Category Archives: News

SciCast partner TechCast has relaunched as TechCast Global

With a New Name, New Website, and Expanded Services, TechCast Now Offers a Full Range of Forecasts and Strategy for a Changing World

TechCast, a virtual think tank tracking the technology revolution for 20 years, is excited to announce the launch of its new website at http://www.techcastglobal.com. The redesigned site with mobile interface provides expanded access to TechCast’s award-winning forecasts of emerging technologies, social trends, and wild cards. It also features new tools for strategic planning. The company changed its name to TechCast Global, Inc. raising foresight to a broader scope covering the entire technology revolution, globalization, and other strategic forces that are transforming business, government, and the world itself.

“The launching of TechCast Global comes at a propitious time when all organizations need to plan for disruptive change,” said Prof. William E. Halal, Founder and President of TechCast Global. Accelerating technological change, evolving global markets, global warming, transparency, and other new powerful forces are altering products, services, lifestyles, industries, and the way organizations work.

Read the full release here.

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SciCast Calls for Science, Technology Experts to Make Predictions

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Contact:
Lynda Baldwin – 708-703-8804;
[email protected] 

Candice Warltier – 312-587-3105;
[email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

SciCast Calls for Science, Technology Experts to Make Predictions 

Largest sci-tech crowdsourcing forecast site in search of professionals and enthusiasts to predict future events 

FAIRFAX, Va (June 19, 2014) – SciCast, a research project run by George Mason University, is the largest known science and technology-focused crowdsourced forecasting site. So what makes a crowdsourced prediction market more powerful? An even bigger crowd. SciCast is launching its first worldwide call for participants to join the existing 2,300 professionals and enthusiasts ranging from engineers to chemists, from agriculturists to IT specialists.

Continue reading

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Dicty World Race 2014 Winners Announced!

The following report is taken from Dicty World Race organizer, Daniel Irimia’s lab note on Experiment.

Dicty Cells take 1st place!

The winners of the first Dicty World Race 2014 have been announced.. Dicty cells submitted by the lab of Arjan Kortholt and Peter van Haastert from U. Groningen, Netherlands have taken first place. These cells were trained by Ineke Keizer-Gunnink and Rama Kataria. The winner cells accounted for a remarkable 60% of the cells in the top 100 to finish the race.

… With HL60 cells in 2nd place!

In second place, are the HL60 cells from the group of Guillaume Charras in London, UK.

Other Top Finishers:

1.  A. Kortholt and P. van Haastert lab (Dicty) 
2.  G. Charras lab (HL60) 
3.  J. Faix lab (Dicty) 
4.  M. Myre lab (Dicty) 
5.  A. Kimmel lab (Dicty) 
6.  T. Bruce lab (Dicty) 

Read the full report, here.

See the forecast trends and history for the question: Which team will win the 2014 Dicty World Race? 

In addition to the questions for each specific team’s placement, SciCast asked which team will enter the smartest and the fastest cells. All Dicty Race questions have been paused. If you made forecasts, login and then visit your dashboard to see how you did. Watch for the SciCast analysis, coming soon.

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Second Dicty Amateur Video Analysis (17-May)

** Updated 18-May **

Some videos have been added today (refresh https://scicast.org/dicty), so I took a second look.  I don’t look through microscopes for a living, so this isn’t final.  Times below are the timestamped clock time, which elapses at about 8m per frame. I collected:

  • TeamNum: Team name number stated in the video title
  • TeamName: Team name and/or PI name(s)
  • t_First: time when the first cell entered the finish zone. There is some ambiguity for cells that hang out on the opening.
  • Num_3hr: #cells in the finish zone by the 3hr mark; not sure how Irimia is counting cells that leave after entering
  • Num_5hr: #cells in the finish zone by the 5hr mark (only 4 videos)
  • Notes: salient notes, in quotes

Often there were two mazes and finish lines visible.  In these cases I tried to count both finish lines.  I’m not sure that’s canonical.  Here are the results as I saw them (Changed format to avoid margin clipping; sorted by Num_3hr):

