New Horizons Web Site The computer-generated images below are simulated views of New Horizons' location in the solar system. The images were created using the Satellite Tool Kit (STK) software, which was developed by Analytical Graphics, Inc. Images are updated every hour. Click here to follow New Horizons as it passes each planet's orbit, starting with our own Moon. Full Trajectory: Overhead View This image shows New Horizons' current position along its full planned trajectory. Full Trajectory - Side View This image shows New Horizons' current position along its full planned trajectory. Mendel-GPU: haplotyping and genotype imputation on graphics processing units + Author Affiliations ↵*To whom correspondence should be addressed Received June 2, 2012. Revision received August 6, 2012. Accepted August 24, 2012. Motivation: In modern sequencing studies, one can improve the confidence of genotype calls by phasing haplotypes using information from an external reference panel of fully typed unrelated individuals. However, the computational demands are so high that they prohibit researchers with limited computational resources from haplotyping large-scale sequence data. Results: Our graphics processing unit based software delivers haplotyping and imputation accuracies comparable to competing programs at a fraction of the computational cost and peak memory demand. Availability: Mendel-GPU, our OpenCL software, runs on Linux platforms and is portable across AMD and nVidia GPUs. Contact: gary.k.chen@usc.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
A Pyrrhic victory at the Supreme Court as Obamacare becomes Obamatax By Toby Harnden PUBLISHED: 07:51 GMT, 29 June 2012 | UPDATED: 07:55 GMT, 29 June 2012 Barack Obama was the clear winner in the Supreme Court’s dramatic five to four decision over the Orwellian-named Affordable Care Act – better known as Obamacare on both Right and Left. The bottom line is that Obama looked like he was about to have the signature legislative achievement of his term struck down as unconstitutional. But Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion contains a sting in the tail that could well spell real danger for Obama in his November re-election bid. Victory: The U.S. As he rammed his bill through Congress without a single Republican vote, Obama argued strenuously that fines levied for not taking out health insurance were not a tax. In September 2009, Obama told ABC News: ‘For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. Well, the Supreme Court does. Nearly two-thirds of Americans do not like Obamacare.
Laurel's Pluto Blog Rare Mutation Triples Risk of Alzheimer's A mutation found in about one in 200 Icelanders older than 85 raised the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease threefold, researchers said. The mutation, in an immunoregulatory gene known as TREM2, was more common in Alzheimer's disease patients than in the general 85-and-older population in Iceland with an odds ratio of 2.91 (95% CI 2.09 to 4.09, P=3.42×10-10), reported Kari Stefansson, MD, PhD, of deCode Genetics in Reykjavik, Iceland, and colleagues. Because of the gene's function within the central nervous system, the mutation "may lead to an increased predisposition to Alzheimer's disease through impaired containment of inflammatory processes," the researchers wrote online in the New England Journal of Medicine. Such processes have been implicated in Alzheimer's disease previously, they noted. They then compared frequencies of such variants in 3,550 individuals with Alzheimer's disease versus 110,050 individuals from the general Icelandic population. false
‘The Queen of Versailles’ almost makes you feel sorry for the 1%. Almost. Jackie Siegel in front of her family’s 26,000-square-foot home. (Photo courtesy of Lauren Greenfield/Magnolia Pictures.) In 2007, Jackie and David Siegel were “bursting out of the seams” of their old house. At 26,000 square feet, it felt too cozy for their eight-kid family and their extravagant lifestyle. They were ready to upgrade. So they started building their dream home: a 90,000-square-foot behemoth, inspired by the palace of Versailles, that would include 30 bathrooms, 10 kitchens, two tennis courts, a bowling alley, a skating rink, a sushi bar, and $5 million worth of marble — you know, the essentials. Around the same time, photographer Lauren Greenfield met Jackie Siegel at a party for Donatella Versace while Greenfield was working on a project about wealth and consumerism. The Siegels’ story represented this phenomenon at its most extreme, a supersized version of the same vision chased by Americans of all income levels. David and Jackie. You disagree?
