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DNA So Dangerous It Doesn't Exist
Panaqqa writes "A group of researchers at Boise State University is investigating the theory that there are genome sequences so dangerous they are incompatible with life. Greg Hampikian, a professor of genetics, and his team are comparing all possible short sequences of nucleotides to databases of gene sequences to determine which ones don't exist in nature. The New Scientist reports that the US Department of Defense is interested enough in their work to have awarded them a $1 million grant. I for one am not sure I like the possible directions this research could take."
Just like the Monty Python sketch "the Funniest Joke in the World", developing something that kills itself too quickly isn't going to get propagated far without a lot of effort!
Suicide genes that can be activated at a later date?
I - am - not - a - machi --*Boom*
I, for one, welcome our new incompatible non-existing overlords.
Maybe these 'dangerous' sequences are simply too broken to allow something to live.
Imagine a mouse with a DNA sequence that makes it want to run into mousetraps when it reaches a certain age. Obviously something like won't have much of a chance to procreate.
Given (most of ?) the research made by the DoD, maybe it should change its name to Department of Attack ? Or Murder Inc. ?
Sitting on the bus home, I considered what might happen if chemical weapons could be developed that attacked based on DNA sequences.
Think about it for a moment, it's horrifying.
I for one am not sure I like the possible directions this research could take.
Well, quite. Gene replacement therapy with ones that aren't compatible with life. At all. A project run by the US DOD. "Bound to end in tears" doesn't even start to cover it. Great.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
When I first read the title I though it was about a new theory of some religious group trying to say that DNA is dangerous because it proves the theory of evolution so some school board declared that it does not exist.
Maybe there is some DNA that codes for 666 or that translates to "Hell freezes over".
But I know that DNA is really coding 42.
There are already such animals, only in viral version.
Life is a Game. Play to Win.
Actually, Israel has a project going to identify genetic sequences in Arabs that could be used in biological warfare. I wish I was making this up, but I'm not. My worry is that someday they have a lab accident and this stuff gets out and accidently kills off humanity through unforeseen side effects.
Especially stupid are searches for amino-acid sequences. Some of the sequences do not make structural sense, obviously.
And what about "dangerous"? Obviously, if the sequence is so crappy that it makes the working conformation of every structural RNA or protein disfunctional then it won't be reproduced. Never.
More interesting would be to find out why some sequences are not encountered also in non-coding areas. But "danger"???
Give me a break. This is as stupid as stupid goes.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
First of all, I am doing research in computational biology. I just read the paper linked from his webpage at http://biology.boisestate.edu/hampikian and I have to say that this is one of the worse papers I have ever read. First of all, I can literally write a program to do all that he proposed in about 10 minutes. Give me the $1 mil, I'll do the research. Although the idea of systematically finding nullomers can have practical applications, there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO evidence that they are incompatible with life. And wow, isn't this the eye catching title that we see on /. The numbers of nullomers that he found in the human genome, for example, looks like they are in line with expectation given a genome genome that is AT rich (more A and T nucleotides than G / C nucleotide). Because the human genome is finite (only about 3 billion nucleotides), of course you are going to find DNA sequence even at only 11 bases long that do not exist in the human genome. Just do the math! 4^11 = 4.2 billion. It makes me so furious that our government wastes so much money on useless stuff.
There may also be some that are lethal in some species, but not others. We're looking for those sequences.
This article reminds me of a doomsday hypothesis I once read. Daniel Pouzzner [mega.nu] posted this some time ago on his website:
It is quite likely that the Endangered Species Act and similar policies will continue to be enforced, setting large areas of land (and associated natural resources) out of the reach of interested industries. Corporations in these industries will create a demand for black market genetic bullet engineering, by which obstacle species can be purged, freeing the land for industrial exploitation. The profit motive is overwhelming; the resources at issue are worth trillions of today's dollars annually. An engineer who can target species on demand can obviously target humans, or even subsets of humans, if he wants to. Black markets by definition are not subject to regulatory scrutiny, and of course tend to be populated by unsavory and low characters. The environmentalist extremists (many of whom are well-financed or independently wealthy) will retain the services of some of these black market operators, to "fight back" (as they see it) on behalf of the species being targeted for/by the corporations. This will probably culminate in a doomsday bug.
