Billionaire spends millions mapping mouse brains
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So you're a billionaire and you've   bought a couple of sports teams, launched an amateur space   project and spent $800 million on good causes -- what do you do   with the change?
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A map of the mouse brain down to details of individual cells has been completed, the first project of an institute funded by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul G. Allen, it was announced Tuesday.
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At the last day of the Web 2.0 Summit, attendees learned that having their genome mapped will set them back $300,000 and that&#160;Google&#39;s founders really stress over the prevention and extermination of evil.During a panel of former Google employees, they confirmed to moderator and conference chair John Battelle that, yes, Larry Page and Sergey Brin do factor heavily into business and technology decisions whether they will have evil consequences.WeatherBill CEO David Friedberg belonged to Google&#39;s Corporate Development team and, when negotiating acquisitions, it wasn&#39;t unheard of for either Page or Brin to ask hard questions about the deals if they sensed that the members of companies&#39; management teams had an evil streak, he said.Meanwhile, entrepreneur Bret Taylor, who developed products at Google for four years, said Page and Brin were excellent at steering product teams to think big while reminding them always keep in mind the question of evil.Earlier in the day, genetics maverick J. Craig Venter informed attendees that mapping a person&#39;s genome these days costs about $300,000, but that, as happened with calculators, the price will tumble over time. For instance, if you can wait a couple of years, the cost will probably be closer to $100,000. That&#39;s a bargain compared with the about $70 million that it cost to map Venter&#39;s genome.Venter&#39;s genome is posted on the Internet. He joked that there might come a day when singles on the dating scene will be able to do a Google search for potential mates&#39; genomes, especially if they might at some point consider becoming fruitful and multiplying.The son of a man who died of cardiac arrest at age 59 and of a woman who is still playing golf at 85, Venter has identified genes in his map both for heart disease and longevity. However, he estimates that scientists will need a critical mass of 10,000 human genomes in order to engage in the type of analysis that will lead to major, unequivocal insights about genetic traits.And in a rare display of corporate affection, representatives from Internet archrivals Google and Microsoft sat beside each other at a panel on online maps and exchanged pleasantries.The slightly surreal moment came about halfway through the a panel titled &quot;Edge: Mapping.&quot; Brian McClendon, engineering director and product manager of Google Earth, commended his Microsoft peer Erik Jorgensen, general manager of Live Search, for Microsoft&#39;s support of&#160;Google&#39;s Keyhole Markup Language (KML).KML is the language used to create data files for both Google Maps and its sister desktop application Google Earth. On Monday, Microsoft announced that its&#160;Live Search&#160;engine&#39;s local search component has gained support for KML, giving it access to the wealth of mapping data created with KML and available on the Web.Microsoft and Google can &quot;duke it out&quot; for customer acquisition, but &quot;the fight shouldn&#39;t be on file formats, so cooperating on this makes all the sense in the world,&quot; Jorgensen said during the mini lovefest.
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An astonishing new technology allows one set of sensory information to substitute for another in the brain.
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Microsoft Chair Bill Gates has contributed $400,000 to the campaign to support a California initiative that would provide the state with nearly $3 billion in funding for human embryonic stem cell research, the AP/San Jose Mercury News reports (Elias, AP
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An inventor from Canada has developed a computer mouse that is controlled by nose and eyelid movements. The invention is dubbed the &quot;Nouse.
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Ordinary mice can be turned into marathon racers that run for hours and eat huge amounts of food without getting fat by altering a single gene, according to US and Korean scientists.
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Through genetic engineering, scientists have bred a mouse capable of running twice as far as other mice before exhaustion. Medical researchers believe some of their findings could apply to humans. By Kristen Philipkoski.
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How one genius investor would make you rich.
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The marathon mouse has been unveiled by scientists: a rodent which, with a little genetic tinkering, can run twice as far as a normal mouse.
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The Allen Institute for Brain Science has released a major chunk of data from its mapping of the mouse brain genome, hoping the information will help researchers understand how the human brain works.
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I.BM plans today to announce a project to harness untapped computing power from millions of personal computers to help unlock the genetic mysteries of illnesses like AIDS, Alzheimer&#39;s disease, malaria and cancer.
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IT'S the ultimate hi-tech accessory for the wealthy - a computer mouse that will set you back pounds 13,000.  It is cast from 18-carat white gold and is studded with 59 diamonds in the shape of a lily.
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An industry giant is inspired to spend billions on its own shares.
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An elite group of researchers wants to create a map of how your brain is wired. To do it, they've built a custom robot that peels 3-D brains like an apple, and pushes the resulting brain "tape" through an electron microscope.
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US researchers say that they have found sperm nursery cells in mice, grown them in lab dishes and used them to father baby mice. They say the development could lead to easier ways to genetically manipulate
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Millionaire businessman's cash goes to academies.