nodalpoint.org

I've just finally pulled out some Emboss packages for Debian GNU/Linux that I feel confident enough to hand out... for now, have a look at my Debian/Emboss page .

Sect claims first cloned human born - Teletext Dec 27 2002 5:15AM ET [Genetics News]

Also noted on many other news sites, such as BBC SciTech, slashdot

New Amino Acid Discovered [Slashdot: Science]

.. And I remember the debates when somebody said there were 22 amino acids. Whoa.

Researchers at the Ohio State University claim to have discovered the 22nd known amino acid, pyrrolysine.
Real news here.

The Dangers of Being A Microbiologist - [c/ Slashdot: Science]

Eleven microbiologists mysteriously dead over the span of just five months. Some of them world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues. Others the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others, experts in the theory of bioterrorism.

An interesting, but fairly satirical article.. or is it?
link to the article

Whilst I was supposed to be working on something else, I came across a link to this, Why Open Source Software / Free Software? Look at the Numbers!.

Its a well written paper that shows where the benifits of Open Source are - without the zealotism.
I think I'll keep this one bookmarked for next time somebody asks me why I use Linux instead of Windows.

Not especially news, just a RFC: Request for Comments

I've seen a couple of "bioinformatics" tools, but none of them look to be especially user-friendly or easy to manipulate.

For the most part, the ones I've seen are command line driven, with potentially confusing command line parameters, and rigid input formatting.

Is this the norm for computer-biology tools ? Why is this so ? Why can't we make them any easier ?

The South African Business Day has a story about the first ever ``biohackathon'' - an event where hackers eat, sleep and code bioinformatics.

Debian Security Advisory: updated rsync fix - "In Debian Security Advisory DSA-106-1 we reported a exploitable
problem in rsync. For details please see that advisory.

Unfortunately the patch used to fix that problem broke rsync.
This has been fixed in version 2.3.2-1.5 and we recommend you
upgrade to that version immediately." [Linux Today]

I doubt anyone noticed (noone ever notices my work, sob sob) but I've been hunting down typos and making a few corrections in articles - for example all the extra control characters in the articles by Greg lately.

If anyone affected has any issues with this, go and revert the changes - A cool feature in Drupal, it notes when changes have been made, and allows the ``revisions'' to be rolled back.

Beer is good, yes beer is good

What? You expected a serious post? Gah!