Ok, I'm not a DNA expert by any means, but doesn't DNA sequences bear some similarities to code/machine language (or maybe I'm just a nerd) ? I guess what they're saying is that there are bad/buggy/dangerous DNA sequences (code) that don't exist naturally. Does that mean that God is a good programmer?
Well, as the Israeli say: "Make sure it never happens again... to us!"
DNA makes protein. Let's say there are DNA sequences which lead to protein so poisonous no cell can take it. Implant the DNA in a creature (plant/cell/animal). Whaaaw, now we have a creature which... kills itself??? It is not like there are no proteins available which are lethal to man but can be tolerated by other creatures: snake venom, certain plant extracts. The whole point of this is that no creature can take it.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Sooo that missile silo that just retracted its cover is obviously non-exis... hey, WHO'S PLAYING GAMES ON WOPR AGAIN?!
Me failed English...
FreeBSD over Linux. If my comments seem odd, this may explain...
I'd consider it more likely that a lab "accident" causes it to kill off the Palestinian population, or possibly even the majority of the Arab world. All it takes is one wrong person in the right place at the right time. And the majority of current leaders in Israel fit every criterion but "right time" at the moment.
Of course, I'd hate for them to pick up this idea, but they've probably thought about it already:
If they are willing to sacrifice the majority of their population as well, they could create a biological weapon that targets everyone except the Ashkenazi jews. That particular group is probably one of the most studied groups out there because they almost never breed with outsiders, so tons of interesting stuff can be found from their DNA. (Note that I'm using the word "breed" as a technical, not derogatory, term here)
I'd like a grant to theorise about a few things:
1) the "Rabbit that is so dangerous it can cut your head off"
- I believe most of my research will be around the castle Aaaaaargh.
2) The "Chuck Norris move that's so dangerous that it doesn't exist"
- Even chuck norris would perhaps have to spend more than 20 minutes researching it.
3) the "solution to the iraq war which is so useful it doesn't exist"
- and now I've passed from the plausible to the ridiculous, sorry about that.
K.
Aren't Jews and Arabs quite close genetically? They look quite similar. I'd imagine a virus that kills one would probably kill the other as well. Sounds like a good idea anyway.
Well that's just stupid. "Race" isn't really anything. There are very few genes which actually differ between such groups. You'd think maybe Asians have genes for their eyes but that same gene exists elsewhere... take a look at Bjork. You'd really be shooting yourself in the foot. As for the difference between Jews and Arabs, there aren't many. As in none, genetically you can't tell them apart.
Let's say you wanted to kill all blonds. You make a virus that becomes active when it contacts the sequence for blond hair. Assuming you did something to make sure the recessive gene didn't just strike carriers too, you'd end killing blonds and gingers. Ginger is simply red-red, blond-blond genes, whereas blonds are Not-red-* blond-blond. Not-red is a dominate gene, whereas red is recessive.
Really, you'd want to do the old death camp method. You need to sort them out based on a rather non-existent grouping... that is something only racists can do, not viruses.
You think there is some gene that defines a race... there really isn't. There are certain genes which exist in varied frequency but none that are that isolated. You might be able to wipe out a village with some rare mutation but, otherwise you're going to create something that just starts killing people off pretty much at random.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
As mankind reaches closer to controlling reality as a computer program, perhaps it is necessary for all countries to sign on a global contract on what should be allowed and what not. It may not ultimately save us from eugenic wars, but it will minimize the risk of someone toggling the life switch off at will.
Run! It's the antichrist!
Take life easy: one bit at a time.
scientists will have solved the riddle of extending life to 1000 years and will sequence all of our genes so we die at age 72 because it's too expensive to offer state run healthcare to people over the age of 72.
thought about the anti-life equation ?
There was one Racial WMD program against black people in south africa when they had that Apartheid shit going on, it had something to do with circle cells, I think that is a cell type that only black africans have.
Nature generally selects proteins that fold well, because it leads to some stable function. Nature therefore selects DNA sequences that code for such proteins. Rare/nonexistant DNA sequences code for rare/nonexistant proteins that are unlikely to have a stable fold. It is probably worth investigating just in case a few of those have interesting function. The research equivalent of going through someone's garbage. $1 million doesn't go very far these days, so it sounds about right. Why is this in the headlines, again?
It's like scientifically searching for EVIL(TM).
