- Because there just weren't any truly important uses for
human DNA, science has finally figured out a way to make use of the
double-helix design and four-protein structure that contain all of the relevant
information for everything relating to the human body. Specifically, EMBL-European
Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) researchers Nick Goldman and Ewan Birney
have come up with the concept of using DNA for media storage space. Deoxyribonucleic
acid already stores the code that makes us humans instead of aardvarks, so why
not use it as storage for digital information? Goldman and Birney concede that it
is über- difficult to encode efficiently and reliably using artificial means,
but scientists have already figured out how to read the data stored in long dormant
DNA, so why not take it a step further? In the latest issue of the journal Nature,
the two men explain that
their breakthrough could make it possible to "store at least 100 million
hours of high-definition video in about a cup of DNA." That number might
actually represent the entirety of porn videos available on the Internet, so
it’s definitely impressive. "We already know that DNA is a robust way to
store information because we can extract it from wooly mammoth bones, which
date back tens of thousands of years, and make sense of it. It's also
incredibly small, dense and does not need any power for storage, so shipping
and keeping it is easy," Goldman said. Before this study, it was only been
possible to create short strings of DNA and even then, the repeatability of DNA
letters in a string can make it difficult to both write and read. With assistance
from bio-analytics instrument maker Agilent Technologies, Goldman and Birney
were able to synthesize DNA from encoded digital information, including an MP3
of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech, a .txt file of
Shakespeare's sonnets, a .pdf file containing James Watson and Francis Crick's
original paper describing the structure of DNA and a final file describing the
encoding itself. "We knew we needed to make a code using only short
strings of DNA, and to do it in such a way that creating a run of the same
letter would be impossible," Goldman explained. The finished product,
according to Agilent's Emily Leproust, was "hundreds of thousands of
pieces of DNA" that looked "like a tiny piece of dust." That
dust was sent back to EMBL-EBI (theoretically, in a very small package), where
researchers sequenced it and said they decoded the files without errors………
- Way to admit the obvious, even if you did still mostly
miss the point, former Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Cam Cameron. Cameron
was fired on Dec. 10, at which time the Ravens were 9-4 and averaging 344.4
yards on offense. However, they are struggling after a 9-2 start and needed
someone to take the fall for a downturn that led to them finishing the year
losing four of five and backing into the playoffs with a 10-6 record. The
Ravens replaced Cameron with quarterbacks coach Jim Caldwell and since then
have averaged 406.2 yards over the final three regular-season games and 424.7
yards during their run to the Super Bowl. Faced with such obvious evidence that
the change was needed, Cameron magnanimously admitted that the team made the
right call in dispatching him from his post. "It was a brilliant
move," Cameron said. "Everyone on the team took a look in the mirror
after that." Hmm…interesting idea. Cameron being fired forced everyone
else to do some soul-searching and that introspection led to their turnaround.
Of course, it’s total bullsh*t. The Ravens have started winning and scoring
more points because Caldwell has balanced the running and passing games much
better than Cameron did and the offense’s running yardage has increased by
nearly 50 percent under his leadership. With that balance, quarterback Joe
Flacco has played better and turned in some of his best games. Ravens coach
John Harbaugh did call the decision to fire Cameron "the hardest thing
I've ever had to do as a coach," but it was clearly a wise choice that has
yielded big returns for the Ravens. It’s good that Cameron has a good attitude,
but his misguided perspective overexaggerates his importance to the team’s turnaround
and ignores the improvement of the defense as another contributing factor with
stars Terrell Suggs and Ray Lewis back on the field. Stay strong and oblivious,
Camn………
- A golden opportunity has emerged for the U.S. Border Patrol.
