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Black Death's Genome Cracked
exceed writes: "This article on Wired, and this article on Yahoo! News states that scientists have decoded the genome of the bubonic plague bacterium. This will now (hopefully soon) lead to vaccinations and treatments for the disease it causes."
How much do we have in common with it? Are we the cure?
Satan will sue these scientists under the DMCA for having cracked the protection of his copyrighted microscopic pupil. Will Congress learn to weigh all sides of an issue before passing random laws?
Sounds like a great advance, but sadly I fear such information will also be used by some to develop even more deadly biological weapons.
Actually, most people of european descent are relatively resistant to the disease. Comes from being descended from those who lived through it when 1/3 of Europe died. Of course, as your post indicates, some of us have descended farther than others...
Does this mean I won't lose 1 life point every time they hit me?
Oh wait, this isn't the Diablo forum!
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
ummm, I care. They find squirrels carrying the disease all the time in southern california.
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Although the citizens of the U.S. will probably suffer an unspeakable loss of civil liberties and privacy, we will probably reap many benefits from the medical research that was spurred.
-sting3r
One word. Bioterrorism. Actuall, two words: Biowarfare.
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Which is why you worry. People playing with bio engineering could come up with a new version that could be very nasty.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I thought that there is already a cure for plage? I know it was a big problem back in middle ages, but does anyone still get sick with it?
Sorry for stupid question. Please enlighten me.
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Well, aside from the arguments above regarding bioterrorism, warfare and squirrels there is also the argument that medical science should endeavour to raise the quality of life for ALL people (not just middle-class white Americans). Bubonic plague is still deadly, and can still be found in the unhygenic squalor of many a shanty-town in third and second world countries.
Rest asssured, lowly peasants. Your fair and benevolent rulers have presented you with the ultimate cure for the vile scourge known as the black death. This, a lowly bar of soap, shall be your floral scented cure! Fear not any longer.
Pax Digitalia
bubonic plague killed 34 in Los Angeles in 1924. That's not recent, but more recent then 1200's
In which case, an antidote for the stuff that is around now is effective for a modified version in which way?
It actually answers your questions.
Oh come on...why do medical-science-type people have to muck about,
wasting their time with old,
uncommon illnesses like Bubonic Plague.
I'd bet the number of BP cases are probably 50000 worldwide every year. maybe less.
HSV2 -- why dont they decode _that_ genome and get cracking on something to help with that.
I'm getting tired of all these damn blisters!
Have you seen the movie "Cobra", with Sylvester Stallone? That's one (or should I say "the") memorable quote from that film.
Worldwide. In the US, it's more like "a couple", since it's mostly confined to people like veterinarians, who have a lot more contact with sick animals than does the rest of the population.
Why worry about people bio-engineering nastier versions when the ones that already exist (of this and other diseases with the potential to be bio-weapons) are already quite nasty enough?
We're understandably hearing a lot of talk about diseases being used as weapons of terror. Fortunately, such attacks would require considerably more expertise than merely knowing how to fly a crop duster. While it is something to take very seriously, I'm still more concerned about hijackers. Why should terrorists trouble themselves with biological weapons when they can wreak such mayhem with box cutters?
...Like Blue Death, Green Death, White Death, Fuscia Death...
Infectious Disease Variants! Collect the WHOLE set!
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
This can now (maybe soon) also lead to even better biological weapons that can kill much more than the 200 millions that the plauge killed. Now scientists will be able to modify it and cause it to lead to even worser diseases.
2 reptiles beneath your current threshold.
During the christian, err I mean dark ages, people killed cats because they thought they were witches. The rodent population ran out of control, causing the black plauge problem. 1/3 of Europe was wiped out. The moral of the story. Cats rule, dogs drool.
But then again, if you can read this, you already knew that.
Great! This is excellent! This is something that could have been great about 400 YEARS AGO!
Grr!
What they REALLY need to decode is whatever virus it is that prompts record executives to pull together a group of 4-5 teenage boys and turn them into a 'boy band'. Cure THAT virus, and the world will thank you.