Over a couple of Beers at the pub an interesting discussion, but NOT something one should really engage in.
For those of you who would like to read the original article (and not just the summary in New Scientist), it is available here.
``I for one am not sure I like the possible directions this research could take.''
You mean that it could be used to manufacture new weapons? I don't know if having n+1 ways to kill is really much worse than having n ways, given that n is already as large as it is.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Just like in DNA, there are words so dangerous that they don't exist. Here's one of them: sdlnfnerooij. Use it with care and send me the check. Most DNA does something, or is a slightly mutated version of a sequence that does something (like endogenous retroviruses). So its like a language with some spelling mistakes - of course there are lots of sequences that won't be there. And if you look at long enough strings, there have to be some missing.
Or--knowing Israel--that it will be used, and have unforeseen side effects (as in a certain Babylon 5 episode).
In conclusion, we were right, it doesn't exist, thanks for the million bucks.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
....that the remaining 990 000 dollars obviously go to BSU's football team.
A group of PR hacks at Nowhere University is investigating the theory that there are word sequences so dangerous they are incomprehensible to life. Grog Hanky-napkin, a professor of pressreleaseology, and his team are comparing all possible short sequences of words to databases of soundbytes to determine which ones don't make any sense at all. The New Talking Head reports that the US Department of Defense is interested enough in their work to have awarded them a $1 grant. I for one am not sure I like the possible directions this research could take - because I can't figure out what in the ghod damn they're talking about.
"Slapping lipstick on a pig does NOT make it Natalie Portman. Paris Hilton, maybe, but not Portman." - UncleTogie
Could this be used to attack cancer cells?
What are the DoD going to do; shoot me with a bullet impregnated with a mutagen?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I don't know anything about the credentials of this research lab but the project does seem interesting. There are lots of published papers showing that short peptide sequences (~10 amino acids (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db= pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=16 135080&query_hl=4&itool=pubmed_docsum)have potent effects on processes such as neural development, cell differentiation, cell survival etc. Whilst 10aa equates to 30 base pairs in DNA which is 3x bigger than those going to be investigated in the article, it just goes to show that there could be out there random sequences of DNA which could be translated into toxic peptides.
It's not all doom and gloom - Imagine coupling a masked "kill" sequence to an antibody targeted to cancer cells - upon reaching it's target, through proteolytic degradation it could be converted into a potential anticancer drug.
Discoveries such as these don't necessarily have to spell destruction to the world.
...try feeding invalid parameters to Something Much Bigger, as described here.
is some DNA with laser beams attached to its head. Someone throw me a bone here...?
I can take a guess as to what strand might be incompatible with life... Here's one famous one:
H-H-S-O-O-O-O (repeating)
If I recall, the first test case was the famous "Little Johnny" who was, after the test, a Little Johnny no more.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
>"I for one am not sure I like the possible directions this research could take."
not sure? possible directions?
well then get back to us when you ARE sure about something and maybe we'll listen to your opinion then. otherwise sit down and stfu.
Program an organism to self destruct before it becomes a permanent danger.
NO CARRIER
I don't think that's what he was referring to, I think he was referring to the bucket full of crack he smoked earlier.
What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
People who write "circle cells" instead of "sickle cells" probably don't know what research is, dear. Not that you're helping, with thinking that having sickle cells is the same thing as having sickle-cell anemia. Sickle-cell anemia is caused by an excess of sickle cells. Sickle cells, themselves, are common in people who live in certain regions, as they help protect against malaria. The presence of sickle cells probably would be a useful marker for parts of the black population that descended from certain areas.
To be translated it needs much more than coding sequence for those 10 residues.
The point is that relating the absence of oliugopeptides or oligonucleotides in genomes to the "danger", "threat", etc. is redefining the phrase "long shot" for me.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/110947.stm
EOM
"It's an imperfect world,screws fall out..."
I for one am not sure I like the possible directions this research could take.
well, I for one welcome our new bio-engineered overlords...
Given that most Arabs in the world would like to see all Jews dead, I can't say that I blame them...
