Computing technology is rapidly advancing and recent scientific discoveries could not have been accomplished without the help of this computational power. Different from traditional scientific data collection, the field of Scientific Computing (or Computational Science) uses a mathematical approach ran on computers to understand a situation or environment. Whether it is predicting this week's weather or mapping out the DNA structure of humans, Scientific Computing is giving us the tools to advance the knowledge of our existence. My favorite example of the use of Scientific Computing is that of the Human Genome Project.
The Human Genome Project was an international effort aimed at mapping and understanding all the genes of human beings. It was a three billion dollar project which took 13 years to complete and required massive amounts of computing power in order to accomplish its goal. This project found there are about 20,500 human genes and offered the world the details about the structure, organization and function of these genes. Essentially it created a blueprint map of our selves.The benefits this project provided to the world is astonishing. It was reported that for every $1 spent by the federal government a return of $141 was returned back to the U.S. economy. Medical advances in the diagnosis of cancer as well as many other genetic diseases have also benefited from the results of this project.
David,
ReplyDeleteGood job on the blog post.
I like your topic, and how you describe about it in brief. The way you sync your topic with the title is noteworthy. The links are very helpful too!
Happy Blogging,
Tushar.
Thank You Tushar, I had actually downloaded the application to run in the background of my computer to help with the calculations of this project :o).
ReplyDeleteThis was a really interesting topic for your blog. The Human Genome Project seems to have affected the world greatly economically and through medical advances. This is something that would have never been possible without computers. DNA is the core to our existence so finding out all this information helps a lot. Now I'm interested to find out what all the genes were and how they affect human traits.
ReplyDeleteHi David,
ReplyDeleteThe increase of computing ability not only benefits the computer science, but only affects greatly of other areas. Clearly, bioinformatics is one of the examples.
Biologists have known all the sequences of human DNA, but how to understand and explain to meaning of different combination is a tough, clearly impossible task in the past. With the help of computers and better algorithm, we can find the pattern in the puzzles and crack the code in the end.
Thanks for the great feedback!
ReplyDeleteThe Human Genome Project was indeed a great leap forward for humanity. With the genetic information that was uncovered during the project, treatments for certain diseases have been developed while others have been improved. Genetic research has helped the development of more effective drugs. I think the entire world benefitted from this project, not just the United States. Good job on your post, to the point and informative.
ReplyDelete