it be to create a web site full of videos to teach folks about certain techniques and such (particularly safety). Here's pretty much the same thing. But it's live. Not lounging in my head. (and I see they did it last year, and they are right here in Boston – gah <forehead slap>) [via @JLVernonPHD]

A very well-written article on a serious problem in science communications. [via @BoraZ]

[via @skinny]

ORLY? Portal = Info dashboard = Info filter. And Google, AOL, Topix are just "default" portals that folks can understand and easily use.

"There are no search-specific findings; however it appears from the survey data that “portal websites like Google News, AOL and Topix are the most commonly used online news sources, visited by over half of online news users on a typical day."

"We think Apple foresees a future in which the iPad is the default way people do what they now do with computers (and some other new things)." [via @uszabo]

"Today, we’re happily turning the Firehose on for some new partners focused mainly on exploring the incredibly rich field of real-time search and discovery."

"The Live Edition is presently available as an Ebook (PDF, Mobi, and ePub) bundle, and the updated content will also be available through Safari Books Online and eventually print on demand. Customers who buy a Live Edition will get all the updates to the book up until the next new print edition of the book, when the cycle will start again. (For Learning Rails, customers will get all the updates for the upcoming 3.x version of Rails.)" [via @perryhewitt]

"Look! Up in the sky! It’s a prose author moving a ton of graphic novels!"

"Children’s Hospital Boston has created a Facebook page by which all other hospital pages should be judged. It’s so impressive it inspired a future Alert Presence article, “The Anatomy of a Great Hospital Facebook Page”. The expertly designed profile picture, beautifully presented tab pages and even their own viral marketing Facebook applications have all contributed to the page attracting over 90,000 fans."

Another feather in my cap. Yeah.

Good analysis [via @atmaspere]

"The possibility of strange forms of alien life seems to have just got a whole lot closer to home. Astrobiologists from Arizona State University, Florida, UC Boulder, NASA, Harvard and Australia have recently theorized about a “shadow biosphere” – a biosphere within a biosphere where alternative biochemistry may be thriving in a way that we haven’t yet thought to examine." [via @rnaworld]

Just brilliant.

"The writer Douglas Adams observed how technology that existed when we were born seems normal, anything that is developed before we turn 35 is exciting, and whatever comes after that is treated with suspicion. This is not to say all media technologies are harmless, and there is an important debate to be had about how new developments affect our bodies and minds. But history has shown that we rarely consider these effects in anything except the most superficial terms because our suspicions get the better of us. In retrospect, the debates about whether schooling dulls the brain or whether newspapers damage the fabric of society seem peculiar, but our children will undoubtedly feel the same about the technology scares we entertain now. It won't be long until they start the cycle anew."

Wonderful essay on giving.