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Computational Genomics

Posted by michael on from the throw-more-cpu-at-the-problem dept.

blamanj writes "Scientists at UC Santa Cruz have been using computational techniques to 'reverse engineer' the DNA of extinct species. David Haussler and colleagues created a hypothetical portion of ancestral mammalian DNA and let a computer model simulate the process of evolution. Then they made their algorithm work backward from these descendants, to see if it could recreate the original ancestor."

2 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Reverse enginering by Lenale · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It does sound a bit fishy... I just attended a lecture on DNA-focused biophysics the other day, and they were all about "we won't be able to compute it for years, but..." And by the way, as the article said, we're quite a bit behind the rodents in losing bases... let's make babies :)

  2. Re:Reverse enginering by Anders+Andersson · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I would compare it to analyzing languages spoken today to determine how the language they descend from (such as proto-indoeuropean) may once have sounded. While many indoeuropean languages are mutually unintelligible today, they share certain fundamental elements that are best explained by them having been present from the start. It's not an exact science, of course.