Where are we now ?

Here is what I gleaned in the past two days that ought to give us a snapshot of what's coming and what it is we do not know.

Tim Gowers let us know that he is joining the good guys in that there is a group in Grenoble, that has institutional support and is willing to go after this arxiv-overlay idea. We mentioned this idea here previously because this is the only way post peer review publishing can gain some traction and eventually become the norm. (h/t Thomas)

In the same vein, I don't know what Kool-aid the folks at TechCrunch are drinking but it does wonders: Here are two unconnected headlines

• Elsevier In Advanced Talks To Buy MendeleyFor Around $100M To Beef Up In Social, Open Education Data
• Want to Kill Innovation at Your Company? Go Public 

We mentioned the passing of Aaron Swartz recently (Agents of Change), Philip Greenspun states  correctly the central question of this case Can we get government out of the copyright enforcement business?

If you recall Predicting the Future: The Steamrollers and its attendant part 2, you'll probably notice that a simple consequence of exome sequencing and dirt cheap sequencers is the very new capability to identify and even cure first what used to be called orphan diseases (Researchers Study Mystery of the Toddler Who Won't Grow). Cheap sequencing means the ability to pinpoint more rapidly genes that are outside of some "normal" envelope. It sounds plausible that some of these orphan diseases might be attended to faster than some more common ones. In the same vein, Brian tells us why CCD sensors will become obsolete. We are not surprised, (Do not mess with CMOS) 

But as advanced as we think we are, we still don't know how batteries really work (Grounded Boeing 787 Dreamliners Use Batteries Prone to Overheating), we slowly realize that our fear is our worst enemy ( Fukushima's Fallout of Fear) but that it is still the way we do business (Germany Repatriating Gold From NY, Paris 'In Case Of A Currency Crisis'), that some disease for which phenotype classification is extremely hard (On the difficulty of Autism diagnosis: Can we plot this better ?) yields very different outcomes (Can Some Children 'Lose' Autism Diagnosis? New Evidence Says Yes) and that sometimes we don't know shit but we certainly ought to.

Finally, group testing (a subset of compressive sensing) that is one of the first problem looked at for delineating what works and what doesn't in agriculture and the basis of much statistical theory, may soon get a boost by the gathering of more data (Kickstarting an Internet-of-Things for your garden). Rapsberry, the new 35$ computer is getting to use Python (Pi-A-Sketch code review) and 3D printing is on collision course with many societal issues (NY Congressman Introducing Ban On 3D-Printed High Capacity Gun Magazines), which also include copyrights....

Meantime, on Mars, Hirise took a photo of Curiosity and its tracks (Pretty picture: new HiRISE view of Curiosity, sol 145). wow.

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