Technology

WASP- A Programming Language For Wireless Sensors Even Scientists Can Use

A new, simpler programming language for wireless sensor networks, written with the novice programmer in mind, can be used by geologists for monitoring volcanoes and biologists who rely on them to understand birds' nesting behaviors. Finding an embedde ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 7 2009 - 2:06pm

Garage Biology Is Here Already

One more book to pile on my to-read list. Via Carl Zimmer (go follow the link for a bloggingheads video interview), a fascinating book on bioengineering, Learning to Fly, by Rob Carlson, is coming out this fall. He has some insightful thoughts: ...

Article - Michael White - Apr 7 2009 - 3:16pm

IBone Brings (Trom)Bone To IPhone

Spoonjack today announced iBone-- the Pocket Trombone for iPhone and iPod Touch. iBone lets users play along with music in their iTunes library and with songs from the iBone Songbook and even shows them how. iBone combines an instrument, band, and trainer ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 8 2009 - 9:16pm

World's Largest Frickin' Laser Gets The Green Light (Next Stop- Fusion)

If we tell you the next laser in the works by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) will be the size of a football stadium and will have 192 individual beams, each about 40 centimeters square, beaming into a spot about one-half millimeter in ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 8 2009 - 10:21am

New Scientific Blogging SWAG

The first batch of newly designed Scientific Blogging logo stuff arrived today.   What do we have?   For biology writers, an excellent 'Lysis To Kill' logo.   For generally awesome people, a 'Certified Jenius' adornment let's every ...

Blog Post - Hank Campbell - Feb 11 2019 - 3:36pm

No Biopsy Needed: Cancer Diagnosis Using Just A Drop Of Blood

A drop of blood or a chunk of tissue smaller than the period at the end of this sentence may one day be all that is necessary to diagnose cancers and assess their response to treatment, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In a Na ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 12 2009 - 8:45pm

Multi-Threading Genome Sequencing Could Mean Sub $1000 Cost

If we're going to get a $300 genome sequence any time in the near future, around the cost it will take to have it as part of routine medical care, the process has to get faster. The obstacles to reaching that goal have been primarily technological: Sc ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 23 2009 - 12:16am

DECIPHER Database Tackling Copy Number Variants In Disease

Today, five years after the inception of the DECIPHER database, researchers have published a report that reveals the developing role of the database in revolutionizing both clinical practice and genetic research.  The report explores the growing benefits o ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 15 2009 - 10:29pm

The importance of cut and paste blogging

I had a nice essay going about information and sources, and a whack of the keyboard sent me off to a site I hadn't intended to visit and the post (all 400 words of it) off into bit-dust.  You'd think I would know better, having been a computer pr ...

Blog Post - Mel. White - Apr 16 2009 - 11:34pm

Information Sourcepoints

There's an interesting discussion over on the Wikipedia boards about the topic of "popular misconceptions" that has all sorts of interesting linguistic and informational aspects to it (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_common_misconc ...

Blog Post - Mel. White - Apr 17 2009 - 1:43pm