Comment Re:India's priorities are fucked up (Score 1) 47
I came here just to see if there's that one guy trashing India about their combination poverty, hygiene and space program. I am not disappointed with the consistency.
Comment Re:Who? (Score 1) 72
He used to be a big deal. However he's gone down in multiple partisan rabbit holes and made questionable movies. Over the years he has become an attention whore trolling people on Twitter and has been generally an ass. So his currency has gone down greatly and this is nothing but another attention-grabbing stunt. Given his recent movies quality he should use an AI screenplay writer and an AI director as well.
Comment Re:Dumb Programmers? (Score 1) 212
Where are my mod points when I need them? This is the same logic to be applied even for psychopaths who think they are the smartest (Jeff Skilling claimed to be "fucking smart", and whole lot of people buy it to this day!).
Comment Re:Inevitable. (Score 1) 263
I don't know how this was modded +4 Insightful. It makes no sense whatsoever. This guy says BEVs are going to be obsoleted by renewable hydrocarbon technology! Have you ever owned an electric vehicle? Have you even driven one?
I own an EV and a pure gas SUV (for all longer trips and whole family trips). The difference is night and day. EVs have an amazing drive feel, amazingly efficient on a Joule/km basis, and absolutely amazing in terms of reliability and maintenance (none in the 3 years I've owned my Leaf with 40000 km on it).
Comment Re:So... (Score 1) 62
I wouldn't say dead. But they can focus on other challenges more amenable to distributed computing and first principle based algorithms (e.g. docking, complex prediction etc). I would think Deep Mind could go after protein-protein complexes as well actually.
Comment Re:Background (Score 2) 62
Blue Gene etc were being applied to fold proteins based on first principles (i.e. physics and numerical methods). Deep Mind however has side-stepped that whole process of solving through fundamental understanding and got to the solution. The good things however are:
(1) It does use some of our fundamental learnings about protein structure.
(2) We get to solve more applied problems, leaving the physics based methods to continue to develop, which will probably have other applications (like de novo design of catalysts, molecular machines etc).
Comment Re:First Principles (Score 2) 62
You are correct. It is not practical. The current energy functions are not perfect. Even if you assume that they are good enough, the compute power needed doesn't exist yet. When I was in grad school I was of the feeling that only quantum computing can solve this problem (because in reality, protein folding is a kind of quantum computational problem, which is just collapsed into a good enough solution - or so I thought).
Comment Here you go (Score 5, Informative) 62
CASP competition doesn't classify proteins into various types. They only categorize based on type of prediction (e.g. ab initio versus homology modeling etc). But they do list the actual proteins that were the targets for prediction. See list here.
https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.predictioncenter.o...
Comment Re:No shit Sherlock! (Score 1) 303
Yes, geoengineering that doesnâ(TM)t need human resolve and economics to scale. Time to engineer a methanotrophic psychrophile and let it loose. It will rapidly propagate because of its selective advantage, to our benefit.
Comment Re:Have to remove CO2. (Score 1) 303
Time to engineer a methanotrophic psychrophile and let it loose.
Submission + - Ending Greenhouse Gas Emissions May Not Stop Global Warming, Study Says (phys.org)
An anonymous reader writes: Even if humanity stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, Earth will warm for centuries to come and oceans will rise by meters, according to a controversial modeling study published Thursday. Natural drivers of global warming—more heat-trapping clouds, thawing permafrost, and shrinking sea ice—already set in motion by carbon pollution will take on their own momentum, researchers from Norway reported in the Nature journal Scientific Reports. Using a stripped-down climate model, [lead author Jorgen Randers, a professor emeritus of climate strategy at the BI Norwegian Business School] and colleague Ulrich Goluke projected changes out to the year 2500 under two scenarios: the instant cessation of emissions, and the gradual reduction of planet warming gases to zero by 2100.
