Two days after starting work as the new director of INDS, Stephen Freeland traveled to Washington DC to present a public lecture on the emerging science surrounding the possibility of other life in the universe. This lecture was invited by the Dialogue on Science, Ethics and Religion (DoSER) program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which welcomed a diverse group of politicians, scientists and members of the general public to a Q&A about the implications of this work.

The research about which Dr. Freeland spoke falls under the emerging science of astrobiology (https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about-astrobiology/) which, by placing together insights from the traditional scientific disciplines, is rapidly forming a consensus picture that life should not be as rare as was once thought. In fact the focal point of the lecture were "three clues consistent with extraterrestrial life."

A full description of this event, together with a video of the event, can be found here:

www.aaas.org/spp/dser/events/archives/lectures/2013/Exoplanets/Exoplanets6_19_2013.html

Appistry Launches Integrated Suite for Cancer Genome Analysis

ST. LOUIS, Jul 24, 2013 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Appistry, Inc., a leading provider of high-performance computing and analytics solutions for next-generation medicine and the authorized distributor of select genetic analysis tools from the Broad Institute, launched today an integrated suite of tools for analyzing next-generation sequencing (NGS) cancer genome data. In particular, the Cancer Genome Analysis Suite contains a tool engineered to provide the high sensitivity required for identifying low-frequency point mutations, hard-to-find discrepancies in DNA sequences that are a genetic hallmark of tumor development and evolution.

Read more at http://www.marketwatch.com/story/appistry-launches-integrated-suite-for-cancer-genome-analysis-2013-07-24