Tag Archive | Computational Science
Taking Cancer Data to the Cloud
The Bionimbus Protected Data Cloud project helps cancer genetics researchers avoid reinventing the big data wheel.
LabBook November 2, 2012
Welcome to LabBook, our weekly roundup of University of Chicago Medicine & Biological Sciences research news from around campus and the world wide web. Each Friday, LabBook will recap the week on the blog, link to news stories about our faculty and studies, and briefly summarize a handful of recent publications by our researchers. THIS […]
Research at the Petascale: The Challenge of Processing One Million Genomes
Most computer users are familiar with a handful of data storage measurements: kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes. If you have a big digital music or movie collection, you might even have a hard drive measuring in the terabytes. But what about a petabyte? Even if you know the basic formula for calculating storage sizes (a petabyte is […]
Alan Turing’s Underrated Biology
By Rob Mitchum Alan Turing is best known as the father of the modern computer, a skillful World War II codebreaker, and a pioneer in the study of artificial intelligence. But in the last years before Turing’s death at age 41, he aimed his genius at a different target: the then-stalled field of developmental biology. […]
A Fickle Pump and its Protons
Like a basement in a flood plain, a cell needs a good pump. Cells must maintain a particular mix of ions inside their membrane walls, with low concentrations of sodium and high concentrations of potassium. The only problem is that cells are leaky, and sodium constantly rushes into the cell while potassium rushes out. To […]
When Academia is a Family Business
There’s something quaint and charming about a family business, where multiple generations work shoulder to shoulder to keep an enterprise afloat. But when the business in question is academia and the salaries are paid by tax dollars, suddenly keeping it in the family carries the stink of nepotism. In the public universities of Italy, it’s […]
Linkage 6/17: Remembering Dr. Nachman & Neuroprosthetics
Around the pediatric cancer wards at Comer Children’s Hospital, he was known by the rhyming nickname of “Doc Nach” and for delighting patients with his Mickey Mouse watch. On a ward where a smiling face goes a long way, Dr. James Nachman was always happy to provide a cheerful presence. Behind the scenes, he was […]
Putting the Data Warehouse to Work
Electronic health records are a hot topic in the world of medicine, as hospitals implement new computerized systems to meet federal incentives. Proponents of replacing paper records with electronic health records (EHR) in hospitals and other health care settings argue that the update will improve the efficiency of health care, cutting costs and making life […]
Nature’s Neverending Tournament
For three weeks starting tonight, the attention of sports fans around the country will be on the brackets of the NCAA Basketball Tournament as 68 teams are methodically reduced to one champion. The process is somewhat similar to evolution, as a combination of direct competition and environmental luck (determined by a team’s seeding and the […]
