sharky611aol.com - Slashdot User

Foldit Player May Have Created a Useful Protein 144

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday May 19, 2010 @12:44AM from the know-when-to-hold-'em dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The organizers of the game Foldit, where you fold proteins for scientific research, announced that a user has found a protein that may be able to bind influenza viruses. Researchers plan to test the protein in a lab over the next few weeks to see if it might be medically useful."

Comment Re:Side effects (Score 1) 269

by sharky611aol.com on Wednesday April 21, 2010 @12:00PM (#31924336) Attached to: Anti-Cancer Agent Stops Metastasis In Its Tracks

Really? Insightful? Since the side effects of a completely novel class of drug "don't appear to significantly increase mortality" in mice, you would advocate completely skipping the Phase I (Human safety and pharmacokinetics) and phase II (Does it work at all in humans?) part of the tried and true drug trials? You, sir, are an idiot (or a lawyer, but I repeat myself).

Brain Surgery Linked To Sensation of Spirituality 380

Posted by timothy on Thursday February 11, 2010 @05:30PM from the applied-psychology dept.

the3stars writes "'Removing part of the brain can induce inner peace, according to researchers from Italy. Their study provides the strongest evidence to date that spiritual thinking arises in, or is limited by, specific brain areas. This raises a number of interesting issues about spirituality, among them whether or not people can be born with a strong propensity towards spirituality and also whether it can be acquired through head trauma." One critic's quoted response: "It's important to recognize that the whole study is based on changes in one self-report measure, which is a coarse measure that includes some strange items."

Proton Beams Sent Around the LHC 115

Posted by kdawson on Friday November 20, 2009 @05:40PM from the going-in-circles dept.

feldhaus writes "The BBC reports that the first beams for over one year have been successfully sent around the complete circumference of the Large Hadron Collider. Engineers do not yet have a stable circulating beam but they hope to by 0600 GMT on Saturday."

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