warech

Precisely. Within ISO 9001/13485 certified companies, an individual (usually head of quality/regulatory) is designated the Quality System Management Representative. This individual is explicitly powered by the chief executive with the "responsibility and authority to ensure proper functioning of the quality system" and expected to 'pull the plug' when quality/compliance is at risk.

Not math but could be interesting anyway: Genomics, specifically quality engineering. When hiring for my team we ask candidates to generally describe 1) DNA translation and 2) statistics for experimental design (AQL, RQL, etc).

As personalized medicine becomes more mainstream, it will be important to use accurate terminology in general overviews like OP's website. For example, 23andme does not provide DNA sequencing. Instead, they evaluate samples against a comprehensive panel of small nucleotide polymorphisms. This "fingerprinting" is informative and actionable, but not technically sequencing. In the same way, I doubt whether Genetik Ink will actually "take your DNA, sequence it, and turn it into an artistic representation" for <$500 (full genome sequencing is still $5000+, though dropping quickly in cost).

That is not the definition of abuse. Per DSM-IV criteria for substance abuse addiciton:

"One of the following must be present within a 12 month period: (1) recurrent use resulting in a failure to fulfill major obligations at work, school, or home; (2) recurrent use in situations which are physically hazardous (e.g., driving while intoxicated); (3) legal problems resulting from recurrent use; or (4) continued use despite significant social or interpersonal problems caused by the substance use."

First Github, then Meteor. As Peter Levine pointed out in his blog (http://peter.a16z.com/2012/07/25/meteor-magic/) Andreessen Horowitz is making strides towards "help[ing] developers build the next generation of applications."

Are there any other VC firms that have had such a stong foothold on the foundation of application development?

I completely agree with your point, also made in the article: It would be not be surprising if some of these baccalaureate APMs wind up at Yahoo.

As the article pointed out, however, It’s not surprising that a high percentage of APMs go elsewhere. APMs are chosen for their ambition and independence. Those traits are often at odds with working at a big company

A successful executive at any organization could be expected to bring along X number of of loyal reports if they move laterally. It seems likely though that the especially ambitious and independent individuals discussed would be less likely to do so. This could be compounded by the reported personal difficulty some individuals had while working with her (Douglas Edwards' book http://www.amazon.com/Im-Feeling-Lucky-Confessions-Employee/...).

In all, the headline sensationalized the situation: she developed an employee incubator program at Google and some of the graduates will probably end up at Yahoo.

Edit:spacing

Implementing a rotational leadership program in the mold of GE, Nielsen, Abbot Labs, et al was definitely a great accomplishment for Mayer. I would hesitate, however, to call this a "secret weapon." She would be wise to implement a similar program at Yahoo, but implying that significant APMs would follow her from Google out of 'den mother' loyalty is ridiculous.

This tagline is misleading. A single paragraph discusses "How Yahoo kept it all under wraps" while the rest of the article is an also-ran discussion about Mayer's potential success/failure at Yahoo.

"Xiaomi appears to have hit a sweet spot in the market, selling high-spec devices that compete with the iPhone on quality, but undercut it substantially in price" This strategy follows Christensen's disruptive innovation to the letter. Interesting to see Apple on the brink of disruption in a consumer category it principally defined.

FDA requirements for electronic data transmission (21 CFR Part 11) are a hassle to implement even for devices starting from a blank slate. That being said the sooner NTP standards are universally required, the better. As the article mentions it will be very resource-intensive to retrofit devices for this standardization - an EMR consultant's dream project.

You have the order wrong. Gene alteration + reproduction -> evolution, rather than evolution causing gene alteration. You're right about the rate and general harmlessness of plant evolution, but the gamma ray from outer space is a bit far-fetched. Wikipedia has a nice overview of genetic alteration in plant developmental biology here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_evolutionary_developmenta..., with a more academic discussion of the effect of polyploidy here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22540042

That being said, I think the fear is that scientists potentially have the motive to create dangerous/unhealthy strains of plants - a motive which miRNA and transposons (god-willing) do not have.

See: Northern California(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_California), South Jersey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Jersey), etc.

I'm surprised the DoD is spending as little as $250MM on this type of Big Data/AI research. Most of the technology outlined in Lemnois' memo is interesting and exciting, rather than intimidating and indicative of "Terminator development." I'm particularly excited about "reasoning and inference engines that can learn from experience with little training and within mission timeframes" and advances in "human-machine interfaces to enable seamless collaboration for operations and for training." Maybe a little less hyperbole in the post title next time?

I would recommend monitoring for specific hazards. To satisfy New York State Department of Health standards, my laboratory must perform biannual hazard exposure monitoring for all lab personnel. There are personal monitors that assay for a variety of hazardous chemicals: http://www.labsafety.com/personal-monitors_24532949/?searcht... These are submitted to a reference lab after completing a time-weighted exposure and the results come back within a week or so. Of course "air quality" is drastically different in an office versus a laboratory, but the process of eliminating potential threats rather than trying to quantify how "good" your ambient air is more practical and applicable.

Are there any graphics in the works? It's fun to click around with as-is, but would be a much better learning tool if one could see the sugar chains be broken down etc. Maybe a flash or spark when a phosphate group is removed from an ATP molecule...

This is a link to the full text: http://extremelongevity.net/wp-content/uploads/als_discovery...

I'm hesitant to put too much hope in this discovery. I would expect a discovery of this magnitude to be published as a full article in Nature, rather than a Nature Letter. I'm not sure of the difference in the publishing process for the two, but Letters generally come across a bit rushed and are less exhaustive than published articles (citation needed).