I think it's important that we research potentially dangerous theories like this. The US has a bad rep as war mongers but so has every superpower in history. I'm not arguing how valid that may be, just saying. Part of a good defense is a good offense, but also a good defense is just knowing more about everything than the other guy. That's why the DoD funds some crazy projects. The million bucks sounds like a lot but not so much compared to the huge budget. Also, in true /. form, I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some other initiatives included in the study that aren't as well documented.
the more miserable you are now, the funnier the story will be later
Stop the FUD, nature is already eliminating embryos who have DNA incompatible with life through miscarriages.
Also, the article states that the 1 million $ grant was to develop "safety tags" which would be like entering a comment in computer code to identify it's version. This would tag the DNA sequence to identify it from forensic samples. Nothing that makes me panic here either.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
...the law of unintended consequences.
Nor do they understand that people with good intentions can do what will turn out to be very, very bad things simply because they believe We Have To Do It Before Our Enemies Do.
It's great research with some claimed good intentions. You should be scared.
(spoiler reference. You either know the international TV show or you don't.)
Did'nt we learn anything from Species, (other than Natasha Henstidge is a hottie)
This is the dumbest thing I've seen posted on /. in a very long time. Lets suppose that you are right, and they are conducting this research. First, the genetic differences between races is very slight, and those very slight differences would be as hard to identify as they would be to target in a method that would kill the enemy (instead of just changing their skin colour). Second, there is such a thing as an Arab with Israeli citizenship, and those people would be killed in the process. Systematically killing an undesirable portion of the population is something that Israelis would likely be VERY against (otherwise it would be a tad hypocritical otherwise, no?). Lastly, there existence of Arabs and Jews in Palestine prior to the formation of the state of Israel would indicate that there is probably a degree of homogeneity between those pre-existing populations. So, if this were true, the Israelis are looking for something that would fit in the eye of a needle in a haystack, would commit genocide (thats a tough pill to swallow for victims of a genocide) and could wipe out a portion of the Jewish population as well.
Or, you could be talking out of your a$$ and just fear mongering.
... when the first DNA weapon makes you grow donkey ears and a tail. Of course this will be to reflect your political views. Could be worse, you could grow an elephant trunk and ears!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
I'm worried that such an accident would kill off the Sephardic Jews as well, while leaving the ethnically Eastern European Ashkenazim untouched.
...that the U.S. D.O.D. would be interested in this. There are people in this world who are completely wrong in the head; ...to the point where having NO survivors in an all out war would be considered a victory. "Yeah, no one would survive. But at least the enemy would be eliminated". That is the only thing a weapon (bio, nuclear, chemical, etc...) that assures complete destruction of all life would be useful for.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I applaud this research. Just think of the possibilities! If this pans out, they'll soon be able to genetically engineer non-living, non-biological materials with absolutely no chance of the substance being able to self-replicate!
Here's a heading along the same lines: "Researchers seeking a substance so poisonous it might kill you. DOD shows interest. I don't like where this is headed."
Not really but I'm sure this kind of thing exists. Plenty of mutations are not comaptible for life and a lot these mutations are in DNA. It honestly seems like common sense that there are genetic sequences that would cause someone to die. Don't we already know about a lot of these like all the genetic diseases out there that cause death. Like people that are allergic to water or sunlight. Maybe I'm missing something but this doesn't seem to deserve a million dollar budget.
WTF?
Viruses are not animals. Whether viruses even qualify as life is still hotly debated. Viruses can replicate, but only in the presence of a suitable host and not by themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus
Wait, when did Darkseid start working for the DOD?
It would be better to make a table of flags. Initialize all of them to zero. Scan the genome only once and set the flag corresponding to each sequence that is present. Then scan for flags that are still zero. This would be much faster than searching the whole genome for the presense of each possible sequence. It would probably run to completion in a few minutes. Heck, replace "flag" with "counter" and see which sequences are most common at the same time...
if it doesn't exist!
Aw, come on. That was hilarious!
Always nice to see paranoid anti-Semitism on Slashdot.
The statistical distribution of repeated subsequences in natural language follows a power law. Encrption and decryption seeks to distrupt or detect such. DNA seems to follow that pattern too. The non-protein coding parts of DNA- about 98% that of human- seems to indicate it is conveying information, but people haven't quite figured it out. It might be modifying nearby coding DNA or generating short-live RNA (2005 Nobel chemistry and medicine prizes0 or doing something else.