Smallpox:
CDC is the only source of vaccinia vaccine and VIG for civilians. CDC will provide vaccinia vaccine to protect laboratory and other health-care personnel whose occupations place them at risk for exposure to vaccinia and other closely related Orthopoxviruses, including vaccinia recombinants. Vaccine should be administered under the supervision of a physician selected by the institution. Vaccine will be shipped to the responsible physician. Requests for vaccine and VIG, including the reason for the request, should be referred to
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Drug Services, National Center for Infectious Diseases
Mailstop D-09
Atlanta, GA 30333
Telephone: (404) 639-3670
Facsimile: (404) 639-3717
Plague:
Plague vaccine is available in the United States from Greer Labs. Plague vaccine USP is manufactured by Greer Laboratories, Inc., P.O. Box 800, Lenoir, NC, 28645-0800, telephone (800)438-0088 or (704)754-5327. The vaccine is shipped refrigerated in 20ml vials and should be stored at 2-8 degrees C (35-46 degrees F). It should not be frozen. The following groups of people should consider vaccination:
Persons working with the plague bacterium in the laboratory or in the field. Persons working in plague-affected areas or with potentially infected animals where they have little control over their environments, particularly in developing countries.
I don't know where you might find tularemia vaccine or some of the other lesser known organisms.
So then the cures for cancer and aids should be just around the corner right?
Bubonic plague is nasty, nasty stuff. . .I've read a lot about the various fun ways it can kill you through history books. For those who have no idea of what it did to Europe, read a good summary of the Black Death here.
Also, before people go off on biological weapons, etc, consider that there have been several recent breakouts of this disease, particularly in the southwest US(where I'm from). Don't know what I'm talking about? Check out this as an example. I remember reading in the paper in AZ about outbreaks occasionally and shuddering. A cure would be a godsend--even though there are only about 10-15 cases in the US a year, its a painful way to go.
- - - - - - - -
Don't worry, being eaten by a crocodile is just like going to sleep in a giant blender.
They'll never get out the exploits like vaccines and cures if they try to develop it in a closed development group. There are many skilled reverse-engineers in biology. Security through obscurity never works.
Open Source Black Death!
The cure is simple: DON'T SAY THE WORD "SHIT" SO MUCH.
It is a curse word, as overuse of it brings about the curse of the Black Death. Also avoid other curse words such as "fuck" and "mekrob".
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
i guess all those CPU cycles i contributed are showing some positive results! i didn't get much from SETI...
The proper answer to "Why do I need to know this?" is always, "Because."
cats make good dog food
dogs make good mexican food
mexicans make good chinese food
don't eat chinese food or chinese people and you should be safe.
no, wait, don't eat mexican food or mexican people and you should be safe.
ah shit i lost the thread, just eat chiles and drink beer and you should be safe.
except for that mexican/chinese sunburn.
It can still be found in the unhygenic squalor of Colorado. In fact, the strain analyzed by the researchers in this study came from the United States in 1992.
I'm afraid I can't attest from first hand knowledge whether or not Colorado Springs qualifies as a shanty-town.
Just rememebered that as a child i used to sing
"ring-a-ring-a roses,
pocket full of posies,
husha busha,
all fall down"
and never really understood what it was all about. then i found out that it was referring to the black plague epidemic of London when about a third(?) of the population was wiped out and people actually dropped dead on the streets...
A crank is a little thing that makes revolutions
The scientists were saying they knew that the bacteria modified itself and they even knew that it did it 1500 years ago. How do they know that? Would anyone with some knowledge of this care to speculate?
You had me at "dicks fuck assholes".
If it doesn't come in an easy to use powder, then I'm just too busy for it. I'll learn to live with my plague until it fits my hectic lifestyle.
A few years ago, there was a resurgence in the number of cases of tuberculosis, which was supposed to have been pretty well eliminated in the Western world. The basic cause of this increase was the presence of a population of immune-compromised individuals - AIDS patients.
