Google and the genes
The Washington Post from Monday presents a chapter entitled "Googling Your Gene" of a forthcoming book called "The Google story" by David Vise, and Mark Malseed [Amazon].
It is about the most brainless, badly researched fad that I have read recently, featuring Craig Venter (who is presented as the guy who "sequenced the human genome" and "made it available to the public"), researchers performing simulations in cyberspace and scholars solely relying on Google as if specialized search engines would not exist.
A company like Google could probably contribute massively to biological research and the compute time in Google Compute is going into protein folding. There is a great potential for Google in field of genetic information but the issue is a sensitive one, particular for personalized medicine. If I would be working in Googles PR department, I would make sure the book does not appear in print if the other chapters are of the same quality.
It is about the most brainless, badly researched fad that I have read recently, featuring Craig Venter (who is presented as the guy who "sequenced the human genome" and "made it available to the public"), researchers performing simulations in cyberspace and scholars solely relying on Google as if specialized search engines would not exist.
A company like Google could probably contribute massively to biological research and the compute time in Google Compute is going into protein folding. There is a great potential for Google in field of genetic information but the issue is a sensitive one, particular for personalized medicine. If I would be working in Googles PR department, I would make sure the book does not appear in print if the other chapters are of the same quality.
spitshine - 2005-11-18 18:05