For too long, the moat stocked with genetically engineered, steel-jawed
alligators has been a dream of border-control enthusiasts and not the reality
it should be. Installing a 25-foot-wide moat backed by a sturdy castle wall
topped by archers and warriors with pots of boiling oil to dump on would-be
intruders would definitely improve border security and the USBP has a chance to
put just such a setup in place now that it has announced that a stretch of old
fencing along Arizona's border with Mexico will be replaced. The agency is in
charge of protecting America’s borders and in assessing the wall around the
Naco port of entry, south of the city of Bisbee, officials found weaknesses
that necessitate an overhaul of the existing fence. Much of that pathetic
excuse for a fence is made of solid steel sheets that were once landing mats
for military aircraft. A simple glance at the fence shows many sections of the
structure visibly rusting and an agency spokesman suggested that the new
fencing could look like the vertical, see-through-style posts in Nogales.
"Tucson Sector Border Patrol constantly evaluates its tactical
infrastructure to ensure upgrades occur as needed and as funding becomes
available,” the department wrote in a statement. There is no timeline for the
project and if the window for completion is open-ended, there is definitely
time to get work genetically engineering those angry gators and sketching out
the blueprint for that moat………
- People under the age of 45 don’t watch late-night
network talk shows much these days and with good reason (they’re typically not
that interesting), but Jimmy Kimmel’s move to 11:30 p.m. on weeknights has
generated a few headlines. Maybe not enough headlines, because Kimmel went for
another ratings grab Thursday night when he and longtime fake nemesis Matt
Damon culminated their 10-year feud by having Damon “kidnap” Kimmel in the
morning and then take over as host of “Jimmy Kimmel Live” later in the day. The plot was part of a running gag between
Kimmel and Damon that centered around Kimmel bumping Damon off of his show more
than 1,000 times. Damon gained his revenge by seizing control of the show and
hanging out with a group of A-listers that included Jennifer Lopez, Nicole
Kidman, Robin Williams, Andy Garcia, Gary Oldman, Reese Witherspoon and Demi
Moore. "I am in command of this ship," Damon told the audience, which
was clearly fired up to see more than a half-dozen big-name stars even if it
meant they wouldn’t be seeing Kimmel himself. "Just for starters,"
Damon added, "let me ask you guys this: As an audience, is it weird to see
a person with actual talent host this show?" Kimmel didn’t have to watch
the show on a 40-year-old TV in some poorly lit basement in an abandoned house
in some dead-end neighborhood while sitting in a creaky chair with his mouth
taped and hands bound. He watched the charade tied to a chair, a gag in his
mouth, at the back of the stage. "I've been waiting for this moment for a
long, long time," Damon joked. "This is like when I lost my
virginity, except this is going to last way longer than one second." The
gag seemed to work, as the show won the network late-night ratings battle for
its time slot…….
- Germans value one thing above all else: beer. The Internet
may be a close second, judging by a ruling handed down Thursday by the Federal
Court of Justice in Karlsruhe. The court has ruled that the Internet is as much
of a necessity for daily life as a refrigerator or a vehicle. The specific case
before the court involved a man who was unable to use his high-speed Internet
connection, which also offered a telephone and fax line, for two months from
late 2008 to early 2009. Based on the ruling, s Germans now have the right to
claim compensation from service providers if their Internet access is
disrupted. "Most people in Germany use the Internet daily. Thus, it has
become an essential medium in the life of German society, the disruption of
which has an immediate impact on the course of everyday life," the court
wrote in its decision. Even though the man’s service provider had already
compensated him for the cost of having to use a cellphone, this greedy bastard wanted
to be compensated for not being able to use the Internet. German law stipulates
that the loss of use of essential material items can be compensated and a court
spokeswoman explained why that statute applied specifically to this case. "The
Internet plays a very important role today and affects the private life of an
individual in very decisive ways. Therefore loss of use of the Internet is
comparable to the loss of use of a car," the spokeswoman said. Internet
access joins a list of necessities - including cars, refrigerators, beds,
chairs or other basic furniture – that cannot be repossessed even if debts are
unpaid. Paragraph 811 of the country's "code of civil procedure" – a great
bathroom read, by the way - protects "items that are necessary for daily
personal needs." "The rights of individuals are well secured in our
country," said Detlef Huermann of the Association of German Bailiffs.
"In our field, German lawmakers are continuously expanding the protection
of debtors, for example, and compared to legislation in other European
countries, our laws are very humane in that respect." Humane and
protective of a person’s ability to readily access quality porn online………
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