The Decision Tree: Thomas Goetz’s upcoming book on predictive/personalized medicine

In the past months Thomas Goetz begun writing a book on the radical changes already ongoing but mostly upcoming in healthcare due to affordable new technologies and quantitative approaches in personalized genomics and medicine. The book is to be called The Decision Tree (explanation below) accompanied by a new website. Thomas is the perfect man…

Leaving New Orleans: freebies from me

Ok, I am officially done with New Orleans and moved to the Bay Area for the next couple of days to come, BioBarCamp and SciFoo Camp. On the photo some things I left behind and contributed with them to the culture of this special city.

Petabyte Age Wiredesque lesson on what science can learn from Google

I argued many times here that biology based biotechnology is the next information technology but in order to do so, biotech should harness good IT patterns and mimic its massive computing practices to handle the enormous amount of constantly accumulating data. Often this trend could be summarized in a simple way: keep your eye on…

The Science of Longevity at The World Science Festival, June 1, NYC

90 is the New 50: The Science of Longevity via Brandon Keim, Wired Science: Sunday, June 1, 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM,NYU – Kimmel Center for University Life Will it one day be possible to take a pill to stay young? How will an average life expectancy of beyond a hundred years affect society and…

Puzzle: Which Wired article is cited in Nature Biotechnology?

Nature Biotechnology is the (peer review) journal for me: it’s geeky, fresh and it takes into account more than just one point-of-view, that of the scientist-academist’s: technology & business are hand in hands also. (Recommending Nat Biotech makes a niche sense here while recommending Nature, which is actually the only science journal I’m reading issue…

Social or semantic connections? Tell me, infofriend!

Clive Thompson – undoubtedly a good journalist – has a piece, entitled Information Overlord in May Wired issue (not online yet, but already problematic) on his experience with semantic Web app Twine. Clive also formulates a provocative though about the value of information modulated social connections. “But the truth is, sometimes social connections are less…

Kurzweil follow-up in life extension exhausted Wired

Last year I approached a powerful Wired editor with the following story pitch: “A full and deep but cool report on the current (scientific) life extension technologies, persons, battles, camps, grants, problems, perspectives.” His reply was a diplomatic and definite naysaying: “Thanks for the idea. Alas, we’ve done *way* too many stories on life-extension over…

Off to Palo Alto, CA

Leaving New Orleans for the Bay Area for the next 3 days. I am visiting a quite enigmatic workshop in Palo Alto on Feb 22, then I am in San Francisco downtown on Friday evening and Saturday AM. If anybody would like to meet me, I am available there on Saturday near Union Square, just…

Biogeekipedia: collecting raw materials

Wired’s Geekipedia is marketed as “People, places, ideas and trends you need to know now“. As such you can find biology and biotech related terms in it (part of the current hip and tech-savvy culture) like ‘stem cells‘, ‘RNAi‘ or ‘brain implants‘, explained. But you won’t find the terms ‘Natureplex’, ‘executable cell biology’, ‘Open Notebook…

The life extension bonus effect of personal genome services: +10 years?

After all, what customers can really expect of personal genome services that companies like 23andMe can offer beyond knowing whether they have a perfect pitch or not? If the service can really help in minimizing the risk of life threatening diseases, than the real expectation is to live longer by using those personalized/commercialized genome data.…

Wired style SENS3 conference intro or be aware of your audience

As this very site here is embedded in the blog medium, we could and should be experimental and eclectic in our style as we cannot control (just target) our audience, thank the web. Now a report on a science conference could be addressed to very different audiences, and yesterday I showed an example on how…

Wired on the emerging science video websites: see one, do one, teach one

Wired has a nice piece on Video Sites Help Scientists Show Instead of Tell by Alexis Madrigal focusing on the high-end, non-youtubish, let’s-build-the-pro-network-of-video-geeks-in-the-labs-out-there approach of JoVE. Video players mentioned on the pop side: LabAction and PloS backed SciVee. The real question of this niche market is: In order to penetrate the mainstream science audience what…

Freeing dark, negative research data is the next in open access science?

Positive, published scientific data form the tip of the iceberg of any scientific data produced in labs. As at least 90% (my guess) of all experiments are failed or lead to negative results, those data sets become “dark data“. But those dark data are as important for making science happen as positive data and this…

Trivia: Joshua Davis, the journalist is not Joshua Davis, the designer

So far I’ve had the wrong belief that my favourite Wired Journalist, Joshua Davis is the same person as Joshua Davis, the designer, who once has been featured in Wired (not by Joshua Davis, the journalist). The root of my misconception was the common source of my knowledge on these 2 guys, namely Wired magazine.…

Granpda is 150 years old: Artifacts from the (Wired) future

Unfortunately replicative senescence in dividing somatic cell populations through telomere shortening and organismal level aging is not as strictly related as the September Wired (not online yet) issue’s Artifacts From the Future section suggests:

Jobs/Gates on the history, Jobs/other guys on the future of digital revolution

News: “Both Jobs and Gates are slated to jointly discuss the digital revolution’s history and future at The Wall Street Journal’s D: All Things Digital conference on Wednesday.” Comment: Instead of Mr. Gates I’d be eager to see those 2 guys on the right discussing the future of all things digital (especially the future of…

Bodyhack’s merging with Wired Science Blog

Bodyhack, Wired’s pioneer biotech and stem cell focused blog is folding into Wired Science Blog. Thank you Kristen et al. The bodyhacknorati profile:

Next big thing at Darpa after the Internet: biology, of course!

When ordinary folks hear the name of Darpa, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Pentagon’s science division, the next association is usually not a military one, but the the insituiton’s role in the nascent Internet. Indeed as Wikipedia inform us: “its original name was simply Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)…and had a major impact on the…

Artifacts from the past: Wiredophilia

Once upon a time in 2005 I wrote an article on Wired magazine published in a language you probably do not understand. This photo was shot by Daniel Nemeth in my appartment, so if you are curious, you can see three little pieces of carpet in my living room. Have a nice weekend!

Bodyhack redesigned

Bodyhack, Wired’s stem cell focused biotech group blog, written at least by Kristen Philipkoski, Brandon Keim, Randy Dotinga, Mark Woodman and Scott Carney, has got a new dress: In recent weeks Bodyhack has paid more attention to other Wired blogs and sexuality as well, so content can go through a radical change too. I hope…

Wired Science TV Show, Pilote Episode: Stem Cell Explorer or Not?

You can see now Wired Science Pilote Episode on PBS, I saw the Stem Cell Explorer segment. According to the introduction: “Brian Unger interviews premier stem cell researcher Dr. Renee Reijo Pera, the Co-Director of Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Center at UCSF, a beneficiary of a 2004 California initiative to allocate $3.5 billion over…

Real arguments not just echo chambering in embryonic stem cell funding debate

Finally a journalist at Wired, Brandon Keim thought it’s time to check out some facts and formulate real arguments in the embryonic stem cell funding debate instead of boondoggling. He has collected good historical examples of long-term funding in drug research, which then saved many lives, like Taxol, and has enumerated fields of promising science,…