Microsoft buys gene-splicing software unit Microsoft is wading deeper into the health care industry today, announcing intentions to acquire Rosetta Biosoftware, a unit of Merck & Co. that makes software for analyzing genomes and conducting clinical studies. Redmond intends to roll Rosetta's assets into the health industry research management software platform it …
I'm no expert, but you can do better than "fiddlin with genes". Can I recommend "the cartoon guide to genetics"?
Protein = molecule made by stringing together amino acids.
Each gene encodes for a protein.
Genomics - the study of all the genes that occur in organisms.
Proteomics - the study of all the resulting proteins.
FFS will the US government do something useful for once and block this
I mean the company took a retrograde step in releasing the steaming pile that is vista, do we really want them designing tools to fiddle with people's genes?
I bet this won't get through the mod process as MS is probably a major advertising spender.
Doctor, doctor, DOCTOR.. my server has fallen over!
\> where is it?
HE is right in front of me!
\> is there a blue screen?
Yeeesss.. near the bar!
\> is there a reason code?
IF there was a reason code, I wouldn’t NEED YOU!
\> OK, OK, has it produced a dump?
whether HE’s shat himself is completely irrelevant!.. HE’s fallen over, and I need help!
\> has its licence been activated?
HE doesn’t NEED a licence, servers DON’T need licences, HE worked from day one!
\> well, you all seem to be infected with some open source.. it’s like cancer you know!
WHAT kind of health system are you trying to run.. a man might die.. and all you’re just interested in is money!
\> Microsoft’s Health System is very good value, with round the clock support!
I JUST NEED A DOCTOR!!!!! .. [click]
It's bad enough trying to educate the bench scientists that using GUI apps gives you *an* answer just not necessarily *the* answer, but getting MS on board with their marketing machine is going to be disaster with a whole swathe of flawed results and conclusions. In order to get meaningful results you need to understand what the software is doing, but with MS it's going to be nothing more informative than a black box.
I do this full-time and it's all too common to have collaborators (not in the Nazi sense) come to you with data where there is some flaw in the experimental design or application. A nice shiny GUI will not be able to sort the wheat from the chaff in these instances and will lead scientists to incorrect conclusions.
Your everyday scientist cannot cope anymore with the shear volume of data these 'omic analyses are generating these days.
It is a major growth area and I can see why MS are wanting to get into it, but this has the potential to end really badly.... :(
BTW @sleepy each gene often produces multiple proteins and some don't produce any proteins at all, but are still have a function (e.g. ribosomal RNA). The one gene = one protein dogma is no longer true.
You realise that everytime a farmer breeds plants to gain a specific trait he is taking it away from the base and "genetically modifying" it.
Monsanto are evil becuase of the crazy stuff they do to American dairy cows and their consumers to make more milk which, if memory serves, was in surplus at the time. New Zealand had a deficit and were buying in US surplus milk too.
Re: Article.
First gen crops, derivative but do the job.
Fourth gen crops, look a bit prettier, have a 40% larger footprint so less harvestable mass per-hectare.
Sixth gen crops have large, pretty flowers but the stems are so heavy they need to be held up with a weed bed beneath. Several flowers per hectare, insignificant crop yield.
Who'd buy Crops 7?
At least crops only last a year.. looking at IE6 here.
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