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Comment Re:First time? (Score 1) 49

by DrCJM (#42949963) Attached to: New Imaging Sheds Light On Basic Building Blocks of Life

This is the first time Level 3 pathogens have been imaged in this way.

The Slashdot story isn't "we've determined the structure of a virus" - it's "we've got a new way of taking its picture."

If you'd like to interpret "we've got a new way of taking its picture" to mean "we're taking its picture in a new lab with slightly different equipment from all the other facilities around the world where X-ray diffraction studies of virus are done" then I would agree with you.

They have an automated BSL3-level end-station on a beam at Diamond, so that viral crystals of pathogens can be studied. Apart from it being new at Diamond, there is nothing "first time" about this arrangement.

Comment Re:First time? (Score 2) 49

by DrCJM (#42941163) Attached to: New Imaging Sheds Light On Basic Building Blocks of Life

The rules are changing - for the early structures I'm sure care was taken, but the current strict containment rules didn't exist. I can't imagine rocking up to the beamline with poliovirus in your cryostat would be regarded as appropriate behaviour any more... I know that in the past I have been prevented taking crystals of human rhinovirus to some facilities even though as a pathogen it's hardly BSL 3!

The only thing that the OP noted that was of interest was the Diamond now has an on-site BSL3 facility so that you can handle such pathogens within the current regulations.

Comment Re:First time? (Score 4, Informative) 49

by DrCJM (#42940829) Attached to: New Imaging Sheds Light On Basic Building Blocks of Life

The press release is horribly written.

On this we agree...

What they're doing that is genuinely novel, AFAIK, is crystallizing actual infectious virus in a biosafety level 3 facility. Usually crystallographers work with just the capsid or some other subset of viral proteins, which requires fewer (if any) special precautions.

No, we don't. Intact viral particles are the norm.

The native virus particles are typically studied by EM, which typically doesn't yield as high resolution as crystallography, but has the advantage of requiring much more portable and less expensive equipment than crystallography.

While there are lots of EM studies of viral particles, X-ray studies are much more common - 33 full EM models versus 317 diffraction structures. The page I linked in the first response to this article shows just a few of the picornavirus structures that have been determined by X-ray diffraction studies over the past several decades. There are other virus structures out there as well, with an excellent website for anyone interested being Viper.

Comment Re:First time? (Score 1) 49

by DrCJM (#42939797) Attached to: New Imaging Sheds Light On Basic Building Blocks of Life
The page is the summary, at the public repository for all biomolecular structures, of the viral capsid structures (determined by X-ray diffraction, just as in the OP linked story) for picornaviruses including polio and foot-and-mouth as well as less pathogenic virus such as rhinovrius. EV71 is just another picornavirus. If you'd taken the time to actually read anything on the page I linked you'd have noticed hyperlinks to the detailed structures for each virus, such as the PDB entry 2PLV for poliovirus whose structure was determined in 1989... http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/explore/explore.do?structureId=2plv

Comment Re:WTF? (Score 1) 223

by DrCJM (#40215899) Attached to: My primary work is ...

So apparently everyone on slashdot is expected to be a developer? WTF

"Research" means a whole lot more than being 'a developer'.

I work for a biotech company as a Principal Research Scientist. I don't 'develop' stuff, I do research.

Comment Re:Really? higher amoung un-vaccinated eh? (Score 1) 1007

by DrCJM (#39668873) Attached to: Lack of Vaccination Sends Babies In Oregon To the Hospital
Reuters is your reference source for scientific news? Hmmmm... Anyway, there is an undoubted recent increase in pertussis cases amongst immunized children due to:

1) Shorter protection time than expected indicating boosters are required

(See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22423127 for example)

and

2) Emergent bacterial strains with modified surface antigens being selected due to evolutionary pressure (gasp!) from the acellular vaccine

(See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22416243 for example)

If you want to understand the science, go to the scientific literature. Not 'naturalnews.com'...
Cloud

Submission + - Microsoft: RDP Vulnerability Should be Patched Immediately (securityweek.com)

Submitted by wiredmikey
wiredmikey writes: Microsoft is urging organizations to apply the sole critical update in this month’s Patch Tuesday release as soon as possible. The critical bulletin – one of six security bulletins issued as part of today’s release – addresses two vulnerabilities in the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).

Those IT admins who use RDP to manage their machines over the internet, which is essentially the default in cloud-based installations such as Amazon’s AWS, need to patch as quickly as possible, said Qualys CTO Wolfgang Kandek.

Besides the RDP bugs, this month’s Patch Tuesday addressed five other vulnerabilities: two denial-of-service bugs and an escalation of privileges issue in Microsoft Windows; a remote code execution vulnerability in Microsoft Expression Design; and an escalation of privileges issue in Microsoft Visual Studio. All those issues are rated ‘important’ with the exception of one of the Windows’ denial-of-service bugs, which is rated ‘moderate.’

Submission + - US, EU, Japan Complain to WTO Over China's Rare Earth Ban (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: China's rare earth monopoly has resulted in a shortage as China blocks their export and the rest of the world resumes their operations. Now in a first ever joint filing from three members of the WTO Japan, the EU and the US are not sitting idly by as China repeatedly ignores the WTO's orders to export rare earths and raw materials at a fair price to other countries. China claims that the embargoes are in place to protect its environment while Obama denounces China as being unfair and not playing by the rules of the WTO. In 2009, the WTO released a report that explained how actions like China's hurts trade partners.
IT

Submission + - Companies More Likely To Outsource Than Train IT Employees (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "IT pros feeling the pressure to boost tech skills should expect little support from their current employers, according to a recent report on IT skills. '9 in 10 business managers see gaps in workers' skill sets, yet organizations are more likely to outsource a task or hire someone new than invest in training an existing staff. Perhaps worse, a significant amount of training received by IT doesn't translate to skills they actually use on the job.'"
Games

Submission + - The Consoles Are Dying Says Developer (itproportal.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Whilst you might have often heard that PC gaming is dying — detractors have been claiming this for over a decade — one developer has a different take: that in fact it's the consoles that are on the way out. In a 26 minute presentation at GDC — available now as a voice over'd slideshow — Ben Cousins who heads mobile/tablet game maker ngmoco, uses some rather convincing statistics of electronic and gaming purchases along with market shares of developers and publishers from just a few years ago, that when compared with today, displays some surprising results. The old guard, including the three big console manufacturers — Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft — are losing out massively, compared with the new generation of gaming platform developers, Facebook, Apple and Google. With the new companies, the audience size is vastly increased thanks to more of a focus on tablet, mobile and browser based gaming. Facebook, iPhone and Android users weigh in at over a billion users. Compare that with the main consoles, the Xbox, Wii and PS3 and you have hardware that has only sold around (even when combined) a few hundred million units.

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