Sunday, July 13, 2008

The DNA Network

The DNA Network

The Trip Part III - Short Stop in Paris [The Daily Transcript]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 04:44 PM CDT

We then arrived in Paris on July 21st. If spending the summer solstice in the city of lights means nothing to you then you've never heard of Fete de la Musique, a one day outdoor party. The streets were filled with Parisians taking in the food, the sights and the sounds generated from live musicians trough out the city. Fete de la Musique is now celebrated in almost every part of France and a good chunk of Switzerland too. There were teenage garage bands, DJs, tam-tam players and of course many troubadours. At one location the musician's distributed lyrics into the crowd so that everyone could sing along. Here are some pics:

Paris1.jpg

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Best Possible Advice To The Experimental Scientist [Bayblab]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 04:27 PM CDT

"Make your mistakes quickly" is a rule in the practice of science.
- Edward O. Wilson

I concur. I can't think of anything that works better. It's also helpful to avoid repeating them...(sooner being better than later).

Bike commuters CO2 production [Bayblab]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 03:28 PM CDT


I heard recently someone declare, on CBC radios 'crosscountry checkup' (mp3 of that program on the proposed carbon tax), that a meat eating bicycle commuter produces more carbon emissions than a vegetarian SUV commuter. Turns out its not quite true according to this calculation investigating the exact same claim. However it is quite shocking how energy intensive a omnivorous diet actually is in this day of industrialized agriculture. Basically a full vegan diet saves about 1.5 tonnes of carbon emissions, while an SUV can produce over 3 tonnes of carbon emissions. So it's actually close enough that it depends on how long your commute actually is. I guess this leaves the question, could you do both? Probably not since vegetarians are so notoriously physically weak. I have yet to see one on UFC.
BTW check out how great a site New Zealand has for consumer information about choosing a good vehicle with safety, fuel economy and emissions as criteria. Compare this to the only equivalent Canadian site I could find.

Wordle fun! [T Ryan Gregory's column]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 03:23 PM CDT

Carl Zimmer has posted a spiffy summary of the word usage in his book Read More...

Your personal health: Personal genetics as a vehicle for increased awareness [business|bytes|genes|molecules]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 02:31 PM CDT

The structure of part of a DNA double helixImage via Wikipedia

So one thing I learned from having my DNA sequenced is that very few diseases have a single point genetic basis

Those are words from a blog post by Kevin Kelly on the first 23andme User Group Meeting. Now Kevin is a knowledgable person, more so than most. Events such as this one, and getting himself genotyped have taught him a lot more about the genetics of disease than he knew before. That is one of the points I like to make about personal genetics. The quantified self as Kevin likes to call it, is not much more than additional information about yourself. Information, whose content becomes more useful over time as more information is unearthed about ourselves. I wonder if Kevin’s new knowledge will lead to him finding out more about genome wide association studies (GWAS), or perhaps learn a little bit more about epigenetics and copy number variation. I suspect most will not be curious, but a small percentage will be, and that’s a few more people more knowledgeable about their own biology, and the limitations of our own knowledge.

I have also been thinking about 23andwe; about the value of sharing genetic profiles. I am not sure that in the grand scheme of themes social sharing of genetic information has that much medical value (it could have community value, but that’s a different issue). Making that information available as a whole for research does. As we go beyond early adopters, how can we leverage all this genotypic, and associated phenotypic, information, to try and find statistically significant associations? Making people aware of the advantages and disadvantages of the implications of doing so would be another great use of an effort like that.

I must admit that I am not particularly fond of the term quantified self. The knowledge of our own genetic makeup and what we learn from it, is far from quantitative. Even under the best of circumstances, there are too many other factors that come into play.

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Second Life Health News: Timeline and Google [ScienceRoll]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 02:17 PM CDT


The biggest announcement of the week focused on Google Lively that may be a competitor for Second Life.

At SFGate.com, you can read more on finding health information, community online. It mentions SLHealthy wiki, probably the best and most comprehensive resource for Second Life health support groups, organizations and locations.

E-Health on Slides [ScienceRoll]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 01:36 PM CDT


John Sharp from E-Health blog posted two slideshows. Both presentations focus on web 2.0 and healthcare.

Here is my slideshow about medicine 2.0:

Any feedback is welcome!

This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Some events of interest [business|bytes|genes|molecules]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 12:53 PM CDT

NBCR Summer Institute 2008 - And as I have found out, Calit2 (which will host some of the sessions) is a wonderful venue.

OSCON - No introduction required. I plan to be there for a couple of days

If you live in the San Diego area, you might want to check out DekiCon on July 16th

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She blinded me… [genomeboy.com]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 09:25 AM CDT

Waking up from my napster [genomeboy.com]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 09:05 AM CDT

The Personal Genome, which regularly outclasses this here joint, has a terrific discussion on the regulation of genomic information. The go-round in the comments between Jason, David Hamilton and Steve Murphy is particularly enlightening: is insulin, for example, an appropriate analogy for personal genomics? If not, what is? I’ve been thinking a lot about this and these guys have provided plenty of additional fodder.

