DNA Goes Binary

Anonymous Coward writes "Chemists in the United States have constructed the simplest possible genetic language. Like Morse or binary code, it has only two letters - but it can orchestrate some of the basic molecular reactions needed for life to evolve."

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Not exactly.

[The Monster]

Chemists in the United States have constructed the simplest possible genetic language.

What they've found is that they can build a functional ribozyme out of diaminopurine and uracil.

We've all probably seen perfectly valid i86 machine code entirely composed of printable ASCII, too, (I recall one which could be used to convert binaries to emailable text, which was used to post DOS utilities back in the day) but that doesn't make it a 'language' that the processor understands

Re:Not exactly.

[Ieshan]

You're missing the point. You changed the form of the thing when you tried to fit it into a computer analogy.

It's a serious biological discovery, in some respects - it makes the DNA system more plausible on early earth, and it's a much simpler system which DNA could have grown out of.

Your analogy makes this sound like wasted effort "just to prove it's possible", their work is part of research to explain the evolution of the genome.

Re:Does Morse not have three codes?

[pete-classic]

It's a synchronous protocol. It is also a binary protocol. The line is either high or nominally zero. A dit is a short interval of current. A dah is an interval of current about three times as long as a dit. A dit length pause represents a space between characters, a three dit pause between words, and a seven dit length pause represents a space between sentences.

How long a dit is depends on the skill of the operator(s).

My only qualifications are that 1. I look at a portrait of S. Morse all day* and 2. I can STFW.

-Peter

*Really. I'm currently weathering the tech job crunch as a security guard at First Data Corp, of which Western Union is a subsidiary.

Re:Binary computers? How long before base4 compute

[Jester99]

The problem is one of line noise. In binary computing, your lines are either conveying a 1 (voltage high) or a zero (voltage nil).

If you were to go to four states, now instead of having +0V and +5V, you now also have +1.5V and +3.5V representing different states of the quad-bit.

Fluxuations in the system's power do not easily switch a line from +5 to 0, or vice versa, but could easily switch 3.5 to 5. The more signals you try to carry on a given line, the more suceptible that line is to noise. Obviously, by increasing your max voltage, you could separate your signals more, and take care of it that way, but that's not a solution; you'd be less power-efficient, you'd generate a lot more heat, and all sorts of bad things would happen.

In short, binary is Simple. And that's why it works. Once you start trying to get into multiple voltage levels, you make things far trickier.

Re:Why 4 bases?

[Fnkmaster]

What you are doing is applying the anthropic principle, so-called because it is essentially an appeal to the fact that it is the way it is because we are here to ask it. Perhaps that sounds silly when reduced to its essence, but fundamentally what you are saying follows this basic pattern. The problem with this is trying to figure out what things, numbers or observations in our universe should be open to 'scientific explanation' and which should be written off to the anthropic principle. If you accept such a principle, it seems like you can essentially draw any arbitrary line and call the things on one side of the line open to scientific inquiry and the others not ("they just are that way" "why?" "just cuz." or "cuz you are here to ask why they are that way").

As a physicist by training (though not by profession), I take issue with this basic principle. The fine structure constant, e, pi, hbar, c.... these are all "weird" constants we observe in various places in the universe. Some of them have deeper meaning that we have discovered, or at least relationships that connect otherwise seemingly disparate areas of math, physics, or whatever. Some, as far as we know, are still arbitrary free parameters. As I remember it, the Standard Model currently has something like 5 or 6 free parameters in it.... if you fix these, you get all of modern physics to pop out (well, roughly like that). Are these random? Are they arbitrary? We don't know yet, but we shouldn't stop asking the questions.

Also, I know there are different forms of the anthropic principle (weak and strong) - I forget the exact distinction, and I believe what we are describing more or less corresponds to the strong form. The weak form is more watered down and palatable to a general scientific audience. :)

DNA of Famous People

[Jugalator]

Normal human
A, T, G, C.

Bill Gates
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, ... oh, you get the picture.

Linus Torvalds
A and T only, since G can be encoded with an AT pair and C with TA. Consequently, G and C are redundant if we allow a special escape character between the codes, such as A|T|AT|TA. Thereby, we save one code since only three would be required in total.

Average /.-er
1 and 0.

Average /. Editor
A, A, T, T, G, G, C and C.

Ellen Feiss
0.

The people of SOVIET RUSSIA
C, G, T and A.

Hilary Rosen
D, M, C and A.

I'm Not Convinced

[Anonymous Coward]

* The more likely operator during those early days would have been something with only 2 bases.

This is pure conjecture. The *early days* could have well been a mixture of many purines and pyrimidines, and the AGCT and U won out in the replication arena due to the thermodynamic stability/instability of their base pairing (A+T, G+C in DNA and A+U, G+C and G+U in RNA). If diaminopurine was a major player, then it should have survived. It didn't, so there is really no reason to believe that it ever was a major (if any) player in the genetic game.

Something even cooler about DNA

[frenchs]

Ya ya, who cares. I'm a biology minor, and computer science major, and this article wasn't particullarly interesting to me even. ;)

You wanna see something cool... how about DNA having a parity bit?? Take a peek....
http://www.academicpress.com/inscight/09112002/gra phb.htm

And another something else also cool...

[Guppy]

"You wanna see something cool... how about DNA having a parity bit?? Take a peek...."

Here's another something else interesting -- the equivalent of a DNA RAID Array, found in the microbe Deinococcus radiodurans. This particular bacterium has the distinction of being the most radiation-resistant organism known.

D. radiodurans posses four copies of its circular chromosome, stacked together like a roll of Lifesavers. This alignment allows for fast and efficient repair of any errors.