It's an exhilarating time for genome-wide association studies
For the past few months it seemed you couldn’t open a journal without reading results of a new genome-wide association study. The results kept pouring in: four studies in April showing seven...
Sep, 30, 2007
Affinity propagation clusters lots of different kinds of data better and faster than other methods
Starting in preschool we all learn how to get organized. Typically, we start with pre-determined categories (dolls, trains, blocks); pre-set ideas about what belongs in each category (Barbie: doll;...
Jun, 30, 2007
Supercomputers open up new horizons, offering the possibility of discovering new ways to understand life’s complexity
Their very names sound like dinosaurs. Teracomputers. Petacomputers. These are, in fact, the dinosaurs of the digital world—monstrous, hungry and powerful. But unlike the extinct...
Sep, 30, 2006
Cost-effectiveness studies yield answers to the complex question of whether clinical genomics testing has value.
Whole-genome testing has now reached the long-anticipated “$1,000 genome” level; and more targeted genetic panels cost even less. But the costs associated with genomic testing don’t...
Nov, 16, 2017
Experts reflect on challenges identified ten years ago.
The first issue of this magazine (June 2005) featured a story called “Top Ten Challenges of the Next Decade” written by Eric Jakobssen, PhD, who had recently left his position as Director...
Jun, 18, 2014
12 Big Data to Knowledge Centers of Excellence funded
Francis Collins, MD, PhD, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), says he used to feel “data envy” toward the field of physics. In those days, “no one would have...
Jan, 08, 2015
Where did we come from? Ask a computer.
In 1977, the late Carl Woese, PhD, shook up biology when he published the first tree of life based on genetic sequence data. His team showed that, contrary to popular belief, eukaryotes did not...
Sep, 01, 2013
Getting cheap, reliable help from lay workers
In pre-Internet days, people sought expert advice for their purchasing decisions—consulting product ratings in magazines such as Consumer Reports and reading newspaper reviews of local dining...
Jun, 03, 2015
How data about genes, physical activity, and the environment are yielding insights about obesity
Despite extensive efforts, a clear understanding of the obesity epidemic remains elusive. Scientists have implicated specific causal genes (40 to 60 percent of obesity is considered heritable);...
Nov, 16, 2017
Simulations offer novel insights
Zooming in on a virus reveals a physical marvel. It can stuff a genome into a confined space (a protein casing called a capsid). It can eject its genome rapidly and fluidly into a cell. And it can...
Jun, 01, 2015