Thursday Things: Now With Subtitles Edition
6 October 2022. Vol 4 No 40 By Dan McGirt. #165
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Please enjoy this peaceful landscape. Photo by v2osk on Unsplash
Genomes to Go?
More than a decade ago I went to work as a speechwriter for the head of BIO, the trade group that represents the biotechnology industry. Many of the speeches1 I wrote were about the amazing things that advances in biotechnology had enabled — treatments and cures for diseases, biotech crops for improved nutrition, etc. And many other speeches discussed even greater advances that were on the horizon, if only Congress would pass the right laws and fund the right research and let our brilliant scientists get on with it. So there was a lot of “soon, we may be able to…” and “the next breakthrough could bring…” and other projecting into the future involved.
I left BIO right before the CRISPR technology took off. We’ve discussed CRISPR, which enables more precise gene editing, here at Thursday Things before.2 It’s a technology everyone should know about, even if you don’t understand how it works.
CRISPR actually made some of those biotech castles in the sky I was writing speeches3 about more than a decade ago possible: new treatments, new cures, new crops.
CRISPR was a quantum leap development that wasn’t really expected, but changed everything. But another trend — faster, cheaper genome sequencing — was only a matter of time, because it was mainly driven by increases in computing power and data storage. And now it appears that the fast, cheap genome sequencing I used to write about is here:
The era of fast, cheap genome sequencing is here
The Human Genome Project took 13 years and thousands of researchers. The final cost: $2.7 billion.
That 1990 project kicked off the age of genomics, helping scientists unravel genetic drivers of cancer and many inherited diseases while spurring the development of at-home DNA tests, among other advances. Next, researchers started sequencing more genomes: from animals, plants, bacteria, and viruses. Ten years ago, it cost about $10,000 for researchers to sequence a human genome. A few years ago, that fell to $1,000. Today, it’s about $600.
And it’s about to get even cheaper:
At an industry event in San Diego today, genomics behemoth Illumina unveiled what it calls its fastest, most cost-efficient sequencing machines yet, the NovaSeq X series. The company, which controls around 80 percent of the DNA sequencing market globally, believes its new technology will slash the cost to just $200 per human genome while providing a readout at twice the speed.
We’ll have $10 genome sequencing within a few years. Of course, if we let the hospitals and doctors control the process you’ll get billed far more than that to have your genome sequenced:
While it costs around $600 for scientists to perform sequencing, clinical interpretation and genetic counseling can drive the price to a few thousand dollars for patients—and insurance doesn’t always cover it.
Ah, yes, we can’t have people accessing their own genomic information without foisting clinical interpretation and genetic counseling on them, whether they want it or not.😒
The new, faster, better sequencing device still costs more than $1 million, even if the sequencing process itself is cheaper. But that cost will come down over time too, and I see no reason we shouldn’t be able to sequence our genes at a self-serve kiosk or with your own home sequencer — and then go get “clinical interpretation” or “genetic counseling” if and when you feel the need.
What is the value of cheap, fast genome-sequencing?
Sequencing has led to genetically targeted drugs, blood tests that can detect cancer early, and diagnoses for people with rare diseases who have long sought answers. We can also thank sequencing for the COVID-19 vaccines, which scientists started developing in January 2020 as soon as the first blueprint of the virus's genome was produced. In research labs, the technology has become essential for better understanding pathogens and human evolution.
The faster, cheaper sequencing will further enable medical research advances.
“This is the kind of thing that shakes up everything you’re working on,” agrees Jeremy Schmutz, a faculty investigator at HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, of new sequencing technology. “This reduction in sequencing cost allows you to scale up and do more of those large research studies.” For Schmutz, who studies plants, cheaper sequencing will allow him to generate more reference genomes to better study how genetics influence a plant’s physical characteristics, or phenotype. Large genomic studies can help improve agriculture by accelerating the breeding of certain desirable crops, he says.
