Knowledge Science

Image: The blockchain was developed as a means of creating digital property without the need for a central authority keeping track of who owns what. Photograph: Jacob Carter/Rex/Shutterstock

theguardian.com - July 7th 2016 - Alex Hern

Have you heard the good news? The blockchain is here – and it’s going to save everything.

If you aren’t tied to the tech community, you might not have picked up on this salvation rhetoric.

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Graphic from Singularity is Near, demonstrating "Law of Accelerating Returns" in the field of computation

huffingtonpost.com - by Peter Diamandis - January 10, 2016

No doubt you've heard of Moore's Law.

What you might not realize is that Moore's Law only refers to the exponential price-performance improvements of integrated circuits (over the last 50 years).

Did you know that exponential growth has been going on for a much longer period? Or that such growth is occurring in other fields outside of computing, such as communication and genomics?

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REUTERS by Kate Kelland                     April 21, 2015

LONDON, April 21 - Genetic sequence data on two of the deadliest yet most poorly understood viruses are to be made available to researchers worldwide in real time as scientists seek to speed up understanding of Ebola and MERS infections.

The project, led by British scientists with West African and Saudi Arabian collaboration, hopes to encourage laboratories around the world to use the live data -- updated as new cases emerge -- to find new ways to diagnose and treat the killer diseases, and ideally, ultimately, prevent them.

"The collective expertise of the world's infectious disease experts is more powerful than any single lab, and the best way of tapping into this...is to make data freely available as soon as possible," said Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust global health charity which is funding the work.

The gene sequences, already available for MERS cases and soon to come in the case of Ebola, will be posted on the website virological.org for anyone to see, access and use.

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http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFKBN0NC19W20150421?sp=true

With trials under way, scientists are working out how to give vaccines in affected regions

NATURE   By Ewan Callaway                                                                                                 Dec. 2, 2014

Safety trials of Ebola vaccines are starting to return results: at least one is known to be safe and to summon an immune response against the virus.

The challenge now is to use the results to guide the larger studies that will reveal whether the vaccines work.

“The immune responses are there,” says infectious-disease researcher Adrian Hill, director of the Jenner Institute in Oxford, UK. “The tough call is whether they’re enough to protect humans against Ebola.”

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http://www.nature.com/news/positive-results-spur-race-for-ebola-vaccine-1.16468