The Plan for Code - An open.NASA

Today (Jan 4th 2012) NASA are launching code.nasa.gov, the latest member of the open NASA web family.

Through their website, they will continue, unify, and expand NASA’s open source activities.

The site is intended to serve to reveal existing projects, provide a forum for discussing projects and processes, and guide internal and external groups in open development, release, and contribution.

In their initial release, they are focusing on providing a home for the current state of open source at the Agency.

This includes guidance on how to engage the open source process, points of contact, and a directory of existing projects.

By elucidating the process, they hope to lower the barriers to building open technology in partnership with their public.

PHASE Two

Phase two will concentrate on providing a robust forum for ongoing discussion of open source concepts, policies, and projects at the Agency.

PHASE Three
In their third phase, they hope to turn to the tools and mechanisms development projects generally need to be successful, such as distributed version control, issue tracking, continuous integration, documentation, communication, and planning/management.

During this phase, they hope to create and host a tool, service, and process chain to further lower the burden to going open.

The GOAL

Ultimately, their goal is to create a highly visible community hub that will imbue open concepts into the formulation stages of new hardware and software projects, and help existing projects transition to open modes of development and operation.


They are going to need your help to get there! Please use the “Share your Ideas” icon (bottom right on their blog) to comment on their blog post, or email them at opengov@nasa.gov to let them know how code can help you, where you would like to see the site go, and how best they can fulfill their purpose.

NASA believes that tomorrow’s space and science systems will be built in the open, and that code.nasa.gov will play a big part in getting us there. Will your code someday escape our solar system or land on an alien planet? NASA's working to make it happen, and with your help, it will.

Visit the open.NASA at The Plan for Code - open.NASA

Researchers develop mouse genetic blueprint

An overview of variants called from 17 mouse genomes relative to the reference. 

Four wild strains (CAST/EiJ, WSB/EiJ, PWK/PhJ and SPRET/EiJ) are shown in a circle with tracks indicating the relative density of single nucleotide polymophisms (SNPs), structural variants (SVs) and uncallable regions.

Transposable element insertions (TEs), a subset of the SV calls, are shown as a separate track. Corresponding tracks are shown for each of the 13 classical laboratory strains to the right of the circle.

Links crossing the circle indicate regions on the reference where the wild strain is closest to the reference. (Credit: From Keane et al. Mouse genomic variation and its effect on phenotypes and gene regulation.

Nature, 2011; 477 (7364): 289 DOI: 10.1038/nature10413)

Researchers have developed a valuable mouse genetic blueprint that will accelerate future research and understanding of human genetics.

The international team, led by researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the University of Oxford, explains in two papers published in Nature on Sept. 14, 2011 how they decoded and compared the genome sequence of 17 mouse strains.

In creating this unique resource, the biggest catalogue for any vertebrate model organism, the team found an astonishing 56.7 million unique sites of variation (known as SNPs) between the strains, in addition to other more complex differences.

Among these they identified sequence differences associated with over 700 biological differences, including markers for diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, so linking genes with medically important individual differences.

The catalogue, which was funded principally by the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust, can be used by researchers to understand the genetic basis of individual variation, and to ask fundamental questions about how genes function and make us more or less likely to have particular diseases.

Inbred strains of mice are invaluable sources of genetic information. Every animal within each inbred strain is essentially genetically identical, but each strain is different from the others both in their genes and across a huge range of medically and biologically important characteristics.

"We are living in an era where we have thousands of human genomes at our finger tips," says Dr Adams, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, who led the project.

"The mouse, and the genome sequences we have generated, will play a critical role in understanding of how genetic variation contributes to disease and will lead us towards new therapies."

As a direct result of the project, researchers will place less reliance on breeding mice to find mutations; using this resource they will be able to find mutations much more quickly by the click of a digital mouse to search for the data on their computer.

These strains of mice are used in every corner of biology to further our understanding of human disease, and there is much more to discover. With the variants to hand, the challenge moves to understanding the biological consequences.

Call for ban on codeine - health

THE widely used painkiller codeine doesn't work in some people and can be fatal in others, so its use should be halted, say researchers at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.

Codeine works by being metabolised to morphine in the body, but the extent of that metabolism depends on a person's genetic make-up, so the amount of morphine produced varies.

In an editorial published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal this week, Stuart MacLeod and Noni MacDonald say the problem is especially relevant for infants, citing examples of two children who died after being given codeine following a tonsillectomy, and two studies that show non-fatal toxicity to infants being breastfed by mothers taking codeine.

The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada, has stopped using codeine. The authors are calling for others to follow suit.

The UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency currently has no plans to stop codeine being sold over the counter. "As only 1 to 2 per cent of the population has an enhanced metabolism most patients could continue to take codeine," says Florence Palmer of the MHRA.

UK Scientist have mapped Lung, skin cancer genetic codes

The genetic codes for lung and skin cancer have been mapped, an accomplishment that could lead to vastly improved treatments, scientists in Britain say.

The Wellcome Trust researchers told the BBC knowing the genetic code ultimately could mean better blood tests to spot tumors sooner and drugs that pinpoint cancer cells.

Scientists in 10 countries are moving on to catalog genes in other cancers, with Britain tackling breast cancer, Japan taking on liver cancer, India mouth cancer, China stomach cancer, and the United States cancers of the brain, ovary and pancreas, the British broadcaster reported Wednesday. It could take five years to complete the mapping.

"These catalogs are going to change the way we think about individual cancers," said Wellcome Trust scientist Professor Michael Stratton, the lead researcher in Britain. "By identifying all the cancer genes we will be able to develop new drugs that target the specific mutated genes and work out which patients will benefit from these novel treatments.

"We can envisage a time when following the removal of a cancer cataloging it will become routine."