Bond Villain: Now Mr Bond, prepare to die in the most horrifically evil way known to man as we resequence your genome with incompatible DNA! Let's see you get out of this one! Bond Villain's Aide: Sir, couldn't we just, you know, shoot him?
"If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all"
Most DNA sequences are incompatible with life. For example, it is well known that Down's syndrome is caused by have three copies of chromosome 22 instead of the normal two. Why are there not syndromes associated with having three copies of chromosomes 1 through 21? Because they are not viable past a very early stage, and most spontaneously abort.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
It silently explodes but mutates nearby living organisms causing their DNA sequences to produce the deadly combination and whamo!
So, the old Polonium-210 routine doesn't work any more?
Hopefully is will not mutate and live in the wild and destory all life on the planet. Who needs nuclear weapons anyway, when we can just create a supervirus? http://fbsolawyer.com/
Riiiiight. Because there's no homosexual activity going on in prisons at all, thus no way for a venereal disease tested on prisoners to quickly spread to the gay community.
Does anyone else see the reductive reasoning of the researchers? If a sequence doesn't exist in nature, then it must be deadly! Occam would state that no, it's simply that it must have been less useful than any other sequences throughout the history of life on this planet, thus it has been selected for against.
Were I to use the reserachers' logic, I'd have to conclude that no mail showed up in my mailbox on Tuesday because the mailman was murdered.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Sounds a lot like the Omega Molecule.
It was the extinct 90 percent.
DooM
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
It's an expression. If I compared viruses and bacteria, and you replied that it was comparing apples and oranges, that doesn't mean you're saying either viruses or bacteria are fruit. I can't believe I just wrote this.
Yes, I know there's more to a virus than the bit of opportunist genetic code - there's a crunchy shell, the sweet polysaccharide component used to gain entry to cell walls, and the creamy DNA/RNA nougat interior. It seems to me that the so-called "missing" sequences are more likely to prove non-viable, posessing no life-giving or life-enhancing properties. That would seem a more likely explaination for their absence in nature than asserting that those sequences are toxic to all other life (since the ability to destroy competing organisms would confer an advantage on an organism, and since no organism has evolved to use these sequences to advantage I find it likelier that the gene sequences in question are useless, not toxic).
Then again, this could be a Wildire situation, code to read: Andromeda. Green goo, anyone?
This sounds a lot like the the concept of "ice-9", the high-temperature water crystal that Kurt Vonnegut wrote about in his famous novel Cat's Cradle. Physicists have suggested an explanation why it can't exist, and the explanation would seem to apply as well to this concept of "kill-everything" DNA, too.
In the case of ice-9, the argument is that the Earth has existed for 4.5 billion years or so, and for at least 4 billion years has been mostly covered with a kilometers-deep ocean. There are trillions and trillions of water molecules in the ocean, mostly at a temperature above 375K and bouncing around against each other in all possible patterns. If there were a possible ice crystal that's stable above the ocean's mean temperature, the random bouncing and quantum fluxuations over 4 billion years would have produced a small crystal at some time, and the oceans would have frozen solid at that point. This hasn't happened, so we have to conclude that no such high-temperature crystalline water form can exist.
A similar argument could easily be made against the idea of something (DNA, prion, virus, whatever) that kills all living things. The sheer magnitude of DNA and proteins on the planet, plus all the recombination (due to radiation, quantum fluxuations, whatever) that is known to happen, would have long ago produced such a particle, we'd all be extinct, and the Earth would be barren.
Of course, something a bit less virulent, that only kills its host, is quite likely. You have lots of things inside you that, if they break, you die. But that's not too dangerous to anyone around you, unless you're the one driving the car.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Especially stupid are searches for amino-acid sequences. Some of the sequences do not make structural sense, obviously.
Wouldn't it be nice to know what these are? I'm not too sure how extensive or accurate the current list of structural improbabilities is.
And what about "dangerous"? Obviously, if the sequence is so crappy that it makes the working conformation of every structural RNA or protein disfunctional then it won't be reproduced.
I don't think you meant to say that, reproducing organisms often code for nonfunctional RNA and proteins.
More interesting would be to find out why some sequences are not encountered also in non-coding areas. But "danger"???
More interesting would be to caluclate on a per organism basis at what frequency such sequences are expected to occur, so we at least know if we are seeing anything significant. The other problem is that sequences may be missing which are formerly lethal, but not currently to the organism.
