Gamers beat algorithms at finding protein structures Today's issue of Nature contains a paper with a rather unusual author list. Read past the standard collection of academics, and the final author credited is... an online gaming community. Scientists have turned to games for a variety of reasons, having studied virtual epidemics and tracked online communities and behavior, or simply used games to drum up excitement for the science. But this may be the first time that the gamers played an active role in producing the results, having solved problems in protein structure through the Foldit game. According to a news feature on Foldit, the project arose from an earlier distributed computing effort called Rosetta@home. That project used what has become the standard approach for home-based scientific work: a screensaver that provided a graphical frontend to a program that uses spare processor time to solve weighty scientific problems. This is typically an energy minimization problem. Starting with algorithms, ending with brains
Five fingers of evolution - Paul Andersen In his talk, Paul Andersen explains the five causes of microevolution. Research one example for each cause in the human population. Use the following population simulator to simulate microevolution: Run the simulation using the default settings.
This is Priceless consciousnessvideo Related Posts « NASA Images Find 1.7 Million Year Old Man-Made Bridge Domino’s, McDonald’s, and Wendy’s are Serving Up Something Strange… » In World First, Monkeys Cloned Like Dolly the Sheep The years-long effort, led by Chinese Academy of Sciences postdoctoral fellow Zhen Liu, culminated in the recent birth of two female macaques, Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua. The macaques’ names are drawn from the word zhonghua, an adjective for the Chinese people. The two macaques—eight weeks and six weeks old—are genetically identical, both clones of the same donor culture of fetal monkey cells. The young monkeys are reportedly healthy and currently live in an incubator. The discovery potentially leads to a brave new world of biomedical research and will unquestionably spark debate over cloning another primate species: humans. Here’s everything you need to know about these potentially controversial clones. Technically, no. “It’s about time, because I thought it would never happen,” says Shoukhrat Mitalipov, the head of Oregon Health and Science University’s Center for Embryonic Cell and Gene Therapy. They then chemically prod the egg into developing, as if it had been naturally fertilized.
Massive Open Lab gets volunteers to beat computers in designing RNA Citizen science, the movement to draft non-specialists into areas of scientific research, doesn't require the volunteers to put on lab coats. In at least one case, scientists turned a prickly biochemical problem into a game and found that the gamers could typically beat the best computer algorithms out there. But all that work was done on cases where we already knew the answers, which was how we were able to measure the gamers' success. Now some researchers have taken this approach one step further and created a hybrid project that mixes volunteers with lab-coated workers. 37,000 enthusiasts were given the chance to take on algorithms in designing new RNA molecules. And once the gamers had a chance to vote on the best designs, the winning designs were sent to a lab, synthesized, and tested. A consortium of researchers at Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, and Seoul National University put together what they called a Massive Open Laboratory. At least, energetically stable based on calculations.
Believe in Ohio STEM videos The Believe in Ohio program invites high school and college students, their instructors and the community to take a virtual field trip into the innovation economy of the future that is being built in Ohio through a series of six, free, regionalized, online courses. What this course is about and why is it important? Our nation is being challenged on an unprecedented level to maintain its historic prosperity. In the face of this challenge, over the last decade, the State of Ohio and its regions have been building Ohio’s innovation economy of the future. Today, the State of Ohio offers great promise for students who want to build a prosperous future for themselves by developing an entrepreneurial mindset, working hard, and applying what they are learning to develop the new products and services and jobs of the future.
Genetically modified babies given go ahead by UK ethics body | Science The creation of babies whose DNA has been altered to give them what parents perceive to be the best chances in life has received a cautious green light in a landmark report from a leading UK ethics body. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics said that changing the DNA of a human embryo could be “morally permissible” if it was in the future child’s interests and did not add to the kinds of inequalities that already divide society. The report does not call for a change in UK law to permit genetically altered babies, but instead urges research into the safety and effectiveness of the approach, its societal impact, and a widespread debate of its implications. “It is our view that genome editing is not morally unacceptable in itself,” said Karen Yeung, chair of the Nuffield working group and professor of law, ethics and informatics at the University of Birmingham. “There is no reason to rule it out in principle.” The prospect of modifying genes in human embryos has long been controversial though.
Making Makers | Learning Labs Together, Kids Learning Code, Maker Kids, TIFF and Toronto Public Library, have developed comprehensive, maker curriculum for educators who work in formal and informal learning environments with the objective of increasing Toronto youth access and engagement with advanced technology and digital tools! Our workshops and activities allow youth to create something with purpose, driven by their own vision and also empower teachers to be makers. We are hosting Train the Trainer Symposiums wherein the educators can learn how to run and modify activities by doing them. Toy Hacking at Maker Kids: Wednesday, Feb 12th from 8pm to 10pm (Download the module here and the materials here) Arduino Rovers at Maker Kids: Wednesday, Feb 19th from 8pm to 10pm (Download the module here and the materials here) Introduction to HTML & CSS at Kids Learning Code: Tuesday, Feb 25th from 6:30pm to 8:30pm (Download the module here and the materials here) Register here!
Scientists alter DNA to cure blood disorder in embryo