Mac, Cancer, and Nasa?

dricci

dricci

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On the news today, they showed how the rocket was going to the space station to retrieve the cancer cells they were researching.

On one shot, they showed I guess a scientist on a Mac workstation rendering some type of cancer cells in some program. It was pretty cool, but the workstation was running some version of OS 7.x, the menubar was white and desktop icons were the old style. So I guess in science stuff they use Macs, but old ones?

Ok, to get on the OS X subject, it looks like that machine will never be running X. Who knows how old the software program they were running even was. So how will Apple get the science industry to upgrade to newer macs with X? Any scientists here know if scientific microscope programs and stuff are ported to OS X? Because I'm sure OS X could run a 10 times better and sophisticated program than the one they had on the 7.x machine, but the problem is getting the software to X.
 
im no scientist...but i got a 97 on my chemistry regents 2 years ago... :rolleyes:
anyways, i know that there are some medical applications available for download from the Apple website... i just dont know how sufisticated they are.
 
I hope that was a joke, otherwise I'm going to ask your English results as well!!:p :p (only joking!)
 
Originally posted by uoba
I hope that was a joke, otherwise I'm going to ask your English results as well!!:p :p (only joking!)
Click to expand...

LOL , im a freggin imagrent...i cant even spell that right... :D
 
was the scientist in space? If he wasn't, ignore this completely, since it no longer matters. But if he was in space, that has a direct effect on what computing technology they have available to them.

All of the computers on the space shuttle are x486's, because of all the crazy testing that NASA puts stuff through before being able to send it into space.

Just like they put the astronauts through years of testing before shooting them up in a tin can, they do the same for all of the equipment.

Or maybe the company that made the software is bankrupt! and it is only available for 7.x.x

FaRuvius
 
Originally posted by Jayem
im no scientist...but i got a 97 on my chemistry regents 2 years ago... :rolleyes:
anyways, i know that there are some medical applications available for download from the Apple website... i just dont know how sufisticated they are.
Click to expand...

My chemistry regents was in 1989. :) That was the one that the morning of, the New York Post put the answer key on the front page. Passed the class and never had to take the test.

Speaking of NY, there seems to be a lot of us on this site. Is there any OS X moral support group in the NYC-area, besides this site? :)
 
*Off topic*

On the note of a moral support group in the city, I don't believe one exists, but I believe we should have a "moral support bar" in the city where we may set up an event for all city people to meet from the boards... That way we can use the spiffy new calendar. ;)

I'll be making a new post/poll on "All thoughts Non-technical" for those interested...
 
I'm only a social scientist and certainly don't know squat about nasa, but it has been my experience that this field of computing moves much more slowly as It often takes years to produce a reliable program that does everything you want it to (remember they are scientists first, programmers second) and the old saying "if it ain't broke don't fix it" is very popular. Many scientists can only afford to upgrade if they include the costs in their grants and with grant money shrinking these days this is often not a priority except to the geekiest of scientists. learning something new simply takes too much time for many. and while none of this probably relates directly to nasa, my other guess would be that the insides of the machine are not stock. they probably bare little ressemblence to the off the floor model. They are probably dedicated to doing one or two things and doing it well. Scientists also love to use older machines dedicated to one purpose. It probably only has one program on it.

just my 2.8 cents (inflation)
 
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