Life is about to get a lot easier for medical researchers, but a lot more difficult for companies trying to make a buck selling them tools to store and analyze genomic data. When the Human Genome Project successfully concluded in 2003, it had taken 13 years to complete its goal of fully sequencing the human genome. Earlier this month, two firms — Life Technologies and Illumina– announced instruments that can do the same thing in a day, one for only $1,000. That’s likely going to mean a lot of data.

via As genomics data approaches exascale, cloud could save the day — Cloud Computing News.

Obsessive gamers hours at the computer have now topped scientists efforts to improve a model enzyme, in what researchers say is the first crowdsourced redesign of a protein.The online game Foldit, developed by teams led by Zoran Popovic, director of the Center for Game Science, and biochemist David Baker, both at the University of Washington in Seattle, allows players to fiddle at folding proteins on their home computers in search of the best-scoring lowest-energy configurations.

via Online Gamers Achieve First Crowd-Sourced Redesign of Protein: Scientific American.