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In May last year, a supercomputer in San Jose, California, read 100,000 research papers in 2 hours. It found completely new biology hidden in the data. Called KnIT, the computer is one of a handful of systems pushing back the frontiers of knowledge without human help.
KnIT didn't read the papers like a scientist – that would have taken a lifetime. Instead, it scanned for information on a protein called p53, and a class of enzymes that can interact with it, called kinases. Also known as "the guardian of the genome", p53 suppresses tumors in humans. KnIT trawled the literature searching for links that imply undiscovered p53 kinases, which could provide routes to new cancer drugs.
Having analyzed papers up until 2003, KnIT identified seven of the nine kinases discovered over the subsequent 10 years. More importantly, it also found what appeared to be two p53 kinases unknown to science. Initial lab tests confirmed the findings, although the team wants to repeat the experiment to be sure.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by kaszz on Sunday August 31 2014, @03:56AM
Writing a parallel science paper coded for (semantic?) computer analyze is probably the way of the future. There's just too much information to deal with for humans. First we use computers to get information. Now that they are powerful enough we use the to analyze the same. The next level of information use.
But don't count biochemists as out of work just yet. They just get more productive which causes the need for even more biochemists because they can do even more wonders.
As for cancer suppression. I hope there will be a more clever way to cure it that the current method which is quite medieval and originally based on mustard gas Cl--S--Cl (mustine Cl--N--Cl) poisoning being worse for cancer cells than for good cells.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mcgrew on Sunday August 31 2014, @01:14PM
First we use computers to get information. Now that they are powerful enough we use the to analyze the same.
Incorrect, we've been using computers to analyze information since computers were invented in the 1940s. I used computers to analyze data for decades before I retired. Using computers to obtain data is relatively new; in the beginning, all data had to be entered by hand.
But don't count biochemists as out of work just yet.
Of course that's correct; data analysis isn't thought. A computer doesn't know anything any more than a printed book does.
As for cancer suppression. I hope there will be a more clever way to cure it that the current method which is quite medieval and originally based on mustard gas Cl--S--Cl (mustine Cl--N--Cl) poisoning being worse for cancer cells than for good cells.
Correct, but misleading. They have far better chemicals than that now, [wikipedia.org] and far more treatments. Many cancers are no longer automatic death sentences.
And if you think medicine is primitive now, you should have been alive fifty years ago. Fifty years from now, today will be primitive,
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday August 31 2014, @01:33PM
Incorrect, we've been using computers to analyze information since computers were invented in the 1940s.
Perhaps we should call it sorting etc. Those computers weren't powerful enough for any deep analysis. Now the computing capability is of another magnitude which opens the door for completely new methods.
There are better Chemotherapy. But it's still based on the same origin. And it poison the whole body rather than targeting the cancer cells and leave the rest intact.
Yeah, 50-years ago was primitive. The questions is always if the remedies will show up before you need them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 01 2014, @01:52AM
Too much information isn't the problem. Essays are the problem. Most of those essays could be condensed into a 5lines wiki topic edit and a few side-notes (preferably hyper-linked) to relevant lab results with detailed methods and such.