Sources at Google have disclosed that the humble domain, http://research.google.com, will soon provide a home for terabytes of open-source scientific datasets. The storage will be free to scientists and access to the data will be free for all. The project, known as Palimpsest and first previewed to the scientific community at the Science Foo camp at the Googleplex last August, missed its original launch date this week, but will debut soon.

Building on the company's acquisition of the data visualization technology, Trendalyzer, from the oft-lauded, TED presenting Gapminder team, Google will also be offering algorithms for the examination and probing of the information. The new site will have YouTube-style annotating and commenting features.

Google to Host Terabytes of Open-Source Science Data | Wired Science from Wired.com

South Korean scientists have cloned cats by manipulating a fluorescent protein gene, a procedure which could help develop treatments for human genetic diseases, officials said Wednesday. In a side-effect, the cloned cats glow in the dark when exposed to ultraviolet beams.

"The ability to produce cloned cats with the manipulated genes is significant as it could be used for developing treatments for genetic diseases and for reproducing model (cloned) animals suffering from the same diseases as humans," it added. The technology can also help clone endangered animals like tigers, leopards, and wildcats, Kong said.

Biological hacking = no more boring pets.

South Korean scientists clone cats that glow in the dark.

The depth at which ice can be found below the surface of Mars varies greatly, new temperature maps made by NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft reveal. The 'bumpy' ice appears to be involved in an active martian water cycle.

'Bumpy' ice on Mars points to active water cycle - space - 02 May 2007 - New Scientist Space

It took some mighty fine nets, but scientists who spent two years trawling the world's oceans for bacteria and viruses have completed the most thorough census ever of marine microbial life, revealing an astonishingly diverse and bizarre microscopic menagerie.

This is awesome. I have been waiting for the conclusion of this story since I read years ago that Craig Venter had started a new project in which he was sailing around the world in a boat collecting sea life. The paper is free to the public, so if you are at all interested, you should go and check it out. Just google PLoS Biology (which is the journal that the paper is in).

Seas Yield Surprising Catch of Unknown Genes - washingtonpost.com

Tom got into Science before I did....curse:)

Tom Cross, who is a software security researcher and co-developer of the MemeStream social networking website, also disagrees that “if we want to improve America's scientific competitiveness, we need to increase the supply of technical workers, which will reduce their cost.” Gathering Storm, he believes, has “misdefined the problem, [which] is on the demand side and not the supply side.”

“Technological competitiveness is not about how much technology you are doing but what kind,” he states. “You don't want to lead the world in having development sweatshops where people grind out code for hours at low wages. ... You want to lead the world in creating new innovations.”

Science Magazine quoted my MemeStream. :)

ScienceCareers.org | What's Wrong With American Science? : Benderly: 9 December 2005

] The era of garage biology is upon us. Want to
] participate? Take a moment to buy yourself a molecular
] biology lab on eBay.

It was only a matter of time...now I can quit grad school and go work in a garage;)

Wired 13.05: VIEW

Nanotechnology and the cell nucleus....my two loves combine.

Nano-Probes Stay Inside a Cell's Nucleus for Days

It's the 21st century version of "guns or butter?"

The project would determine the sequence of the DNA in at least 12,500 tumor samples, 250 samples from each of 50 major types of cancer. By comparing the order of the letters of the genetic code in the tumor samples with one another and with sequences in healthy tissue, it should be possible to pinpoint mutations responsible for cancer.

But the proposition is extremely daunting. In general, each tumor cell holds a full panoply of human DNA, a string of three billion letters of the genetic code. So determining the full sequence of all the tumors would be the equivalent of 12,500 human genome projects. At a cost of many millions of dollars for one genome, the full project would be out of the question for now.

So the cancer proposal for now is to sequence only the active genes in tumors, which make up 1 percent to 2 percent of the DNA. Even that would require at least 100 times as much sequencing as the Human Genome Project.

In Battling Cancer, a Genome Project Is Proposed

The discovery also raises interesting biological questions -- including whether it gets in the way of evolution, which depends on mutations changing an organism rather than being put right by a backup system.

Startling Scientists, Plant Fixes Its Flawed Gene

This is pretty neat. Scientists have isolated a bacterium that turns a toxin into a plastic...very useful:)

Bacteria turn toxin into plastic