September 03, 2007
Test Driven Development in Python: A Quick-start Approach
In my copious spare time these last few weeks, I gave a Tech Talk to some local users' groups in Google's Ann Arbor office, "Test Driven Development in Python: A Quick-start Approach". I was deeply impressed at the quality of technical folk I met there, some of whom had actually written some of the programming frameworks I use at Google. I took some pics of the audience from the speaker's POV, my first use of an iPhone for such an application.
Winston Tsang was kind enough to have taken some of his own photos of the event; I particularly like this one:
Christopher Hitchens speaks at Google in Mountain View, California
As a Googler, I have the most incredible perks, not the least of which is a level of participation in "corporate civics" that I've never enjoyed elsewhere. Among those perks is the privilege of nominating authors to speak at Google in a sponsored venue. One of my nominations, public intellectual Christopher Hitchens, spoke at our Mountain View campus about a week before my departure to New York City:
ABSTRACT
Author Christopher Hitchens discusses his book "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything" as a part of the Authors@Google series. The author of Why Orwell Matters and Letters to a Young Contrarian, Christopher Hitchens is a Vanity Fair contributing editor, a Slate columnist, and a regular contributor to The Atlantic Monthly. He has also written for The Nation, Granta, Harper's, The Washington Post, and is a frequent television and radio guest. Born in England, Hitchens was educated at Balliol College, Oxford, where he received a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. He now lives in Washington, D.C., and he became a U.S. citizen in 2007. This event took place on August 16, 2007 at Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA.
WILT: taking cancer seriously enough to really cure it
Eight weeks ago, I hosted Dr. Aubrey de Grey for his second talk at Google in Mountain View, California, a follow-up to his earlier Google talk in the SENS series, "WILT: taking cancer seriously enough to really cure it":
ABSTRACT
The intrinsic genetic instability of cancer cells makes age-related cancers harder to ... all » postpone or treat than any other aspect of aging. Any therapy that a cancer can resist by activating or inactivating specific genes is unlikely to succeed long-term, because pre-existing cancer cells with the necessary gene expression pattern will withstand the therapy and proliferate. WILT (Whole-body Interdiction of Lengthening of Telomeres) seeks to pre-empt this problem by deleting from as many of our cells as possible the genes needed for telomere elongation. Cancers lacking these genes can never reach a life-threatening stage by altering gene expression, only by acquiring new genes, which is far more unlikely. Continuously-renewing tissues can be maintained by periodic reseeding with telomere elongation-incompetent stem cells that have had their telomeres lengthened in vitro with exogenous telomerase. I will describe why WILT may become a uniquely comprehensive anti-cancer modality, and the practicalities of performing it and avoiding side-effects.
Everything You Wanted To Know About Stem Cells... But Were Afraid To Ask
Some weeks back, my (now) friend Dr. Daniel Kraft, a physician scientist at Stanford, came to Google at my invitation to give a talk, "Everything You Wanted To Know About Stem Cells... But Were Afraid To Ask":
ABSTRACT
Stem cell technology and the debate surrounding it has generated a great deal of excitement ... all » and controversy in recent years. The field is surrounded by misconceptions, hype and yet very significant potential. In this talk we'll cover: defining what are stem cells really and where do they come from... the differences between embryonic stem cells and 'adult stem cells' (i.e. derived from our own bone marrow, fat, umbilical cord blood, placentas and even our kids teeth) and emerging technologies to utilize these cells in powerful and novel ways. We'll cover current clinical uses of stem cells, ongoing clinical trials in regenerative medicine (i.e. using marrow derived cells to treat heart attacks, vascular disease, stroke and even diabetes), upcoming trials utilizing embryonic stem cells, and some of the likely near term and future applications as well as challenges remaining in order for this field to reach its full potential.
OK, time to prairie dog
Time to pop my head back up into the blogosphere. I've got a few moments to mention what many of my friends have known for a while: I've moved to New York City for school, as an undergraduate (junior) transfer student in biochemistry at Columbia University, pre-med. These last few months have been among the busiest of my life to date... scratch that, these have indeed been the busiest.
I bit the bullet and did the Facebook thing: it was damned near useless to me before, now it's indispensable. Having spent far too much time there, I'm turning my attention back here. More later, stay tuned...
