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Morse Code Used by Human Cells?

Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers from several universities and drug companies in the U.K. have discovered that our cells are using Morse-like signals to switch genes on and off. The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) write that this discovery may have major implications for the pharmaceutical industry. Better and more efficient drugs would only deliver the signals to our cells that will activate a desired behavior. Sounds like science fiction? Read more for other details, references and pictures."

5 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Re:No shit? by shawb · · Score: 4, Informative

    Well, it's been known that they use a pattern in that the arrangement of base units in a line represents a pattern. AFAIK it has not been general knowledge in the biology community that there is a temporal pattern involved with this activation as well. And DNA turning on and off is a little simplistic, there are such things as rate of transcription, how many simultaneous transcriptions occur, etc.

    --
    I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
  2. Re:Binary Code by Ellis+D.+Tripp · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, there are 4 units in morse code, the dash, the dot, the space between letters, and a longer space between words.

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    Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
  3. Everyone who replies to this article... by NoMoreNicksLeft · · Score: 5, Informative

    Is just letting that turd Roland Piquepaille get more publicity for his blog. We need a slashdot boycott of these artciles, somehow. While we can't not reply (if we do, some loser or another will just reply anyway), maybe we can drown it out with comments that are uniform enough to get Taco's attention.

    I propose everyone comment (whether at thread root or in reply) with a subject of "Stop the Roland Piquepaille assfest now!" and a body of the same. If out of 150 comments, 80 or 90 of them were these, would they not at least give it some consideration?

  4. Another Roland Piquepaille blog post? by jdgeorge · · Score: 5, Informative

    Perhaps this is a bit off-topic, but...

    Various posts have appeared recently concerning the frequent appearance of articles like this one, submitted by Roland Piquepaille, containing links to what appears to be sparsely annotated collection text and images copied from other sources.

    It appears that Roland is successfully using Slashdot to generate advertising revenue for this "blog" (which sadly seems to have marginally higher editing standards than Slashdot itself). Perhaps he should be formally added to the Slashdot staff and made an editor instead of paying him informally in this way.

    The result might be improved Slashdot editing, and fewer links to a mediocre blog.

  5. Stop the Roland Piquepaille nightmare! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    For christ's sake, if I read another ad for this asshole's fucking blog _where he doesn't even actually write any of the fucking content_, it'll be too fucking soon. Why the fuck do the editors insist on promoting this no-talent assclown?

    Dammit, it took fucking _forever_ for Katz to go away. Not fucking looking forward to doing that again, but looks like we're right back to it.