But, alas, the medical gatekeepers are still in charge:
…for healthy people, there’s not yet enough evidence of benefits to prove that genome sequencing will be worth the cost. Currently, the test is mostly limited to people with certain cancers or undiagnosed illnesses—although in two recent studies, around 12 to 15 percent of healthy people whose genomes were sequenced ended up having a genetic variation that showed they had an elevated risk of a treatable or preventable disease, indicating that sequencing may provide an early warning.
Okay, we don’t do politics here at Thursday Things. But I do believe that we are all entitled to have full access to and control of our own medical and genetic information, without some self-appointed high priest getting in the way. And I also, as a techno-optimist, believe that the continued improvement of the technology will make that inevitable. End of mini-rant.
Read the full article at Ars Technica for much more information about the new Illumina device.
Movies Lie? Say it isn’t so!
Most movies present us with an exaggerated, dramatized, or heightened reality that we willingly accept for the hour or two that we’re watching. We know that it doesn’t always rain at funerals, that if the love of your life is getting on a plane to Paris you don’t have violate numerous traffic laws and risk arrest breaking through security at the airport to tell he how you really feel — you could just call, text, or buy your own ticket to Paris — and that most of what happens in a Fast & Furious movie isn’t remotely possible. But we just roll with it, because it’s entertaining.
However, there are some movie tropes or myths that we have seen so often that we take them for granted. Things that simply aren’t true but that we may very well believe simply because we’ve seen them so often on the screen. This article collects 10 Ridiculous Myths We Believe Because Of Movies
I won’t list all ten — read the article! — but here are few:
Cops Don’t Have To Read You Rights While Handcuffing You — I already knew this one. (Because I went to law school, not because I’ve been arrested!)
No Gunshot Can Knock You Off Your Feet — The world would be so much cooler if this were true. But that’s not how physics works.
Quicksand Isn’t An Automatic Death Sentence — I also knew this one because I have researched quicksand. Don’t ask why.
Check out the listicle and see how many of these myths movies have implanted in your brain. Did anything on the list surprise you? (The one about dinosaurs is definitely reassuring!)
Subtitles — On or Off?
As long as we’re on the topic, I imagine you watch far more movies at home on your television (or maybe even your phone or tablet while on the go) than you do in theaters. Foreign language films aside — do you tend to watch with the subtitles on?
Apparently, that’s a thing now, though it is mostly generational:
Survey: Why America is obsessed with subtitles
You might think of subtitles as an accessibility tool that transcribes or translates dialogue and sounds, but this tool has gone mainstream. Recent data has shown that younger generations overwhelmingly prefer to watch content with subtitles on.
From the rise of streaming services to an increase of screens in the home, we wanted to explore the reasons behind the obsession with subtitles in the United States and how it relates to how we consume content today. To find out, we surveyed 1,200 Americans on their use of the feature.
Before I share some of the numbers, I’ll say I usually watch with subtitles off. However, I will sometimes paused, rewind, and rewatch a scene or exchange with the subtitles on when I couldn’t make out what the characters were saying.
Key findings
50% of Americans watch content with subtitles most of the time.
55% say it is harder to hear dialogue in shows and movies than it used to be.
62% of Americans use subtitles more on streaming services than regular TV.
57% watch content in public; 74% of Gen Z do so.
So I’m glad to see that I am in the majority in finding it harder to understand the dialogue in shows.
When asked what their main reason is for using subtitles:
Nearly 3 in 4 respondents claimed muddled audio from their content.
61% use them when accents are difficult to understand.
29% prefer to watch their content at home quietly, leaving subtitles on so as not to disturb roommates or family.
Viewers report that the background music is often too loud, the dialogue harder to hear, and that the actors sometimes don’t speak clearly or talk too fast. All true!
There are some informative graphics in the article. Take a look and see how your viewing habits match up!
Thank you for reading!
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Technically, many of “speeches” I wrote were actually PowerPoint presentations. I despise PowerPoint with the fury of a million burning suns. But my boss did not, so I made lots of PowerPoint slides. But that’s a whole other story.
Or, again, PowerPoint presentations.