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Science Magazine's Highlight Of 2002
gingerTabs writes "BBC News is reporting that the 2002 Science Magazine highlight of 2002 is the discovery of the small RNA molecule. Whould've thunk it, eh?"
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you're just so used to seeing those huge 9-inch RNA molecules you don't realize that the average human RNA molecule is roughly 5 inches long. (for caucasians.. african american RNA is closer to a 6-inch average) this length is, in fact, the most comfortable length for carrying the human genetic code. my RNA is roughly 3.5 inches long, and I'm quite proud of it. so's my wife.
It ought to be noted that the SNO guys that did all the hardwork to find out what was going on with the neutrinos used PDSF, a large linux cluster used in a batch farm configuration. The Japanese observatory that verified the work also used PDSF, as I understand.
The PDSF guys got a lot of thank yous and praise for the help they gave in building, running, and growing their cluster. PDSF as a result has been getting a lot of kudos from the NERSC management. With any luck that will translate into better backing.
At any rate, I thought I'd include them since /. readers like to hear how Linux is used IRL science.
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
No, it was first discovered in 1993. But back then it was considered as anomaly. Now, the scientists figured out about what it is.
Here's a more detailed info.
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You're thinking of tRNAs - transfer RNAs, which are in the 70-100 nucleotide range. Small RNAs are generally below this - right down to a dozen or so nucleotides or less in some cases. I work in a lab that does a fair bit of small RNA work, and the tRNAs are right up at the top of all our gels as the "big" RNAs in the population.
Now that's science I like!
Read the article will ya:
They don't say they discovered RNA, they say they found out that RNA does something we didn't know it did.
You can't take the sky from me...
This is a very narrow view of the tremendous progress being made in drug design.
Most drugs on the market today were discovered either fortuitously or through maticulous screening of candidate compounds.
Over the past two decades, pogress in biotechnology and chemistry have begun an industry wide evolution from drug dicovery to rational design of pharmaceuticals.
On experimental front, our maturing ability to decode and manipulate genetic information and proteins structures have given us powerful new ways of investigating the mechanisms governing agents or processes that cause disease. At the same time, new robotic screening tools have given us the ability to assay thousands of chemicals simultaneously while MEMS and nanotechnology such as biofunctionalized cantilevers are beginning to allow us to peer into the complex chemistry at work inside cells.
However, up to now, these new experimental methods have not produced significant gains in the output of pharmaceuticals because we are still not able to efficiently process the tremendous amount of information necessary to design new drugs. For example, while automated compound screening systems could screen thousands of chemicals in a short period, the search for a chemical that binds specifically to a drug target will typically involve millions of compounds. In other words, though our experimental methods are impressive int their speed, power, and efficiency, they still fall far short of our requirements. What we need are ways to filter through tremendously large amounts of information to arrive at the few pertinent that we can uses to conduct experiments.
What is exciting is that these methods are coming online as a result of the increase in computational power and the development of sophisticated bioinformatics and computational chemistry software. Over the next five to ten years, we will begin to truly reap the rewards of rational drug design as a new generation of software tools that search and organize genetic information, predict protein structures and functions, and automatically screen for ligand specific binding agents begin cranking out thousands of good experimental candidates to be used as input by our improved experimental methods. Only then, when we have relieved the problem of information glut, will we see the true power of rational drug design.
That's like saying that the discovery of the atom has brought us closer to finding a cure for AIDS
First of all AIDS is not the disease, HIV is the disease, AIDS is the final and most often fatal stage of an HIV infection.
The rRNA and the mRNA transcript the DNA and send it to another cell to be replicated
Um, no. DNA is replicated in the cell's own nucleus it doesn't get transfered to another cell to get replicated and sent back.
Sure, it has obviously, but almost every damn cell has RNA in it.
That maybe true but HIV is not a bacteria, which are cells, it is a virus and being a virus is not a cell, though they do have a lipid bi-layer envelope they don't make it themselves but rather steal it from a host cell.
So of course HIV has RNA to carry the message, everything does
well not exactly, HIV is a virus, most viruses only have DNA in them in broken bits because viruses contrary to popular oppinion are not actually alive (they can't reproduce on their own so they don't officially count as being alive). HIV is somewhat special in that it is a retrovirus which means that once it enters your cells it releses its RNA into your cells, the RNA reverse transcribes itself into DNA and integrates its newly created DNA segments into the DNA of your cell turning your cell into a factory for making more HIV and inhibiting the function of the infected cell, HIV has a particullar affinity for the cells of the immune system like macrophages and CD4 cells whcih is why people eventually get AIDS though anit-retroviral drugs and protease inhibitors have prolonged the period before AIDS develops.