Danger is certainly possible too. It is very easy to envision protein, RNA (maybe less so trans acting regulatory elements) that can induce lethality in an organism. Why do you not think this is possible? Knowing these sequences has obvious implications for both gene therapy and drug design. I don't think this research is worthless at all. Of course I work in the field, so perhaps I'm a litle biased.
Given the ease with which oligonucleotides (DNA sequences of varying length) can be ordered these days, how do we determine which sequences will be allowable for purchase and by whom? Currently there are few restrictions on purchasing sequences.
Arabs are also semites... A more accurate prejudice would make this selective-Semitism, not anti-Semitism
Mind the frickin' laser...
Actually, while this technology could potentially be used as a weapon, just as nearly anything can be, its an important control mechanism.
Think about it. How can you mitigate a genetic experiment from causing damage? This is it. It is absolutely needed.
How can this development be most effectively monetized? To my way of thinking that would be as a terminator sequence to protect someone's intellectual property. Think about it, if I was a seed company or any biotech firm I and everyone was using my stuff how can I enforce payment? If someone doesn't pay the licensing fee, I just turn it off. Better yet, if I can sneak my technology into the wild then I can demand payment from those with no intention of using my patented tech, assuming a sufficient spread, I could turn off large portions of anyone's crops. Make a few examples of farmers and the rest will have to fall in line because they don't want to take a chance that their contaminated too! Alternately, they could make their product dependent on a certain other product they sell to survive, the possibilities are endless.
This is the danger I see, mainly 'cause it's already happening, albeit to a lesser extent. The trick is just get it legalized with a whole bunch of legitimate, useful applications like tagging.
Biogenic Weapons, anyone?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
This is not a new search technique and is actually a very wise one. I remember hearing a story of mathematitians in WWII that were pressed into service by the Air Force to analyze returning planes damage. They mapped all the damage on the planes and they found blank spots on there composite maps of damage. These blank spots were the critical areas that if there was damage, the plane did not return.
They were looking at for the spots on the planes that needed armor, they only wanted to put armor where it was critical to do so because the minimum weight means maximum range.
This exploration for missing patterns is the same logic. Because of mutations many sequences will have variations. But if some areas never show mutations or some sequences never come up then these life forms cant sustain life (probably). This would help answer the question what is necesary and sufficient in DNA for a viable life form.
No, South Africa did research bio-weapons that would selectively kill-off black/African folks.
Unfortunately, the details in this article are slim:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Coast
To be translated it needs much more than coding sequence for those 10 residues.
A larger protein containing that sequence could be spliced after translation.
The point is that relating the absence of oliugopeptides or oligonucleotides in genomes to the "danger", "threat", etc. is redefining the phrase "long shot" for me.
You're right, the absence itself doesn't prove anything, but it's a nice jumping off point to the followup study. I'm also not so sure it is a long shot.
no dna will be passed on that can't live to make further copies of itself.
What about the sequence(s) that code for a brain big enough to create weapons that wipe out the race (or planet)? Already have that....
A larger protein containing that sequence could be spliced after translation.
That is rear event given the fact that known cases of such post-translational modifications are N-terminal peptides needed for transportation of extracellular proteins to and through the cellular membrane. There are certain structural rules that has to be observed for the leading aminoacid sequence to be detachable from the protein. And it still needs a site for transcription and translation.
The whole thing reminds me of the "Bible code" games, numerology that it is.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
but isn't this kind of research a good thing? If we're going to be screwing around with the genome and playing make glow in the dark piggies wouldn't it be good to know "Hey making this chain causes an organism to eat itself so we shouldn't do it?" It just seems like common sense to look into this kind of thing.
There are 33.4 billion trillions of water molecules in a gram of the stuff. I think you understated the number in the ocean by a few dozen orders of magnitude.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Just do the math! 4^11 = 4.2 billion.
COUGH. 4^11 == 2^22 == ~4 MILLION...
Now that the problem is only 1/1000th as complex as previously thought, is it still a waste of government money?
and I'll tell you why they don't exist. Actually, I'll tell you for free: they don't exist in nature because they're dead! Gosh, golly, a mutation occurs and the offspring dies in gestation or post-birth because it had a genome sequence that was incompatible with life. That's how it works.