Kerberos and Styx: Pluto’s Two Recently Discovered Moons Get Official Names | Space Exploration The International Astronomical Union announced yesterday that the names Kerberos and Styx have officially been recognized for the fourth and fifth moons of Pluto, previously referred to as P4 and P5. This Hubble image shows five moons orbiting Pluto (NASA / ESA / M. Showalter, SETI Institute) P4 and P5 were discovered in 2011 and 2012, during observations of the Pluto system made with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Kerberos lies between the orbits of Nix and Hydra, two bigger moons discovered by Hubble in 2005, and Styx lies between Charon, the innermost and biggest moon, and Nix. Kerberos has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 – 34 km), and Styx is thought to be irregular in shape and is 6 to 16 miles (10 – 25 km) across. After the discovery, Dr Mark Showalter of SETI Institute, the leader of the research team, decided to call for a public vote to suggest names for P4 and P5.
My DNA Results Spur Alzheimer’s Anxiety at $12,000 Cost I sat clutching my wife’s hand, nodding, listening, and trying to breathe. “Your life expectancy hasn’t changed,” said my doctor, Harvard Medical School geneticist Joseph Thakuria, trying to reassure me. That, I thought, is the good news. I may get Alzheimer’s disease, I was told after getting my DNA analyzed. I could suffer the consequences of an abnormal blood clot in my heart or my brain. Or perhaps I’ll suffer from a disease called primary myelofibrosis that’s caused by an overactive bone marrow. And the price tag to find out more answers kept rising. “The sequencing of average, healthy adults is less informative than people had hoped it would be,” said Robert Handin, a Harvard Medical School doctor who does genetic testing. I wanted to know. More Revelations Most people who have these disorders get relatively mild disease. Related story: Oxford Nanopore to Unveil New DNA Sequencers at U.S. There were other revelations. Routine Tool My medical odyssey cost almost $12,000. Testing Costs
The Magnitude of the Mess We're In Researchers Discovered Complex Hydrocarbon Molecules on Pluto's Surface | Astronomy A U.S. team of researchers has discovered the evidence of complex hydrocarbon and/or nitrile molecules lying on the Pluto’s surface. Artist’s impression of the Pluto's surface, and Charon and the Sun in the sky (ESO/L. Calçada) Researchers from Nebraska Wesleyan University and Southwest Research Institute observed the mid-UV spectra of both Pluto and its large satellite, Charon, using the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. During the observations they found a strong ultraviolet-wavelength absorber on Pluto’s surface. This finding, published in the Astronomical Journal, confirms the presence of complex hydrocarbon and/or nitrile molecules on the surface of the dwarf planet. Such molecules can be produced by the interaction of sunlight or cosmic rays with methane, carbon monoxide and nitrogen.
News/Phylotastic Hackathon Phylogenies! Hacking! Tucson in January! An implicit promise of the Tree of Life project is that, ultimately, expert knowledge of species phylogeny will be accessible and usable by everybody. In other words, we will all be able to get the species trees we need, in a useable form, when we need them. In June 2012, the HIP (Hackathons, Interoperability, Phylogenies) working group of NESCent staged a hackathon to prototype components of a Phylotastic system, and implement demos to show their potential. Now we are gearing up for a second hackathon, to take another step toward providing computable, convenient, credible access to the Tree of Life. Provide knowledge of workflows and downstream uses of trees Design user interfaces Test software Make screencasts, develop tutorials, and document user experiences Applications are now being accepted to Phylotastic 2, which will take place January 28th, 2013 to February 1st, 2013 at the BIO5 facility in warm and sunny Tucson, AZ. Sincerely,
American companies must shun China¿s top two technology firms as they are a security threat, warns House Intelligence Committee Republican candidate Mitt Romney among those wanting to get tough on Chinese businessesReport urges U.S. companies to avoid ZTE Corp and Huawei Technologies LtdPanel concerned after cyber-attacks traced to China By Associated Press Published: 11:58 GMT, 8 October 2012 | Updated: 06:50 GMT, 9 October 2012 American companies should avoid doing business with China's two leading technology firms because they pose a national security threat to the United States, the House Intelligence Committee is warning in a report to be published on Monday. The panel says U.S. regulators should block mergers and acquisitions in the country by Huawei Technologies Ltd and ZTE Corp, among the world's leading suppliers of telecommunications gear and mobile phones. Reflecting U.S. concern over cyber-attacks traced to China, the report also recommends that U.S. government computer systems not include any components from the two firms because that could pose an espionage risk.
The Sound Of Pluto