Read This Week
Articles I enjoyed this past week and why. In brief.
- Seed Magazine Findings Log: Fascinating briefs on general science topics. My favorites including an overview on how Earth’s magnetic field was crucial to enabling life; in great news for doctors, patients and gamers, brain-computer-interfaces (BCI) become easier to implement; weed killer and hermaphroditic frogs
- Pinpointing Disease with Genomes: NY Times article covering what scientists are learning from full gene sequences. A surprise finding: common diseases can now be linked to uncommon genetic mutations. There’s still so much to be learned here. As the price of a full-genome sequence falls from $500 million to $25k to sub-$5k in just a few more years a mind boggling amount of data is going to be collected and analyzed. Excited to have a front row seat to this as part of First Round’s investment in DNAnexus.
- The FCC Plan (and Stimulus): Earlier this year, my friends at GigaOm invited me to join them for a roundtable discussion with FCC Chair Julius Genachowski. After the session, I tweeted “Broadcast TV spectrum is wasted on broadcast TV. Let’s allocate it to wireless carriers instead.” I’m heartened to read that I wasn’t the only one thinking this way and it may very well be part of his proposal.
