just got back from a super-quick booze-soaked weekend visit to Ben in SF. It was so good to
visit a city once again, and get the opportunity to paint the town red,
hit the bars, eat in plentiful cheap restaurants, and generally enjoy city
life (which I’ve been missing massively since the move from Dublin). But
now back in post-suburban
Irvine to cope with the hangover.
Also got to meet up with Komal, one of my co-workers up there — which was
cool. Unfortunately it was a super-speedy weekend whistle-stop tour
though, so having a good social meet-up with all the guys will have to wait
until the next visit. ;)
Net: ‘The Canadian scientists who broke the genetic code for SARS …
say they couldn’t have done it without the Internet. … The key to
that collaboration was ordinary e-mail‘.
It also turns out the ProMED
mailing list was the central point at which SARS reports were
collated in the early stages, even despite evasion and cover-up by
the Chinese state.
So there you go — as usual, SMTP is the killer app — or in this case, a
life-saving app! All the more reason to figure out ways to deal with spam
and return SMTP to its top spot in the protocol pantheon.
Good thing the FTC Spam Forum went so well, then.
Sounds like there was unprecedented agreement between the non-spam folks,
clear understanding of the issues by quite a few of the Washington
denizens, and maybe even some good footage of the other side digging
holes for themselves.
Health:
US, Asian Airlines Disagree on SARS. Me, I just wish the airlines
would stop being so bloody cheap, and bring in more fresh air rather
than recirculating. ;)
Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 12:20:16 -0400
From: STEPHEN JONES (spam-protected)
To: (spam-protected) (spam-protected)
Subject: Internet is a good thing says Steve Jones clone
Internet played a key role in decoding SARS genome, scientists say
DENNIS BUECKERT
OTTAWA (CP) - The Canadian scientists who broke the genetic code for SARS
just weeks after the disease appeared say they couldn’t have done it
without the Internet.
Scientists from the Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre of the B.C. Cancer
Agency say their achievement relied on rapid communication with scientists
around the world. The key to that collaboration was ordinary e-mail, said
Steven Jones of the Vancouver-based research agency in a teleconference
Thursday sponsored by Science magazine.
“Within a day of us having a press release announcing our participation in
the sequencing we had an amazing amount of e-mail from scientists all
around the world,” Jones said.
As soon as the sequence was decoded, the B.C. researchers posted it on the
Internet.
“People were, within minutes of that, able to download the sequence and
analyse it in their own laboratories and their own computers,” Jones said.
“The Internet has had a profound impact on how this data has been shared
and how scientists have collaborated.”
A short time later, researchers at the Atlanta Centers for Disease Control
published the sequence of a coronavirus taken from another SARS patient.
The genetic coding for the two viruses were virtually identical, boosting
confidence that the coronavirus was in fact the causal agent.
Now both sequences are posted on the World Wide Web for the benefit of
researchers in many countries racing to find a reliable test for SARS, and
a vaccine to prevent it.
Scientists say the speed of the decoding was amazing.
The first reports of the new disease came from China in November, and on
March 13 cases were reported in Toronto and Vancouver. The sequences were
posted on the net on April 15.
By contrast, it took years to identify the agents behind diseases like AIDS
and hepatitis C.
Mel Crajdon of the B.C. Centre for Disease Control said all evidence points
to the coronavirus as being the cause of SARS, despite some seemingly
contradictory findings.
Earlier this week Frank Plummer, who heads the National Microbiology
Laboratory in Winnipeg, said he was puzzled by the number of people who
show evidence of the SARS coronavirus but not symptoms of the disease.
Crajdon suggested the apparent anomaly is due to imperfect understanding of
how the disease presents itself, as well as lack of reliable tests for the
presence of the virus.
“I’m not surprised by the results that have been obtained to date and I
think that they will rapidly improve,” he said.
More than 5,400 cases of SARS have been diagnosed worldwide, with at least
394 deaths. In Canada, there have been 23 deaths, all in the Toronto area.
On the Net:
SARS sequences: http://sciencemag.org/features/data/sars
SARS data: http://aaas.org
SARS Comments: http://eurekalert.org
Tags: app, city, code, internet, sars, smtp, spam, thing, visit, weekend
