Gamers’ discovery could generate anti-HIV drugs – Health – CBC News

CBC has a story about how Gamers’ discovery could generate anti-HIV drugs (Sept. 19, 2011). The story is about how players of Fold.It have solved a protein folding problem related to AIDS which has been recently published. (The paper is here.)

What is neat about this project is that it is an example of “citizen science” or crowdsourcing for research. Rather than use the computer to analyze the data, the computer/network was used to make it easier for humans to solve the problems. They turned protein folding into a game that enticed volunteers to play for science.

Guardian visualization: Anders Breivik’s spider web of hate

The Guardian has an interesting visualization of Anders Breivik’s manifesto mapped by linkfluence. Andrew Brown explains what they learned from the visualization in an article Anders Breivik’s spider web of hate (Sept. 7, 2011). The visualization shows the network of links from Breivik’s manifesto to other types of sites. There are a large number of links to mainstream media and to the Wikipedia, but also a number to other right wing sites. As Brown puts it,

The Guardian has analysed the webpages he links to, and the pages that these in turn link to, in order to expose a spider web of hatred based around three “counter-jihad” sites, two run by American rightwingers, and one by an eccentric Norwegian. All of these draw some of their inspiration from the Egyptian Jewish exile Gisele Littman, who writes under the name of Bat Ye’or, and who believes that the European elites have conspired against their people to hand the continent over to Muslims.

digital humanities definitions by type

Stan pointed me to a nice essay that uses the definitions of humanities computing we gathered as part of the Day of DH project. Frederick Gibbs analyzed the short definitions in his blog essay, digital humanities definitions by type. He boils the definitions down to the following (the number is his count as to how many definitions fit that category):

55 – variation on “the application of technology to humanities work”
22 – working with digital media or a digital environment
15 – minimize the difference between DH and humanities
12 – umbrella or blanket nature of DH label; issues that humanists now face
12 – using digital AND studying digital
12 – refusals to define the term
10 – methods AND community
9 – digitization / archives
9 – studying the digital

I think he more or less has it right. I’m not sure where he put mine, but I’m of the “using digital AND studying digital”. I believe the reflectivity or doubling of using and studying what you use is what makes this a humanities discipline.

Day of Archaeology

Megan pointed me to the ADay of Archaeology project. This project was conceived of during one of our Day of Digital Humanities projects and builds on the idea. It serves partly as community outreach for archaeology:

The Day of Archaeology 2011 aims to give a window into the daily lives of archaeologists. Written by over 400 contributors, it chronicles what they did on one day, July 29th 2011, from those in the field through to specialists working in laboratories and behind computers. This date coincides with the Festival of British Archaeology, which runs from 16th – 31st July 2011.

I also note that they had far more participants in their first year than we had even in our third! We need to learn from them.

How to communicate the dangers of nuclear waste to future civilizations.

Reading Umberto Eco’s The Search for the Perfect Language I came across a discussion Thomas Sebeok’s work for the U.S. Office of Nuclear Waste Management on “Communication Measures To Bridge Ten Millennia.” Sebeok was commissioned to figure out how to warn people about nuclear waste in 10,000 years. How do you design a warning system that can survive for tens of thousands of years? He proposed an artificial folklore with a priestly caste to maintain superstitions about the site. He ended up recommending

that information be launched and artificially passed on into the short-term and long-term future with the sup- plementary aid of folkloristic devices, in particular a combination of an artificially created and nurtured ritual-and-legend. …

The legend-and-ritual, as now envisaged, would be tantamount to laying a “false trail”, meaning that the uninitiated will be steered away from the hazardous site for reasons other than the scientific knowledge of the possibility of radiation and its implications; essentially, the reason would be accumulated superstition to shun a certain area permanently. (p. 24)

Slate Magazine has a great story on the issue of Atomic Priesthoods, Thorn Landscapes, and Munchian Pictograms: How to communicate the dangers of nuclear waste to future civilizations by Juliet Lapidos (Nov. 16, 2009.) She surveys some of the interesting ideas like “Menacing Earthworks” that would warn people off, and talks about a 1993 SANDIA report titled, “Expert Judgment on Markers To Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion Into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.”