I'm not suggesting that we're likely to see a similar resurgence of bubonic plague; the mechanism of transmission is very different. My point is that conditions at some point in the future could allow a plague outbreak to occur.
Could an antibiotic resistant variant of bubonic plague appear? Could enviromental conditions increase the number of plague carrying rodents? The list goes on. While this research might not be a priority, it's certainly worthwhile.
Per Ardua Ad Astra
LOL!
:)
I hear you.
Dude, I'm the original "Let me get this straight..." troll, and while I appreciate your assistance in getting this message out to the masses (I _do_ have to sleep, after all -- and getting my IP banned for 72 hours isn't helping me get my message out either), but I have to tell you -- my troll is a _tad_ more subtle than your offshoot. You will notice your attempts, while entertaining, do not result in a massive outcry of threads resulting from morons who feel the need to tell us to "get over with it" and "get on with life".
;-)
Thank you for your support, however. Perhaps we should coordinate our posting times so we can get the most bang for our buck here, and avoid duplicating efforts.
The Yersinia pestis work is of course still very interesting and important, but I think the virus theory makes more sense... check it out!
- Sanger Center project page with additional info for the data hungry.
- Press release on which the news articles are based.
- Nature Science Update's take on the news
This can be seen as blatant karma-whoring, but I would really appreciate if submitters of science stories dug out links like these before posting. Gives much better credibility, IMHO.Reality or nothing.
This article in the Sydney Morning Herald suggests rats and fleas may not be to blame for the spread of the plague.
This is geat news, but scientists also dicovered something else. In the years when the plague was still making thousands die in Europe, some people develloped an immunity, based on their genes. Call it a mutation.
Now the chances are VERY big that this same immunity is causing some people that are HIV possitive never to get AIDS.
Now we can only hope that the two discoveries can work together in ending both AIDS and the plague.
42 + 1 = 42
The Bubonic plague is a bacteria, wouldn't decoding a virus be a lot different from a bacteria? A bacterium has many cells, while a virus is basically DNA inside carrier matter. A lot of viruses can go through a piece of glass, while bacteria can't usually penetrate a piece of paper. I would think that this good for anti-biotics of the future, but I for one hate to hear from the Doc when you get Strep Throat, "It's a virus, there's not much we can do besides normal sore throat medicine" ...Of course, I could way off, I'm not a biologist :)
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
Viri do not have cells, they only carry DNA, they have to take over your cells to reproduce...
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
I watch South Park. I know what goes on down there... Colorado Springs can't be too different.
scientists have decoded the genome of the bubonic plague bacterium. This will now (hopefully soon) lead to vaccinations and treatments for the disease it causes." Great! Now I can finally get rid of that bird mask, holy relic, and incense burner I'd been keeping around in case the Black Death returned...
Yeah i am bored and read these, and you can too.
Of course not - it's a bacteria, not a virus
:-)
From what I've heard, IIS can only be infected with viruses (or is that virii in plural?).
By the way, IIS stands for Internet Infection Server
Black holes are where God divided by zero
not sure whether you're trolling, or not. if so: very smart!
;-) ). this is certainly true for other diseases --> they are mostly a third world problem.
;-)
if not: think twice. there's two aspects to this story.
1. genomics - to understand pathogens such as Y. pestis, genomics is a very powerful tool. One can ask questions such as: what make Y.pestis different form a relatively harmless bacteria, and start to explain (perhaps previously unknown) how Y. pestis is able to infect its host (human). this is very valuable information, and could provide clues to fight other pathogenic bacteria as well.
2. ethics. diseases may be banned in the "civilised" western world, but this might not be true for other, less "developed" regions in the world. i'm not stating this is true for bubonic plague (don't know and don't feel like looking it up
[slightly offtopic rant]
don't get me started on aids, the only reason so much money is thrown at aids research, is that it affects our "civilised society" so much. aids doesn't discriminate and is hard to eliminate. if it would've been a problem confined to 3rd world countries, no pharmaceutical (or governmental) funding would be available, it's not an attractive market since they can't afford your medicine.
