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Comment Re:Murphy's law (Score 1) 250

Here's a wacky thing: the plural form of someone else is actually someone's else .

Ah, I can see the reason for your disclaimer about not having good grammar. "Someone else's" isn't plural, it's possessive! Still an interesting fact though.. does it mean the possessive form of someone else is someone's else? Looks pretty wrong to me...

Comment Re:Clinical Value (Score 1) 103

Not having read TFA, I could be wrong, but it sounds like an array-based detection system..

You absolutely cannot multiplex PCRs for that many targets, so it has to be an array, right?

There may be some non-specific PCR, or other form of 'amplification' i.e. in vitro transcription, done beforehand to amplify the starting matierial (in fact, this would probably be required since array sensitivity is crap compared to PCR).

Comment Re:Got it (Score 1) 381

Yeah, if you go with the big companies like Telstra, Optus etc. you will get screwed like you are getting screwed by Vodafone. Here in Australia the best ISPs are those that don't charge by usage, and have reasonable caps for ok money. i.e. mine (iiNet, at the risk of sounding like a salesdouche) is $50 a month for 100 GB (50GB peak and 50 off-peak), at ADSL2+.

Telstra would be asking a LOT more money for that, and they wonder why I keep telling them to where to go when they call me and ask for my custom.

Which is one of the reasons Telstra shares are plummeting.

Comment Re:wiki (Score 4, Informative) 132

The fact that the genes are identical does not mean they're of the same origin.

Actually, if the genes are identical in terms of nucleotide sequence then it is absolutely irrefutable that they are of the same origin. Even genes that are evolutionarily conserved vary in sequence between members of the same genus, let alone organisms from completely different kingdoms of life.

Comment Re:As A Cancer Researcher... (Score 2, Interesting) 106

I hear ya, it's exciting stuff... Just to add a twist, it should be noted that the vast majority of mutations found in tumours that have been fully sequenced so far occur outside protein coding regions. Not to say protein coding genes are not important, but it's likely that mutations in intergenic regions, promoters, noncoding RNA 'genes' and introns are also likely to play a major role in transformation to a cancerous phenotype in many cases.

The issue is going to be getting enough data for statistical robustness, even before any candidate mutations are investigated in the wet lab. I wonder how many thousands of each type of tumour should be sequenced? In any case, there will be buckets of data getting pumped out of the next generation of next-gen sequencers pretty soon, so plenty of work for bioinformatics nerds in the near future!

Comment Flamebait (Score 1) 365

Aren't a lot of developers making a lot of money as a direct result of the tight controls apple has placed on iphone apps?

Isn't that a good thing for indy developers and small companies?

Shouldn't devs be applauding apple's approach instead of trashing it at every opportunity?

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