matterhacker

Ok, just installed a WP plugin that allows embedded video so to test it out a video from a BOC tune:

Just caught the first episode of Breaking Bad on AMC. Pretty funny if you liked American Beauty. I did so I found Breaking Bad to be pretty entertaining. Although it wasn’t as cutting edge and gritty as it was hyped to be. Also, it sucks that they’re sort of glorifying meth. That shit fucks people up big time, but I guess it beats AB’s pedophilia on moral grounds. Hopefully it’ll continue to deliver as the season goes on. Woo! Lost comes back next week. Can’t wait!

Another one from the folks at WIRED. Looks like Venter’s team finally did it. Well… sort of. Very impressive first steps though. Synthetic bio is extremely interesting… it’s like legos/electronics/etc. Lots of possibilities (bacteria making oil, sucking up CO2, etc.).

The cool thing is the focus on making modular parts that are quantitatively characterized (like data sheets for electronics components). I’ve been following synthetic bio developments for the past few years. Came across Google Video: Programming DNA" target="_blank">this a couple weeks ago. It’s a presentation from the latest CCC  meeting. It’s a talk by Drew Endy of MIT who started the first solid synthetic bio program there. Great talk!

Came across this neat story from WIRED about Harvard scientists trying to map the human brain. Looks like a nice idea applying automation (a la genomics) to mapping of brain tissue.

ATLUM uses a lathe and specialized knife to create long, thin strips of brain cells that can be imaged by an electron microscope. Software will eventually montage the images, creating an ultrahigh-resolution 3-D reconstruction of the mouse brain, allowing scientists to see features only 50 nanometers across.

Ha! Sounds like some automated alien brain slicing device straight out of a sci-fi movie! Anyways, it’s quite an interesting reverse engineering problem. It seems that automated techniques like those used in bio-informatics are being applied in really unique ways to bio imaging.

Found this cool site, Glassbooth.org, that has a good collection of quotes from each of the presidential candidates that allows you to compare how they stand on various issues.   It seems to be unbiased.