[/slightly offtopic rant]
Meneer de Koekepeer
Ha! Flamebait? Insightful? Troll? Figure it out
I'm a cop you idiot!
It's mandatory to wash your hands before returning to the land of Dairy Queen.
wish i could meta-moderate this one. that was NOT funny!
Meneer de Koekepeer
In their study, published in the Oct. 4 issue of Nature, the researchers mapped a strain of plague that killed a veterinarian in the United States in 1992. He contracted the disease after an infected cat sneezed on him.
Oh my god I would hate to die that way. Please just let me drown or get consumed by rats. Anything, but please don't let them print an obituary about me that admits that I was killed by a sneezing cat.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
The black plague is a bacteria, not a virus, therefore it does contain DNA.
http://www.snopes2.com/language/literary/rosie.
lameness filter lameness filter lameness filter lameness filter lameness filter lameness filter lameness filter lameness filter
Your mouth is like Columbus Day.
Umm. AFAIK bacteria have DNA.
However, they are NOT multicellular.
The main differences between virii and bacteria are that bacteria have fully functional cellular structures, whereas viruses just have "trojan" code which they insert into the host cell.
[quote]
to raise the quality of life for ALL people (not just middle-class white Americans)
[/quote]
Indeed. You are so right, MyMarty. It can't be repeated enough! Tel them brother, tell them!
Meneer de Koekepeer
Aiming for (Score: -1 Flamebait)
First, some corrections. Bacteria are unicellular. Not "many cells" as you state. Even if they would consist of many cells, the genome would be the same for every cell , so there's no difference in complexity in that respect. And btw, I would love to see a virus that can go through glass. I don't know who told you that, but I wouldn't trust that person anymore when it comes to biology-related subjects ;-)
Once you have isolated the DNA (you know the stuff that carries the genome), the decoding principle is the same. Since a virus is less complex than a bacterium, it's probably easier to isolate DNA from virii. Furthermore a virus generally contains a much shorter genome than a bacterium.
Although I don't have any hands-on experience with virii, I can hardly imagine that sequencing the genome of a virus is more difficult than sequencing the genome of a bacterium.
Regards,
Meneer de Koekepeer
By chance my Black Death World Tour T-Shirt from NortherSun.com arived today. Its a fun shirt with the years it spread across Europe on it and on the back it has a list of cities it "toured".
Also some of you RPG or SCI-FI lovers should check out the series called Amber for another story of the black death.
SS
Ascii artist &
I'm no expert in this topic, but I've always wondered if what we consider a virus is the vector or the infected cell itself. The answer is that it's the vector, because it could theoretically infect all sorts of types of cells and still be the same "thing", but still..its kind of an interesting chicken and egg problem.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Doesn't having the genome also mean that genetic modifications are also easier? So for every vaccine, a new strain can be developed to defeat such vaccine....
Now that genetic engineering and gene treatment has come to it's current state would it be possible to create virus, that doesn't cause disease, but instead injects the host with replacement DNA and is contagious? I thought I read that virii were used to help transfer DNA to gene therapy patients. If a virus, such as chicken pox could be used as a carrier, then one could consider tampering with the DNA of any one who caught the virus.
Something like this could be used either as a bioweapon, or as a technique to mass distribute say a vaccine. So rather than having to distribute injections of vaccine for Anthrax (6 injections over 100 weeks), some theraputic virus could be created to modify the populations DNA to protect against Anthrax.
"The most virulent & deadly version of plague (pneumatic)..."
Actually, there were three types:
Bubonic (lymph nodes)
Pneumonic (lungs)
Septicemic (blood)
The deadliest was Septicemic, killing 100% of the people that contracted it. However, there had to be a very specific set of circumstances (temerature, etc.) for a person to get this type.
Just FYI, Pneumonic killed about 90% of the people that got it and Bubonic killed about 75%.
