Humanity
Most days I'm not a great fan of humanity, I admit it. I am also a hypocrite I love the people in my life with all that I am, and believe they are the most amazing things on the planet. But as an entity humanity tends to be pretty disappointing for me.
Then Sunday happened. I listened to a TED Talk by Dr Jay Bradner, a cancer researcher at Harvard and Dana Farber. He has a new way of changing how cancer cells behave using a JQ1 molecule. But he knows that more people working on this will make breakthroughs come faster, so instead of keeping this "in house" and secret so only his group can cash in if they some day make something that will save lives, he's made it open source. That's right, it's free for any researcher to work with. He has a link on his site where you can request a sample to work with. Because curing cancer is more important than making money. Sure, there is the publicity angle, and who knows what else will come out of collaboration, but seriously, this is therapeutic research that isn't being done in a black box of commerce! I sat there listening and for the first time in ages was so very proud of my species! This is what we can do if we stop worrying about how we are going to make money from something that will save lives. It was like we were starting to evolve. Here is a link to his talk: https://www.ted.com/speakers/jay_brander
And then this morning I hear about someone beating up a hitch-hiking robot. It made it across Europe, but two weeks in the US and then basically got mugged in Philadelphia. Great. And then there is the video showing it was an Eagles fan and now that is probably a hoax. Why does Philly have to be such a disappointment? Someone beat up a robot and someone else decided to make it a vehicle for their own notoriety.
I'm going to watch Dr. Bradner again and try to recapture that feeling that we aren't poo flinging monkeys at heart. Sigh
Then Sunday happened. I listened to a TED Talk by Dr Jay Bradner, a cancer researcher at Harvard and Dana Farber. He has a new way of changing how cancer cells behave using a JQ1 molecule. But he knows that more people working on this will make breakthroughs come faster, so instead of keeping this "in house" and secret so only his group can cash in if they some day make something that will save lives, he's made it open source. That's right, it's free for any researcher to work with. He has a link on his site where you can request a sample to work with. Because curing cancer is more important than making money. Sure, there is the publicity angle, and who knows what else will come out of collaboration, but seriously, this is therapeutic research that isn't being done in a black box of commerce! I sat there listening and for the first time in ages was so very proud of my species! This is what we can do if we stop worrying about how we are going to make money from something that will save lives. It was like we were starting to evolve. Here is a link to his talk: https://www.ted.com/speakers/jay_brander
And then this morning I hear about someone beating up a hitch-hiking robot. It made it across Europe, but two weeks in the US and then basically got mugged in Philadelphia. Great. And then there is the video showing it was an Eagles fan and now that is probably a hoax. Why does Philly have to be such a disappointment? Someone beat up a robot and someone else decided to make it a vehicle for their own notoriety.
I'm going to watch Dr. Bradner again and try to recapture that feeling that we aren't poo flinging monkeys at heart. Sigh
posted by Liz @ 8:45 AM
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