Nerd Night – Silicon Valley

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FREE Copy of Food Phreaking

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1. Bioluminesence Community Project Night. Weekly meetings, September 2nd, 7:30 PM @ BioCurious: MORE INFORMATION HERE

2. Bio Automation Group – looking for experts in z-axis design and someone who knows about precise, affordable syringe pumps MORE INFO HERE

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3. Barcoding Alaska -  They want to DNA barcode plants of the Alaskan wild with the help of citizen scientists and local Brooklyn students, at the Genspace Community Biolab

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4. Food Phreaking – website

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5. American Gut – Save MILLIONS OF DOLLAR$ and sequence your gut bacteria with their $99 kit. LEARN HOW

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Study Group – Molecular Biology of the Cell Study Group, Tuesday nights JOIN HERE

Idea Lab – Journal Club – Skype-friendly, Wednesday nights, hosted by Nina DiPrimo, PhD. MORE INFORMATION

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Tito Jankowski
Email: titojankowski+web@gmail.com
Twitter: @titojankowski

Product Naming: PayByPhone Parking Meter

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PayByPhone Parking Meter in San Francisco

PayByPhone stickers on a SF parking meter

Ever parked a car in San Francisco? You’ve probably seen this sticker on the side of the meter. “paybyphone” it proclaims. I’ve been thinking a lot about product naming, and the instant I walked by this today I realized it was a great opportunity for a name improvement. MORE…

When Genetically Modified Things Leave the Lab

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Today, genetically engineered products are in our bellies, our refrigerators, and our clothes. They’re the food that goes in our bodies, muscles, bones, and brains. 2% of the US GDP is from genetically modified systems. My background is in biomedical engineering, and I’m excited about the future of genetic engineering.

94% of Corn grown in the USA is genetically engineered. Corn is in everything: soda pop has corn syrup in it, and cattle (where beef comes from) eat lots of corn. We have a corn-ography addiction. 49% of Sugar in the United States are genetically engineered. 93% of Soy is genetically engineered. Vegans and meat-eaters have something in common! What you might not know is genetically modified products will be much bigger than food. MORE…

Human Genomes on SALE: 99% OFF!

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genome sequencing for everyone

The price of DNA sequencing your genome has dropped 99.999999% since 2003. For those of you discussing the “falling price of DNA sequencing”, it’s time to stop. Sure, it’s fun to think about a future when sequencing genomes will be so much cheaper. But we’re here. Today, you can sequence your genome for $3,000. This isn’t even news, those prices were announced 3 months ago and no one got out their party hats.  I’ve even heard the Beijing Genomics Institute offers $800 genomes when you buy 10 genomes at once. Now what do we do with it? MORE…

The $500,000 DNA Sequencer – Tear Down

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BioCurious has amazing friends. We bought a surplus Illumina Genome Analyzer DNA sequencer. For $1.

This Illumina Genome Analyzer (GA) DNA sequencer is from 2008 and originally sold for $500,000. Because of the dropping cost of DNA sequencing, it would be more costly for BioCurious to use this older sequencer than to just using a DNA sequencing service. We were lucky enough to have some friends at Illumina who sold us the sequencer cheap. We decided the best use would be to take it apart to see how it works. Derek Jacoby and Raymond McCauley taught us how “Next Generation” DNA sequencing works and we spent Sunday taking the sequencer apart. MORE…