genomeboy.com

I love this [via Genomeweb]:

In a sign that genome-mapping is becoming increasingly common, a company called Knome plans to offer its personal gene-sequencing service to the highest bidder in an eBay auction set to begin on Friday and continue for 10 days. The company plans to opening the bidding at $68,000.

Daniel has his usual cogent breakdown, explaining why patience is a virtue.

Anyway, um, while you’re waiting for the genome bidding war to commence, perhaps I can interest you in something else that is considerably less expensive and easier to interpret?

I’m having trouble getting my head around the idea that this happened 50 years ago.

Zen has also helped him to learn to “stop whining,” Mr. Cohen said, and to worry less about the choices he has made. “All these things have their own destiny; one has one’s own destiny. The older I get, the surer I am that I’m not running the show.”

Last November, an inebriated 24-year-old with the woefully apt name of Kyle Drinkwine was found by police in the back of a Wisconsin alley, his hands covered in blood. According to testimony compiled by the Smoking Gun, Drinkwine had spent the evening unwinding at Emma’s Bar, a local watering hole that was hosting a karaoke night. Shortly after performing an Eminem song, he allegedly became so enraged by another patron’s version of “Holy Diver”—the 1983 anthem by heavy-metal patriarch Ronnie James Dio—that he assaulted the singer and his friend and fled when police arrived. “This had started … over one’s ability to sing karaoke,” notes the arrest report, which reads like a Mike Judge novella.

Seemed like an appropriate sentiment for the end of 2008…

Mark Ptashne, whose book we looked upon as The Bible of Gene Regulation when I was in graduate school, is featured in a New Yorker article on violin collecting:

He owns a Gyro Swing golf club, which whirs as it responds to his swing and vibrates when he doesn’t keep his left arm in the right position. And—his great passion in life—he owns and plays and lends out violins, two of which are artifacts of the most exacting craftsmanship. He began playing during his adolescence. “They say you can’t really learn at that age,” he said. “Like so much else ‘they’ say, that’s bullshit.” He has made a creditable CD to prove it. And he started a company, Genetics Institute, mainly in order to make enough money to buy one of his treasures—a Guarneri del Gesù. He now owns quite a few other fiddles yet is at pains to make it clear that he is not a collector but a musician and a devotee.

Ach, Ringo, we hardly knew ye…

Apparently “Peace and love” is the new “Get the hell off my lawn.”