TeamNum,TeamName,t_First,Num_3hr,Num_5hr,Notes
Team 12,Kortholt,1:36,14,,”3 in at 1:36,4 @ 1:40,at least 14 at 3h”
Team 11,Faix,1:28,12,,3 in @ 1:36; I counted at least 12 entering by 3h
Control HL60,,1:42,9,,9+. I can’t get it to hold the last frame to count.
Team 9 HL60,Insall,2:14,5,,5+. Many cells got bored and went back into the maze.
Team 17,Kimmel,1:36,5,,5+. Can’t hold the last frame.
Caffeine Control,,1:56,4,,Last one just in time.
Race2Control,,2:15,2,5,”Lots of cells,lots of movement,esp. outside the maze.”
Racer X Neutrophils,,2:25,2,,Cell entering 2:25 jumps track next frame 2:30. Entered?
Team1,Strassman & Queller,2:38,1.5,3,Video starts at 1:30; 2nd cell just crossing at 3:00
Team 9,Insall,,0,0,”Video starts at 1:30; hard to see,but cells appear disorganized.”
Team18,Kay,4:07,0,1,Cells outside the maze are much faster!
Team5 HL60,Steinckwich-Besancon,,0,,”Only 5-6 cells visible,hardly moving.”
Team 19 HL60,Tschirhart,,0,,17 cells idly drifting around the mazes.
Team 7,Bruce,,0,,Halfway through the maze at 3h.
Team 10,Beta,,0,,No cells visible on the slide.
Team 20,Devreotes,,0,,Only 1 confused cell. Did preliminary videos have the wrong label?
Team 9,Insall,,0,,About halfway through at 3h.
Team 15,Myre,,0,,About halfway through at 3h.
Team14,Muller-Taubenberger,,,,Irimia says cells did not get to the starting line.

So, likely winners:

  • Overall winner (most finishers at 3h): Team 12 (Kortholt) with 14+ cells.  We had an email from Irimia mid-afternoon saying at that point they also thought 12 was the most likely.  Second place is probably Team 11 (Faix) with 12+ cells in. Third is likely to be either the HL60 line from Team 9 (Insall), or Team 17 (Kimmel), both with at least 5 cells in by 3hr.
  • Fastest: Team 11 (Faix) just edges out Teams 12 (Kortholt) and 17 (Kimmel) for the fastest single cell at 1:28. This may turn on the precise definition of finish line.
  • Smartest: Sorry, I don’t have the patience to count wrong turns.

Notes: Neutrophils need to be photographed more often — the fastest ones are simply sprinting too fast to uniquely infer motion between frames.

You can still edit the Fastest and Smartest questions.  Until Irimia announces the winners anyway.   https://scicast.org/dicty.

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We’ve been slimed!

In dramatic fashion, it looks like total victory for the slime molds over the human derived HL-60 leukemia cells! It must be a satisfying vindication for Dicty Nation as they celebrate a billion years of evolutionary perfection for amoeba-hood everywhere over the upstart human cancer cell challengers. No love lost for these little human mutants though - good riddance.

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Upsets brewing at the Dictys!

New video lifts the podium hopes of three teams: #11 (Faix - Germany), #12 (van Haastert / Kortholt - Netherlands), #17 (Kimmel - US). Watch the video closely for clues to contenders in the Fastest Cell question! But don’t forget that three teams have yet to be broadcast including some pre-race favorites. These are #1 (Queller - US), #18 (Kay - UK), # 14 (Müller-Taubenberger - Germany).

See the latest video at: Dicty LIVESTREAM Video

Then come to SciCast Race Central to adjust your bets!

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Tune in tomorrow dicty fans

Race video has not been refreshed and our pitcrew is concluding technical difficulties with the video are to blame. Tune in tomorrow for what we believe will be a photo finish  between several strong contenders, and to see how the 3 teams that had a later starting time fare. They include a pre-race favorite so the outcome is anything but certain.

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