"Study your math, kids. Key to the universe." -The Archangel Gabriel
In their study, published in the Oct. 4 issue of Nature, the researchers mapped a strain of plague that killed a veterinarian in the United States in 1992. He contracted the disease after an infected cat sneezed on him.
Don't let cats sneeze on you!!
=steve
--- rapper/producer/bachelorette party stripper
Neither.
A vector is the thing that moves the infectious agent (bacterium or virus) to a new host. Unless you want to count the bloodstream or lymph or other internal body systems as a "vector" for infection spread within the body. But vector really refers to movements of agents between hosts.
"Host" makes it sound so ambivalent eh? I guess it's a nicer than saying poor doomed bastard(s).
I can hardly imagine that sequencing the genome of a virus is more difficult than sequencing the genome of a bacterium
For info, it depends on the type of virus. Some viruses use RNA instead of DNA as Genetic material, some have single stranded DNA as opposed double stranded.
Perhaps the greatest difficulty is in growing enough of the stuff in the first place as most viruses are VERY difficult to grow in-vitro because by nature they are tuned to live in their host organism. This is particularly important for something like Yersinia as you are going to find it difficult to find volunteers for in-vivo cultivation!! In addition, the genome of a virus is often very tightly bound to the viral proteins, making it difficult to purify.
"If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" - Will Rogers
While it is something to take very seriously, I'm still more concerned about hijackers. Why should terrorists trouble themselves with biological weapons when they can wreak such mayhem with box cutters?
I'm not concerned at all anymore with hijackings. In fact, I would reasonably argue that we're not going to have another hijacking for a long time now. Why? Because the hijackers now know that the procedures have changed. Pilots aren't going to be cooperative anymore. Passengers aren't going to sit back and let them control the situation. It is practically impossible to get a bomb or gun on an aircraft these days. That means the only thing you may face is a knife they someone got through security. Unless these guys are Bruce Lee, 60 people on an airplane can easily overpower a group of 4 or 5 hijackers as long as they maintain in their mind that there is no way a gun or bomb could be on the plane.
Anyway, the point is, the suicide hijackers are probably planning something else at this point (bioterrorism, chemical weapons, truck bombs, etc.) and the non-suicidal hijackers are not stupid enough to hijack a plane at this point when they KNOW that everyone is going to assume the plane will be used as a weapon and will not cooperate with them. That's all the hijackers used to have going for them and these terrorists blew it for them.. literally.
Why worry about people bio-engineering nastier versions when the ones that already exist (of this and other diseases with the potential to be bio-weapons) are already quite nasty enough?
Not quite nasty enough. Mostly, the viruses that are most infectious are very labile (ie they die very soon in the open air). In addition the viruses which are most deadly are not so infectious. What you really want is a combination of a virus that can live in air for a couple of days, is fiercely infectious, takes a couple of weeks to display symptoms, and then kills within hours of symptoms being displayed.
"If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?" - Will Rogers
-s
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
This seems like it's oh... a couple of centuries late (give or take) =P
"Bring out ya dead..."
E.
Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
Well, it hasn't been good for gene research here in Manhattan. All my colleagues still look like they've been shot in the gut. Seriously. I don't really feel like going to work myself.
What do you think is the limiting ingredient in molec. bio. research? It isn't money - I hate to admit it, but we have plenty. It's competent and capable people who are interested in the field. Eight years down the line we might see more people entering this field particularly because of an interest in bioterrorism (although, if they work for the US government I worry about how much of what they do will really be "defensive".) I think it's more likely that it will draw our best and brightest into the military, intelligence, etc. Sure, we'll refocus our efforts to some extent on molec. bio. that is applicable in anti-bioterrorism, but that comes at an opportunity cost. Do you think that this knowledge is really of more benefit to mankind than plant genetics? AIDS or cancer research? Would it be of more benefit if there were no lunatics with anthrax bombs? I really don't see a silver lining to this.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
They are frequent plague outbreaks in Colorado prarie dogs, California rats and rabbits. One suspected case earlier this year turned out to be another kind of pneumonia. The victim had lived next to an infected prarie dog population. In California they close the San Jacinto parks now and then because of rodent plague.
