This weekend my sister-in-law (who was born in Afghanistan) asked me "why does America think it has the moral imperitive to police the rest of the world?" Well, I've been around, and one reason has to do with our diversity. No other country has the diversity of America. Well, maybe England and Canada, but I think if you look into it America is far more diverse than even those two countries. Why does that matter? Well, if we bomb someone else, we're bombing some of our own citizen's countries. Think about that for a minute. How many other countries can say that? When I visit Germany, I don't see diversity. When I visit China. Japan. Russia. Australia. Iran. Iraq. No diversity. Here in Silicon Valley alone I see more than 60 cultures, all living together peacefully. Yes, that does give us a lot of moral imperitive. The rest of you all would like to kill me (or, at minimum, from joining your country club). Americans say 'come join us.' At least at some level. Not saying we're perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But, we're a lot further along than almost any other country on the diversity scale.

[The Scobleizer Weblog]

Our diversity is our strength. We debate everything from all sides and accept a large amount of dissent, levels that most other countries would not stand. We are also an adaptive culture that is very willing to try something because if it does not work out, we correct it and try something else. Our founders viewed America as a great experiment. We have the ability to run at least 50 experiments simultaneously, finding the best process for almost everything, or at least varying solutions that have different results. No other country has this. We make decisions relatively quickly and change course if we need to. We change our government more rapidly that anyone else. And like it that way. So far in our history we have balanced the need to tell everyone else how to run their business with the realization that we don't know everything. We are willing to admit we are wrong and find a better solution. That is why the adaptive culture of the US will be a model for the new world we are entering. My worry is that the rest of the world will quickly follow us, perhaps surpassing us and provoking a response from us that we never recover from. That is how 'empires' usually fall. This is not likely to happen as long as we remain diverse and adaptive.  11:59:21 PM    

The U.S. government has launched science.gov, a po .... The U.S. government has launched science.gov, a portal to the federally-funded, open-access scientific data and literature from 10 federal agencies. It arose from an April 2001 workshop on Strengthening the Public Information Infrastructure for Science. For more information, see the press release or FAQ. [FOS News]

A great portal to a lot of useful databases. I'll have to spend some time exploring but it looks very nice so far, particularly the patent search.  11:46:07 PM    

Later this week, the Public Library of Science has .... Later this week, the Public Library of Science has will launch its first two open-access journals, PLoS Biology and PLoS Medicine. The new publishing venture is funded by a $9 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, named for Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel.

From Amy Harmon's story in the December 17 New York Times: "By providing a highly visible alternative to what they view as an outmoded system of distributing information, the founders hope science itself will be transformed. The two journals are the first of what they envision as a vast electronic library in which no one has to pay dues or seek permission to read, copy or use the collective product of the world's academic research....[I]n addition to making data available to more people sooner, the electronic library's founders argue that the research itself becomes more valuable when it is not walled off by copyrights and Balkanized in separate electronic databases. They envision the sprouting of a kind of cyber neural network, where all of scientific knowledge can be searched, sorted and grafted with a fluidity that will speed discovery."

(PS: This is an important event. PLoS is a major open-access initiative. Its first strategy asked scientists not to submit their work to journals that didn't provide open access to their contents within six months of print publication. It attracted over 30,000 public signatures but only disappointing follow-through. This is the second strategy, and it not only aligns with other recent strategies, such as the Budapest Open Access Initiative, but has the high profile earned by the first strategy, the growing number of public signatures, PLoS co-founder and Nobel laureate, Harold Varmus, and the new Moore Foundation grant.) [FOS News]

This is a good effort. But a large number of the journals that highline press puts online have open access policies. This are mostly journals edited by scientific associtaions but this will be the mode of publication in the future. Scientists want as many people to see their work as possible. And the more people the see the science, the faster it moves forward.  11:37:06 PM    

Creative Types: A Lot in Common: The Internet is teeming with creative people who aren't famous or rich. A new set of licenses from Creative Commons will allow copyright holders to share their work according to conditions they specify -- and boost their profiles. By Kendra Mayfield. [Wired News] [Universal Rule]

I love the intro. The leader of The Byrds never made much money from his songs through normal recording studio residuals. Yet, by selling some of his new recordings via the Internet at MP3s, he has made several thousand dollars. This is the business model that scares the content cartel. And the Creative Commons will be releasing a set of licenses vetted by lawyers that will make it easier for the creators of works to license the material themselves, with their choice of restrictions. What happens when there is no middle man? What happens if when a really big star takes this route? It will happen. ANd once one of the srtists demonstrates how much money they can clear, you can bet that many more will follow. Will the Content Cartel get the government to outlaw this? Will they refuse to play the music on the radio? WIll they make themselves obsolete even faster or will they be able to adapt? The ones that do adapt will survive. The others may not.  11:19:32 PM    

Bioinformatics - The race to computerise biology: "For centuries, biology has been an empirical field that featured mostly specimens and Petri dishes. Over the past five years, however, computers have changed the discipline - as they have harnessed the data on genetics for the pursuit of cures for disease. Wet lab processes that took weeks to complete are giving way to digital research done in silico. Notebooks with jotted comments, measurements and drawings have yielded to terabyte storehouses of genetic and chemical data. And empirical estimates are being replaced by mathematical exactness." [Privacy Digest] [Universal Rule]

A pretty well-written article for a mainstream magazine. However,we must remember that mathematical exactness does not exist in most biological systems. It is much closer to quantum mechanics, where several states can exist simultaneously and you can only describe the system as a series of probabilities. When we examine gene expression, we are seeing theexpression levels averaged over all the cells examined. If we look at a single cell, its expression levels for a specific ighboring cell. There is published data indicating that identical cells will have different expression patterns due to stochastic (random) events. This is most likely due to the fact that their surroundings are not exactly the same, leading to different reactions of the cells. Now, in many cases, knowing the average expression levels will be enough but, in the case of some cells, such as pluripotent stem cells, the reactions of a single cell can have a large effect on the organism. Bioinformatics is just now beginning to help with these questions.

Even if bioinformatics can reduce the $880 million price tag by $150 million, this is still way too high for many therapies and diseases. To recoup $600 million still requires a very large market in which to sell the therapy. If it is something that only affects a small group, forget it. Bioinformatics is extremely important and we will be spending the next generation trying to get a better handle on biological systems. But I am not wholly convinced that it will have a significant, revolutionary effect without some totally new insights into biological systems. But this may very well happen. I hope so.  11:12:37 PM    

eBay Scam Artist caught by network of Mac enthusiasts: Jason Eric Smith, a future high school history teacher, was scammed out of his $3000 Apple Powerbook on eBay. But Jason didn't just take it lying down, even though the police pretty much told him to forget about it. Read the great tale about how he involved the whole Mac community, went to great lengths to track down the guy, got good help from a number of people, and with much trouble found a law enforcement person who was willing to act on it, and the guy was arrested, and charged with a whole series of crimes. A story about the power of a network of good people, and a good read at that. [Ming's Metalogue] [Universal Rule]

What a great story! Nice that the victim can do the detective work. And since this story seems to be getting a lot of press, maybe some of the larger police departments will listen to the victims. If any Chicago policeman had spent the couple of hours helping this man, they'd be doing the interviews. Again, it demonstrates what David Brin has written, that we may not have privacy but we will have accountability.  10:55:43 PM