Intel’s new device - a step towards personalized medicine / health2.0 [biomarker-driven mental health 2.0]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 08:19 AM CDT

intelhealthguide.jpg

Just re-posting from Gizmodo … this looks like a positive step … a medical chumby.

Medicine 2.0 Carnival: Summertime [ScienceRoll]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 04:42 AM CDT


med320.jpg

Medicine 2.0 is a blog carnival devoted to analyze and describe the impact of web 2.0 on medicine and healthcare. If you think there are just a few posts written about this field of medicine during the summer, you’re wrong. I’ve got plenty of submissions.

Let’s launch the carnival this time with articles on medical search.

Medical search:

Uri Ginzburg at Medical 2.0 presented an intelligent search engine.

Allan Cho at Allan’s Library talked about his interview on Talis on Web 2,0, Semantic Web, and Web 3.0.

Aniruddha Malpani at The Patient’s Doctor told us how to search the net for health information.

The Clinical Cases and Images blog featured a video about how to Use Google Trends for Research:

Electronic medical records:

Peter Murray at Release Zero Blog talked about Google Health and some possible scenarios.

Dr. Reece at Medinnovationblog analyzed the frequency of EMR installations.

The HealthBlog posted an update on Microsoft Amalga and HealthVault.

Questions you’ll want to ask before you buy an electronic medical record solution for your practice:

Communication:

Joshua Schwimmer at Efficient, MD introduced us to The Doctor’s Room on FriendFeed.

Health & Medicine in Second Life asked whether poor communication = poor healthcare.

Dean Giustini at Google Scholar Blog posted about Identi.Ca - Fourth Big Player in the Microblog Wars?

David M Kreindler published an article at Open Medicine: Email security in clinical practice: ensuring patient confidentiality.

FriendFeed Intro:

E-patients:

The Digital Pathology Blog said Mayo was en route to virtual patients.

Bunny Ellerin at Pharma 2.0 analyzed some data on online doctors.

E-Health Tech defined Healthcare Consumers.

Communities:

Jeana H Frost and Michael P Massagli published an article: Social Uses of Personal Health Information Within PatientsLikeMe, an Online Patient Community.

PLoS Biology had an interesting piece on A Gene Wiki for Community Annotation of Gene Function.

The OpenHelix BLog had some comments about the Gene Wiki.

Gunther Eysenbach, the organizer of the Medicine 2.0 Congress, announced MDPIXX (the “youtube” for physicians) sponsors Physician 2.0 Award at Medicine 2.0 congress.

Random thoughts and posts about medicine/health 2.0:

John Sharp at E-health informs us CDC now meets Web 2.0.

Both Medgadget and the Health 2.0 Blog presented the Health 2.0 Accelerator project.

According to OnMedica, Telemedicine network was launched.

YS at Prep4MD told us about Blogger’s New Subscription Tool.

Jan Martens at Medblog.nl came up with a new list of medical blogs.

Medical Economics reveiled the secrets of a successful medical practice.

Telemedicine: An Evolving Tool for Improving Health Care

If you want to be up-to-date in this field of medicine, check the next edition of Medicine 2.0 out at monash medical student. You can also follow me on Twitter or follow the room of life scientists on Friendfeed.

Submit your articles through the official form and drop me an e-mail if you plan to host an edition in August

A Look at Linguistic Evolution [HENRY » genetics]

Posted: 13 Jul 2008 12:58 AM CDT

In today’s, Evolution: Education and Outreach, Anastasia Thanukos takes A Look at Linguistic Evolution:

Anyone who has ever tackled a Shakespeare play knows that English has changed substantially in the 400 years since Elizabeth I ruled England. In fact, Elizabethan English can seem like a completely different language from the one we speak today. Just try describing your mood with the Shakespearean terms allicholly and tetchy—you are more likely to get confused looks than sympathy for being unhappy and irritable. Four hundred years from now, English speakers will likely feel the same way about the language we speak today. Unless you are keeping up with the latest additions to the Oxford English Dictionary, you might already be behind the times: Do you know if you would be eligible to participate in a girlcott? Or whether you would want a job as a helmer? Or when it would be appropriate to wear a jandal?

The full-text is available at the EEO website here.

epMotion Music Video [Think Gene]

Posted: 12 Jul 2008 11:28 PM CDT

epMotion Video

Eppendorf International, a lab equipment supplier, created this video to promote their automated pipetting machine. No commentary necessary… though we’d like to reward efforts like this with a relevant, organic blog links.

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