Now if they could only cure the Blue Scren of Death...
--T
http://www.theMediaBunker.com
A "bleeding plague" is torturing Afganistan refugees today. Three years of drought, twenty years of civil war, and the anticpiated US retailer have caused dreadful living conditions.
I immediataely thought of the backwards episode of Seinfeld where George (and Jerry I think) went to the apartment of Elaine's friend's fiancee's parents and they asked if she was going to India where the marriage cermenony was supposed to be. When she said yes they said they would never go to back to India because it is really dirty. Then they said, "India still has the plague. In this day and age, can you imagine" or something to that effect.
And then they recommended that they dont use the toilets while there.
Only problem with developing a vacceen for this is how the hell do you test it.
.. but still .. infecting an animal with this stuff begs the question of if we want it to get out.
Animal testing occurs all the time
/sarcasm ON!
The plague has been causing problems for mankind since the middle ages! Damned high time they finally dealt with it! Of course, if it took them this long to deal with the plague, I don't expect to see any cures for these modern diseases any time soon! Damned doctors cost too much anyway...
A friend of mine has been doing research at UND, Grand Forks. Most of the bug's DNA has been decoded for a long time. They've been cloning and disabling black death for years in their labs. Recently (this past summer), they engineered a mutant hybrid which isn't dangerous to humans. With the complete genome, they should be able to do really fun stuff with it.
After some searching, I finally found some of the Sanger Center's hardware specs (by clicking on the Compaq Nonstop link at the bottom of the main page).
Basically, they used a boat load of Alpha's (R.I.P.) -- EV5's, EV56's and EV6's --, 48 Pentium Linux machines, and some more from SGI and Sun.
Here's a link to the slide.
.. but unfortunately, it's not up on their website yet -- I just got the issue yesterday.
Apparently, the Soviets developed a strain that is resistant to antibiotics before the bio-weapons military program was shut down in the early 90s.
They worry about plauge over there the way our guys worry about anthrax over here.
BTW, they mentioned in the article that in addition to small-to-moderate sized outbreaks in third world countries, we receive a couple of cases of plague here in the U.S., mostly in the Southeast where people are infected by bites from prairie dog fleas. The plague bug lives quite happily amongst the prairie dogs -- it's only an unfortunate turn in natural selection that made it infect humans (remember, the number rule for a parasite is *DON'T KILL THE HOST*).
If it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.
Okay so the government and the general population has been very concerned about the possibility of biological or chemical attacks in the near future. Then suddenly, at a REALLY convenient time, they managed to unlock the genetic code of Bubonic Plauge. A couple possibile conspiracies come out of this:
1) They have announced this discovery as a means of alleviating some concern in the public over bio-warfare. See, we can beat bio-terrorism, don't worry, go out and keep buying things.
2) They have announced this discovery as a means of disrupting already in the works terrorist plans. Oh damn, our neat little apocalyptic bio-weapon may be completely useless. Time to go back to blowing up buildings I guess.
One would probably be the more likely of these two choices given that the time to develop something useful from the reverse-engineered genetic material would be quite a long time.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
For those who don't scorn the dead-tree format,
7 1/ qid=1002208191/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_2_1/103-6350268-028 3007\
this classic has a largish chapter devoted to
the Black Death and its effects upon medieval
society and thinking. An Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/03453495
Yahoo! or Yahoo Serious?
I am the Lord thy Language God, who hath delivered thee out of the land of bad spelling, and this I say unto thee:
Thou shalt speak of one "bacterium" and many "bacteria."
Thou shalt speak of one "virus" and many "viruses."
Thou shalt not speak of many "bacterium," and neither shalt thou speak of "virii" ever again in My hearing; for "bacterium" is singular, and "virii" is not a word, and is an abomination in My ears.
