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Human Genome Project Complete

Scientists in the six cooperating countries, UK, USA, China, Japan, France and Germany, announced today that the mapping of the 3 billion base pair Human Genome is now essentially complete.

This marks the polishing of the data first published in rough form in 2001 (And carried on the Turbotas site in the Gutenberg archives).2003 is a fitting year to mark the completion of the human genome mapping which was begun in 1990.

It was 50 years ago that the DNS double helix was originally announced.

It was Saturday Februray 28th when Francis Crick and James Watson announced there discovery in the inauspicious surroundings of a public house in Cambridge.

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New NetBSD security warnings

Two new advisories on NetBSD: Kerberos and Sendmail.
Why didn’t these get updated with other public warnings a week ago? Good question

Perhaps this will means new general Sendmail and Kerberos warnings tomorrow.

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Two Wheeled Transport with an Axle?

With an 12mph top speed, the Segway could not be said to be fast. It is surely set to turn heads though.

The design is a cross between a child’s scooter and a pogo stick. The rider stands aboard a small platform between the two wheels. From the platform extends a long shaft with handlebars at the top.

To operate the device the rider simply tilts and the Segway tilt sensors detects what the rider intends and reacts accordingly. Steering is effected with a handlebar control.With a 15 mile range under ideal conditions, the Segway is obviously not for long journeys, but the device could easily find a niche.

The legal position is still to be sorted out for the UK, but most US states allow the use of the Segway.

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block though is the price: with £65M in development costs to recoup, the £3000 price tag is understandable but will limit the market considerably.

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Open Office 1.1beta Released

Open Office 1.1 beta is out now and the news is that many of the niggles of 1.0.1 are cleaned up. Grab it now from the Open Office site. Features and Fixes include:

  • PDF Export
  • XHTML Export
  • MySQL Support in data sources
  • Better internationalization
  • Recovery feature for damaged OO files
  • Improved detection for dictionaries/thesaurus