In an imaginary world where carbon pollution stops with a flip of the switch, the planet warms over the next 50 years to about 2.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels—roughly half-a-degree above the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement—and cools slightly after that. Earth's surface today is 1.2C hotter than it was in the mid-19th century, when temperatures began to rise. But starting in 2150, the model has the planet beginning to gradually warm again, with average temperatures climbing another degree over the following 350 years, and sea levels going up by at least three meters. Under the second scenario, Earth heats up to levels that would tear at the fabric of civilisation far more quickly, but ends up at roughly the same point by 2500.
The core finding—contested by leading climate scientists—is that several thresholds, or "tipping points", in Earth's climate system have already been crossed, triggering a self-perpetuating process of warming, as has happened millions of years in the past. One of these drivers is the rapid retreat of sea ice in the Arctic. [...] Another source is the thawing of permafrost, which holds twice as much carbon as there is in the atmosphere. The third is increasing amounts of water vapour, which also has a warming effect. Reactions from half-a-dozen leading climate scientists to the study—which the authors acknowledge is schematic—varied sharply, with some saying the findings merit follow-up research, and others rejecting it out of hand.
In an imaginary world where carbon pollution stops with a flip of the switch, the planet warms over the next 50 years to about 2.3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels—roughly half-a-degree above the target set in the 2015 Paris Agreement—and cools slightly after that. Earth's surface today is 1.2C hotter than it was in the mid-19th century, when temperatures began to rise. But starting in 2150, the model has the planet beginning to gradually warm again, with average temperatures climbing another degree over the following 350 years, and sea levels going up by at least three meters. Under the second scenario, Earth heats up to levels that would tear at the fabric of civilisation far more quickly, but ends up at roughly the same point by 2500.
The core finding—contested by leading climate scientists—is that several thresholds, or "tipping points", in Earth's climate system have already been crossed, triggering a self-perpetuating process of warming, as has happened millions of years in the past. One of these drivers is the rapid retreat of sea ice in the Arctic. [...] Another source is the thawing of permafrost, which holds twice as much carbon as there is in the atmosphere. The third is increasing amounts of water vapour, which also has a warming effect. Reactions from half-a-dozen leading climate scientists to the study—which the authors acknowledge is schematic—varied sharply, with some saying the findings merit follow-up research, and others rejecting it out of hand.
Comment Re:Reopen America? (Score 1) 336
Sure this is not about protection from the virus. But if you think this was about protecting jobs, then think again. Because then he would stop the H1Bs and other temporary work visas. Green card wait is what actually leads to low wage slavery. But he is not stopping the work visas, so people will continue to come in for low wages. He is stopping the green cards, which indicates that this has another agenda.
Comment Re:And so... (Score 1) 212
Can't believe the parent post is getting voted down. Lots of blind people here it looks like...
Comment What if it is the unsafe way the meat is made? (Score 1) 76
I don't see this being mentioned anywhere. But in the US and most of Europe, cows are lined up and shot (not exactly with a bullet but with a bolt) into their brain, making them continue standing stunned with their heart beating while their brain matter mixes with the blood. The blood with brain matter of course reaches several organs and tissues by the time the cow is killed and the meat is harvested. This to me is the worst way to kill a cow in terms of human health safety, though it maybe humane. The halaal/kosher way of killing the cow is much safer, but seemingly brutal. As a protein bioinformatics person I had an academic interest in the folding and stability of prions at some point of time, and they are very scary imo. I always wonder how much of a factor this is in the rise of amyloid diseases in western populations. I personally haven't ever eaten red meat at all, which I believe is the best thing. But if you are going to go for cow meat, at least this factor has to be addressed.
I often hear metabolism being pointed out. I am interested in metabolism as well and I think they maybe a factor as well, but through a different mechanism such as blood circulation and oxygenation issues.
Comment People people (Score 1) 78
Isn't Avast basically free? If you are not paying, you are the product. (I don't imply that if you pay you are not the product). So just don't use free services as much as possible. And for those you pay, read the privacy policy and do some research if their privacy policies are respected and implemented.
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