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"Direct synthesis of genes is rapidly becoming the most efficient way to make functional genetic constructs and enables applications such as codon optimization, RNAi resistant genes and protein engineering. Here we introduce a software tool that drastically facilitates the design of synthetic genes."
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"On February 4, Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry of MIT’s Fluid Interfaces Group were the talk of TED2009 when Pattie demo’d their Sixth Sense technology. The technology was developed on hardware available today. The total hardware cost was around $350. The system gives the user fast access to a wealth of information."
links for 2009-04-23
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"Bill Nye "The Science Guy" was booed in Waco, Texas in 2006 for suggesting the Moon did not generate its own light, but reflected light from the sun. "
via @rvidal -
That's interesting.
"I think it's unfortunate that so many of the blogs that have risen to some note in the past few years have been built without that idea at their core, given rise to a host of desperately over-written blogs, all crying our for attention, without a clear, personable voice of their own."
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the Domino's Pizza fisco
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The state of YouTube comments. via Tommi V
links for 2009-04-22
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via @StoweBoyd
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"In the countryside of Finland, solitude is a national pastime"
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Ha!
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Interesting, but still not convinced if a rock at about 1AU is a requirement.
"The Holy Grail of current exoplanet research is the detection of a rocky, Earth-like planet in the 'habitable zone,'" said Michel Mayor, an astrophysicist at Geneva University in Switzerland."
links for 2009-04-21
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"Researchers who have trained a tiny virus to do their bidding said on Thursday they made it build a more efficient and powerful lithium battery."
Ah, never thought of having a virus build the structures. Always figured using bacterias to either make proteins for batteries or laying down structures outside their cells. But to use a virus, crevar. [via @Open_bio]
They changed two genes in the virus, called M13, and got it to do two things: build a shell made out of a compound called iron phosphate, and then attach to a carbon nanotube to make a powerful and tiny electrode.
Ginkgoo comes out with BioBrick Kit with New England Biolabs
Gotta say that it's really good when you can start buying kits that make things easier and push down the threshold for someone to do something (especially in science).
BioBricks are standard parts used to make functional pieces of DNA that can be placed into bacteria. The guys behind BioBricks, and their commercial spin-off, have been building and cataloging parts in a Registry of Standard Biological Parts. Making a catalogue and building standard parts are considered a big chunk of getting Synthetic Biology (synthbio, as others call it) off the ground.
Now Ginkgoo, a player in synthbio and a team of folks who are drenched in BioBrick use and knowledge, have released a kit to streamline the assembly of BioBricks into multi-part constructs. And with folks like Mac Cowell of DIYbio working on the manual, there's hope for us outside of acedemia.
A young company with lots of promise, it's great to see them starting to flesh out their products. Looking forward to meeting these folks some day.
Image from the NEB product page.
links for 2009-04-20
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"A vast 3D printer made of bacteria crawls undetectably through the deserts of the world, printing new landscapes into existence over the course of 10,000 years…"
links for 2009-04-18
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Bing!
"Some developers are creating tools to help companies keep an eye on the buzz. Akshay Java, a scientist at Microsoft, is trying to figure out a way to identify which experts are most influential on given topics by automatically analyzing the content of their tweets and who is in their Twitter network. Companies like Microsoft could use that information to figure out which twitterers they should contact to create buzz about a new product."
links for 2009-04-16
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Just feeds my confirmation bias. Online and print are such great complements to each other…
"within five months of losing cross-promotion from the newspaper, Taloussanomat.fi‘s unique users and page views were down 22 percent and 11 percent respectively"
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"What's necessary, however, is that everyone does their job – and that includes the reader. Since we've lost all of the pre-publishing ratchets and filters, it's up to the online viewer to be more aware, more discriminating, and – this is crucial – more vocal, once information is published. It's critical that we don't just read new media: We need to reflect, interact, respond. We need to be the new sources of friction, adding our voices to the fabric of published information. That's the only way to keep media healthy – as a team sport."
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Cool!
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"One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, "You can't go that way, it's toward the road."
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Hehehe. I so have a few stories around this topic.
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Really cool technique for coupling enzymatics with electronics to make a label-free sequencing system.
"The natural α-hemolysin nanopore alone is not capable of DNA sequencing. Oxford Nanopore is using protein engineering techniques to adapt the nanopore for the detection of DNA bases." [via Zoe McDougall]
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"Harvard scientists have cleared a key hurdle in the creation of synthetic life, assembling a cell’s critical protein-making machinery in an advance with both practical, industrial applications and that advances the basic understanding of life’s workings."
Pause for station identification
Wow. I haven't done one of these in a long time.
Molecules on the mind
My name is Charlie Schick, I am currently Editor-in-Chief of Nokia Conversations (but not for much longer).
For the past few years I have used this site mostly to philosophize on the fusion of Internet and mobile devices. But I've seemed to have made a definite shift back towards my first life – biology, science, and such similar geekery. Hence the name change of the site and its new de facto direction (or is that a meander).
My bio says that I have thoughts and actions ranging from biomedicine, molecular manipulations, indiscriminate writing, the long now and a post-electronic age, various forms of performances thespian and corporate, and philosophizing on the fusion of Internet and mobile devices. I am not sure what will transpire over the next 6 months and after, but my thoughts will be still roughly in those areas, just with a different emphasis and priority than before.
And a word from our sponsors … you.
As I've said before, thanks for reading my stuff. I am not sure how things have changed between us, what with long breaks between writing and a total topic shift from what originally brought us together. That so many keep coming back to this site, suggest that I do have something of value to you all. View me as one of those sites that is outside your usual comfort zone and that will stretch your mind.
Heh.
Standard Disclaimer (riffing off of Cringley)
Everything I write here on this site is an expression of my own opinions, NOT of my employer, Nokia. If these were the opinions of Nokia, the site would be called 'Nokia something' and, for sure, the writing and design would be much more professional. Likewise, I am an intensely trained professional writer (heh), so don't expect to find any confidential secret corporate mumbo-jumbo being revealed here. Everything I write here is public info or readily found via any decent search engine or easily deduced by someone who has an understanding of the industry.
On the flip side, this is my personal site. Please don’t flood me with ideas that you think Nokia might be interested in. There are other channels for such biz dev, and this site is not part of them.
links for 2009-04-15
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I like.
"Silva is among a growing number of career changers or laid-off workers who are seeking new lives in the arts. Schools and continuing-education programs do not know how many of their participants actually switch careers after taking courses, but they say they are seeing a rising demand for classes in photography, graphic design, bookbinding, and painting."