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posted by janrinok on Sunday August 31 2014, @03:11AM   Printer-friendly
from the a-lot-of-reading dept.

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.

 
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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @08:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 31 2014, @08:13AM (#87777)

    > Editors take it upon themselves to spend time on reading the article and making an entry. They're the reason people visit soylentnews.

    Perhaps that's why you come here, but the reason Soylent was created was for the community as expressed in the comments section because slashdot was making changes that minimized their community.

    If you want news summarized to standards that you approve of you should considering hiring someone to do that for you.

    Or more succinctly, quit being an ass.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Sunday August 31 2014, @09:27AM

    by TheRaven (270) on Sunday August 31 2014, @09:27AM (#87794) Journal
    I got to Slashdot for the comments, because it still has a vibrant community. I tried coming here for a month and not visiting Slashdot, but even posting in several articles a day this place didn't reach the critical mass for interesting comments. That won't happen if the editors don't post interesting material with good summaries. 90% of the stuff posted here doesn't even motivate me to click on the link to the comments, and that's a prerequisite for posting. Of the rest, most motivate me to come and post something about the poor quality of the summary or source material and, while that does increase the comment numbers, it doesn't help improve the quality of discussion.
    --
    sudo mod me up