Honor these laws which I have given thee, that thy days be long and thy communications be clear.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
As I remember it the biggest problem with the "Black Plague" of the middle ages was that Bubonic plague can become Pneumonic (of the lungs) plague and then humans can infect other humans by coughing/sneezing and *that* is the reason for the wide spread of the disease. It was not necessarily because everyone had a house full of flea infested rats.
Hygine does play an obvious and important factor in all of this as bathing was seen as something to avoid in order to stay healthy.
Feel free to correct me as needed.
You could probably use the information to create a nifty biological weapon!
(Yes! I am being a cynic)
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
This will now (hopefully soon) lead to vaccinations and treatments for the disease it causes."
Actually its going to be a LONG time before anything usefull comes from this research. Gene's have nothing to do with diesese, it's the folding protiens derived from those genes that can make you sick, or cure a diesese.
--toq
In what sense is the genome "decoded"?
I though that gene sequencing is just a matter of *transcribing* the sequence, and that at that point you still have a lot of work to do to figure out what gene does what with what protein.
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That virus is called "Young Girls." Get rid of it, and nobody would buy the the boy band cds. Of course, the "Young Boys" virus would then have a lot less fun... ;)
Do not confuse duty with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different.Duty is a debt you owe to yourself.
In your version, with the "ah-choo" sneeze reference, the rhyme make good sense as a silly bit of play in which all are overcome by their own sneezing/allergies to the rosies and posies to the point at which they fall down (giggling of course, only to get up and do it again).
I could honestly see it either way. I must admit that when I read the Bubonic Plague reference, it rang as highly plausible as a sort of darkly humorous play that might have evolved in the aftermath of the plague.
The 'debunkings' I've read at Snopes and elsewhere aren't tremendously convincing to me despite the extremely self-confident tone in which they are written. In the end, though, I'd go with the allergy/sneezing/fall down idea.
**>>BELCH
I find this interesting because the bubonic plague infects the human body by the same means as HIV (by attaching to a receptor on the cell membrane, which is normally responsible for inflammation around cuts/etc.) Perhaps this discovery will be beneficial to AIDS patients.
On a side note, natural selection has made many people of European descent are resistant to HIV. A small percentage are actually entirely immune.
Funnier than most of your posts...
"Eat a Dead Gay Baby for Jesus!"
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
For "cracking" my IP, these people are in violation of the DMCA.
This is God's lawyer.
... the bubonic plague happened hundreds of years ago, when everyone grew boobs on their necks.
Hence the name "bubonic".
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this one of the big fallacies of genetic research, oft propagated by gullible journalists, i.e. the implicit assumption that now that we have "decoded" the genetic makeup of some disease organism we are able to effect a cure? Isn't it also true that knowing which gene in the human body is responsible for a particular illness/condition does not necessarily mean we can cure the condition? As an example, we've known the gene responsible for cystic fibrosis for 20 some years, yet there is no cure.
"Mit der Dummheit kaempfen Goetter selbst vergebens." - Schiller
Now if only they could crack the genome of the Blue (Screen of) Death.
1 Small molecule metabolism
- 1.A Degradation
[18]
- 1.A.1 Carbon compounds
[66]
- 1.A.2 Amino acids
[23]
- 1.B Energy metabolism
- 1.B.1 Glycolysis
[12]
- 1.B.10 Glyoxylate bypass
[3]
- 1.B.2 Pyruvate dehydrogenase
[4]
- 1.B.3 Tricarboxylic acid cycle
[15]
- 1.B.5 Pentose phosphate pathway
[3]
- 1.B.5.a Oxidative branch
- 1.B.5.b Non-oxidative branch
[4]
- 1.B.6 Entner-Doudoroff pathway
[2]
If you're a biologist or just curious you should definitely check this out. I wish I had this kind of info when I did a report on the Black Plague in High School!Tired of free ipod spam sigs? Opt ou
A similar procedure is used to extract DNA in a scientific lab. Interesting stuff.
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Is Cracking dna like reverse-engineering dna? What DMCA say about that?