What I Missed

Genetic Code: What Nature Missed

The genetic code encodes 20 amino acids in almost all living cells; the only known exceptions are a few organisms that use selenocysteine [1] or pirrolysine [2]. In order to acquire chemical properties not represented in this set, proteins must be modified post-translationally, be made non-ribosomally, or use co-factors. In a series of papers, Peter Schultz’s group has described how they carrie...

What gets missed when deploying new technologies in A&E?

This paper presents a longitudinal study (over 4 months) of an A&E department where the existing whiteboards were replaced with PC-based computer systems. The study was conducted in two parts - an observation of the physical whiteboard usage and in-depth interviews with all users of both the traditional whiteboard usage and the replacement technology. The research was conducted with the systems...

What the ANPRM missed: additional needs for IRB reform.

Institutional Review Boards are mandated to carry out the requirements of the Common Rule, and it is widely agreed that they are appropriate and necessary mechanisms to ensure the ethical conduct of human research. In this paper, we suggest that the changes proposed in ANPRM, although generally helpful, fail to take into consideration how IRBs actually review applications and therefore do not a...

I Know What I Know

How important is software construction? Software construction has been the awkward stepchild of software engineering for decades. This puzzles me because software construction is the only activity that’s guaranteed to be done on every project. Code is the center of the software universe. Process advocates tend to downplay coding, focusing more on the documentation that occurs before and after c...

'I wouldn't have missed it for the world'.