chrisamiller

13 ms·

61.
by chrisamiller 9y ago
The short answer is that it was useful! The parameter space of things that have been tried in uncountable organisms over _billions_ of years is vast. And proprioception is incredibly useful, even in small doses. Imagine you're a single
62.
by chrisamiller 9y ago
The senior author has a long history of bad science on autism and is funded by an anti-vax group. There's a [complete takedown of this bad science here](( https://respectfulinsolence.com/2017/11/29/christo
63.
by chrisamiller 9y ago
The US has a ludicrous amount of sparsely settled farmland in the interior. Why not just build more windfarms there? That dramatically reduces the cost and technical challenges. Yes, there are transmission losses to factor in, but at least
64.
by chrisamiller 9y ago
Most estimates I'm familiar with are substantially lower than that - between 0.1 and 3 errors per cell division.
65.
by chrisamiller 9y ago
Right - It's not so much algorithmic development as development of the toolchains that will enable such representations to be actually useful for downstream analyses.
66.
by chrisamiller 9y ago
You're right, and the next frontier in genome assembly and mapping algorithms is using graph-based genomes, where differences between individuals or populations can represented as different paths through a sequence graph. (There are lo
67.
by chrisamiller 9y ago
I am likewise a staff scientist by choice. I'm confident that I have abilities and track record that would allow me to start my own lab if I wanted to, but I value being able to do science instead of writing grants full time. Our curr
68.
by chrisamiller 9y ago
Indeed. The lack of continuity is killer, not just for the people working in that lab, but for science as a whole. That model is how we get shitty unsupported bioinformatics packages, experiments that no one can replicate, etc.
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by chrisamiller 10y ago
Cancer genomics researcher here. I agree wholeheartedly about getting sequencing done if you have cancer - it's what I would do for myself or my family. Two minor quibbles about your thoughts: 1) Exome sequencing is below $1000, but an
70.
by chrisamiller 10y ago
There are lots of companies in the immunotherapy space. Don't limit yourself to industry, though - lots of academic labs working on this that are in desperate need of good coders and data scientists.
71.
by chrisamiller 10y ago
Boy, there are an awful lot of assumptions made there. In a senate race decided by 312 votes, there are dozens of factors that could have swung that outcome. Traffic, the weather, a bad batch of lettuce keeping some people home with food po
72.
by chrisamiller 10y ago
Medical research is generally aimed at the most pressing problems facing a society. Infectious disease was a focus for a long time, cancer is one of the biggest targets now. Aging has not been a priority yet, because the vast majority of p
73.
by chrisamiller 10y ago
I came in to say exactly this. Google Scholar alerts are incredibly useful.
74.
by chrisamiller 10y ago
I can vouch that the hammerlab is legit and doing solid science! I've had great interactions with members of their lab and have been impressed by their work, as well as their committment to open source and open science (preprints, etc)
75.
by chrisamiller 10y ago
Any paper I peer review better have source code available or they will hear about it. That said, yes, there isn't time (or funding) to actually re-run the entire analysis.
76.
by chrisamiller 10y ago
Our genomics workflows use dozens of packages even before I get the data and start really doing analysis, statistics, and plots. It's just not feasible to cite every bit of code we use (though we certainly point people to the higher le
77.
by chrisamiller 10y ago
Exactly. Mosh for instantly resuming my connection, screen for resuming my sessions (and adding scrollback and such)
78.
by chrisamiller 11y ago
This article is a little bit breathless. In the academic circles that I run (genomics, computational biology, cancer), bioArxiv is not "going rogue". It's becoming pretty common, and will continue to increase in popularity as
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by chrisamiller 11y ago
This is my concern as well. My privacy threshold is pretty low (my username across most of the web is my real name, for example). This, though, is an always-listening device in your home, that connects directly to a company who's state
80.
by chrisamiller 11y ago
I assume that under the hood, they've just set up Gmail as an IMAP client that accesses your other account?
81.
by chrisamiller 11y ago
Here: - Stop smoking, - keep active and at a healthy weight range - reduce red meat consumption (and barbecued/charred food) - reduce your alcohol intake - wear sunscreen. Boom - you've just covered most of the risks that you can
82.
by chrisamiller 11y ago
Many cancers really aren't avoidable, as there's a spectrum of causes. The mutations that cause cancer can come from many sources - carcinogen exposure, UV light/radiation, inherited defects, or unavoidable errors that occur
83.
by chrisamiller 11y ago
This exists and has been used successfully in a number of large consortia, like the Cancer Genome Atlas. It essentially says that the data goes live immediately, but the researchers who generated the data have exclusive publishing rights fo
84.
by chrisamiller 11y ago
You're right, of course. BRAF mutations alone don't cause cancer. They're caused by the accumulation of key mutations coupled with clonal expansion. I oversimplified a bit while making a point about basket trials.
85.
by chrisamiller 11y ago
Your points are right on - I oversimplified while trying to explain the concept.
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by chrisamiller 11y ago
I don't agree with much that Tom Coburn says, but he's right that 'data silos' are a big problem in cancer research. To elaborate on a few points: - While enrolling 500 people with breast cancer in a study might be easy
87.
by chrisamiller 11y ago
I'm sorry that you think academia isn't "with the program". There's lots of great basic and translational research going on in the academic sphere. Can you at least elaborate, if you're going to paint us all wi
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by chrisamiller 11y ago
Mutations in the BRAF gene, to name one druggable example, are a cause of many different types of cancer - melanoma, some breast, small-cell lung cancer, etc. Under the current paradigm, each type of cancer is treated as a different diseas
89.
by chrisamiller 11y ago
This has no business even being reported on. It's preliminary data, not peer-reviewed, very small sample-size, etc. To say that the jury is still out would be premature - the jury hasn't even been convened yet!
90.
by chrisamiller 11y ago
The service mentioned here (Paribus) seems great, but there is no way in hell I'm giving them unfettered access to my mailbox to scan for receipts. I understand that the balance between privacy and convenience is different for everyone

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