Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Stuff below the fold

Encoding a book into DNA...


The research was published in Science on Friday. The researchers used a combination of commercial tools for DNA synthesis and new methods of DNA sequencing to store a copy of lead researcher George Church's forthcoming book Regenesis: How Synthetic Biology Will Reinvent Nature and Ourselves in DNA onto DNA.

"The density is remarkably high," Church says in a video explaining the research. "We can store on the order of almost a zettabyte [of data] in a gram of DNA."

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Assage complaining about why the west needs to have their secrets hacked ignores that the bad guys are laughing their heads off....

yeah...Ecuador got money from FARC, but we don't see Assage bothering to release evidence of these petty dictators and their corruption.

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But it seems nothing is really safe from the hackers: HeirsOfDurin has a long report on the Hobbit characters and plots...picked up from a German fansite.

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The US press is seeing the punk band in Russia as being persecuted for political speech, but some religion web sites point out that most Orthodox in that country were aghast because what they did was desecrate a church (this in a country that has only recently allowed freedom of religion).

And, as StrategyPage points out, Putin remains popular because folks in Russia prefer to be safe from thugs and the pension check to arrive on time.
and Russia will reenter the "great game" in Afghanistan area now that NATO is leaving a power vacuum...

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The Economist was quoted here as calculating the monetary worth of the US Catholic church.
most of the money is in institutions that care for people or educate folks.

Conspiracy theory of the day: Makes me wonder if the Obamacare mandate will morph into a way for big hospital corporations to make a bundle...and if the Obamacare mandate doesn't work, the coup of the PC nuns "leadership" could result in these "leaders" making the institutions that legally belong to the orders into secular corporations that could similarly become a financial bargain for big business.... Wonder if anyone is following the money in these things.

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Wired has an article on the weird animals of the pre Cambrian extinction times.

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Forget Upstairs/Downstair and the Kardashians.

The real "reality saga" is coming to you on PBS: Call the Midwife....


Watch Call the Midwife - Preview on PBS. See more from Call the Midwife.

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