Algorithms for Searching Among Chinese Characters Could Provide Effective Genome Search Engine
A Google For Genomes? A Chinese computer scientist has come up with a way to index genomic data that mimics the way search engines index Chinese characters. It could pave the way for a more easily searchable bioinformatics database. Wikimedia Commons/Webridge As scientists decode more and more genomes, the tree of life gets pretty complicated. It makes tough work for geneticists or other researchers who want to understand which organisms share which genes -- there are just so many comparisons. So there's a growing need for a better, easily searchable bioinformatics database. A Chinese computer scientist has a suggestion: mimic the way search engines index Chinese characters. Technology Review's blog helpfully describes why search engines like Google are so fast and why current bioinformatics search systems are not. Most search engines use an inverted index -- rather than compiling a list of every single Web page and all its words, for...