# Key Points from IRC Conversation

• Cancer genomics was discussed as a promising approach for personalized treatment, where sequencing a patient's tumor can identify targetable mutations, though finding suitable ligands for mutated receptors remains a significant challenge.

• The Glowing Plant Kickstarter project faced criticism in a Scientific American blog for using open-source rhetoric while actually promoting proprietary software and potentially infringing on BioGlow Inc.'s existing patents.

• Participants debated the merits of Numenta's Hierarchical Temporal Memory (HTM) approach and Jeff Hawkins' "On Intelligence" book, noting that despite devoted followers, the approach lacks rigorous comparison to standard machine learning benchmarks.

• The conversation revealed concerns about the 40-year decline in new antibiotic development, with speculation that high FDA testing costs (~$100 million per drug) or exhaustion of easily discoverable antibiotic-producing strains might be responsible.

• The Human Brain Project was clarified as pursuing more modest research goals rather than the full brain emulation sometimes suggested in media reports, despite receiving billions in funding.

• Technical discussions included Octopart's API update for programmatic access to electronic component datasheets, historical implementations of neural networks using analog circuits, and observations about Google's PageRank algorithm's handling of negative inbound links.