Two hundred biologists and computer scientists gathered at the first-ever Sage Congress have proposed creating an open source model that standardizes and links together thousands of scientific databases worldwide. In the future, such a system could give researchers and scientists access to thousands of raw genetic data samples that could then be connected and used to explain how a disease functions. Sage Bionetworks, a new nonprofit that organized the conference, also plans to build systems that can mimic the human body and help researchers analyze complex interactions among networks of genes. Merck has agreed to pass on some technology from the disbanded Rosetta project, which resulted in one of the fastest supercomputers in the drug industry. Open source technology will likely be used, and projects such as Science Commons are working to overcome the legal, financial, and infrastructural barriers to sharing studies and data.
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The U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) released guidelines that would allow nearly 3 million overseas and military voters to cast votes over the Internet in November. The EAC plan worries cybersecurity experts, election officials, and voting integrity advocates. They note that email messages and voting Web sites are vulnerable to interception or hacking. Congress mandated in 2009 that the EAC develop guidelines for pilot programs to aid overseas voting, including online voting. Most states seek EAC certification of voting technology, and the commission’s Jeannie Layson says “the EAC hopes that the work we do in 2010 will assist states already running pilot programs to improve services for military and overseas voters.” The majority of the 33 states that have developed pilot programs for Internet voting will let voters send completed ballots as an email attachment, while faxes, which are another approved method for sending votes, are increasingly being sent on the Web due to the growing use of voice-over-Internet phone service. Critics say the EAC is circumventing the technical board that is supposed to review new regulations and also may be violating federal law by not allowing enough time for public comment on the guidelines.
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