Just because it doesn't code for protein doesn't mean it isn't turned into RNA, or bound by some protein to regulate some other part of the DNA. Some of it is selected for, we just didn't know where to look to find conservation, or the nature of that conservation. It's easy to pick out regions coding for protein because there are some fairly strict rules for these, so it's easy to find conservation. For some of these non-coding regions, the precise sequence and location is not important, and many similar sequences spread over a wide location range can work just as well. Alternatively, some of these regions are selected to have a certain structure at the RNA stage, which can be satisfied by many different sequences, and undetectable by most methods. Lastly, and most excitingly, these are regions that are evolving quickly. While the function of a protein may remain similar between two species, it may need to be produced in a different time and place in different species. These may be the places in our genetic code where we find out what makes us human. Thus some of these regulatory elements are not conserved between species (though many are!).

Now none of that rules out the existence of regions of DNA that do little or nothing and can be mutated without consequence. There are definitely such regions in the genome.

i hope that cleared something up

Given the machine they used in the paper to read the data back, it would take about 10 DAYS to read out the data they encoded. The problem is that it takes that time to get any data at all. So they could parrallelize it to get better MB/sec (or realistically MB/hr), but with current tech, the latency is 10 days, with a theoretical maximum of 100gigabits of uncompressed data read out in that time, (but realistically much less since they rely on redundancy to reduce error, and have overhead for their encoding system).

So, what happens when I get pulled over, and the police officer asks for proof that I am here legally, and I inform him that I am a naturalized US citizen (which I am), and thus am not required to carry any such paperwork? What if I was Illegal and said the same thing?

If the police can not question that lie, then the law is a farce anyway. If they can, then a whole lot of citizens are going to have their rights violated.

This is not a nuclear power plant. It is a uranium enrichment facility. The amount of enriched uranium involved in a given accident would be small, and insufficient to cause a catastrophic meltdown.

The US secret service is in fact charged with investigating counterfeiting and fraud, and were a part of the treasury until 2003. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Secret_Service

"...news that asteroid 2012 BX34, 11 meters wide..."

when faced with the 'blistering' speed of developing in C, I'm willing to accept slower runtimes.

I imagine that it would be a different story for someone making production code for distribution, but most of my stuff gets used a few times, and only within the lab.

I've actually found it FASTER to keep the data compressed. Hard drive read speed has become a real bottleneck with big datasets. Python has built-in gzip support, so working with it has become trivial for me :)

Your belief is incorrect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming

Wow, way to spread misinformation. I can assure you that while there are biases toward the wealthy in the Ivy League (mainly due to inequities in access to primary education, though a small part is due to legacy/connections), there are no financial barriers to entry into these schools for students who are willing to work hard and apply themselves. Most of the people I knew who went to these schools are firmly in the 99%, and many of them in the bottom 50%.

However, this NAND gate comes with a suite of chemical sensors attached. Many of which can be used as inputs to the gate. I doubt that can be fabricated in a 300nm circle.

If that is the case, then i retract my statement. With google's domination of the industry, it could easily have gotten $500 mil. However, the statement in the article is quite vague now that I read it again. Did you see a better explanation elsewhere?

from TFA:

"Drug and health care advertising generated about $1 billion in Internet spending last year and is expected to grow to nearly $1.9 billion by 2015, according to the research firm eMarketer Inc."

That's $1 billion total spending, not profit, and not only Google. I don't think Google generated anywhere near $500 million from it.

Actually, until they get off on the ground. Shit happens...

FTFY