I guess what they're saying is that there are bad/buggy/dangerous DNA sequences (code) that don't exist naturally. Does that mean that God is a good programmer?
Nah... I think it means Evolution is a okay programmer...
Then again there are: viruses, defects, dead code, all in a long mess of completely uncommented stuff.
If God exists, he sure hows how to hold on to His "Job Security".
If you haven't read "White Plague", that's pretty much the plot for the book. A genetic scientist doing research in Ireland has his wife and kids blown away in front of him by an IRA bomb. As revenge on the Irish, he contructs a plague through viral manipulation of bacterial DNA, contructing unnatural DNA sequences. This plague kills only women, and men are carriers.
Frank wrote this a couple decades ago, and his non- Dune books contain more scientific and social insights than any other author I've read.
Happy New Year!
I kid, at least I'm not trying to flame / insult.
...
Yet, I still post AC
It just so happens that I do consider viruses to be a special case - straddling (IMHO) the fine line between animate and inanimate. If one accepts the definition of a virus as a special case, then I believe my assertion is valid.
Watch out. Darkseid's been looking for the anti-life equation for a looong time.
'Nature's got a way, brothers, of scraping the bowl'
That is rear event given the fact that known cases of such post-translational modifications are N-terminal peptides needed for transportation of extracellular proteins to and through the cellular membrane
I agree it's likely a rare event. However there are likely other classes of post-translation modification that we haven't discovered, and the protein doesn't have to be extra-cellular.
Given all the excitement with RNAi over the last decade (which wasn't supposed to happen when I was in grad school) I'm much less likely now to rule out the functionality of smaller macromolecules.
Well gee, way to turn a perfectly benign study into mechanisms of evolution into a fearmongering worst-case scenario. There is very little here that would have potential for "weaponization". The main reason is, and will always be, that biological warfare is more difficult to do than any other type of warfare. Ultimately, it will usually be easier to just shoot somebody.
From a different perspective, are you worried about some kind of "let's see if we can make a really scary DNA sequence that can kill all life just for the hell of it" scenario, you're not thinking very rationally. Life has been confronted by such variations over and over again in the process of evolution... it is quite robust to "bad" DNA. Even if some "toxic" DNA sequence were created, it would have very limited use, and it is quite impossible to think any one sequence could be toxic to all life. We already have toxins that can kill many animals, why are you "for one not sure you like the possible directions" those toxins can take?? Grow up... it's scaremongering like this that keeps people in a state of fear about biotech research.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I, Ned Flanders, take offense at you lumping others with me. I am a lefty crybaby (please visit me at my store) and I do not oppose the government spending my tax dollars on beneficial research.
Thanks,
Ned
First, 4^11 is 4194304 not 4.2 billion. Even granted your pertinent observations regarding purine to pyrimidine ratios that are skewed in most genomes, it seem to me that your blowoff of this kind of research is off-target.
While some permuations of nucleotide sequences may not be present due simply to chance alone, it would be interesting to learn WHY particular permuations are absent or in very low frequency. One might presume that they are due to selection against certain kinds of combinations that result from steric hindrance at the time of protein folding, it is not altogether clear WHY specific sequences should under NO CIRCUMSTANCES appear in any genomes.
Although I am not a molecular biologist, it is my understanding that current mathematical models for protein folding that arise from the nature of physical forces within the atoms making up the resultant polypeptides can not be universally used to predict protein folding. Consequently, from a functional perspective it would be important to know exactly what factors are involved in the apparent absence of specific permutations. One might hypothesize that some may be absent not because the resultant proteins are "dangerous/venomous", even though this may be true for some, but rather that they may be absent because of intrisic limitations of the way they are assembled at the ribosomes and related intracellular machinery.
Hence, as a means of indirect inference, the proposed research could potentially be valuable in what it might tell us about how that machinery is constructed and operates. It might be that as you suggest such absence can simply be explained by chance error due to sampling. However, given that 4,194,304 is less than ~ 3 billion it is NOT THE CASE that your calculation can be used prima fascie as a reason to rule out the existence of some permuations.
As far as DOD use, what is moral and what is good depends a lot on what criteria you apply in particular situations. Moral absolutism doesn't really exist except in imaginary enviroments.
Well, maybe the DoD's never heard of folding@home. And the 'researcher' just found a nice, cushy way of modifying the FAH client, and blow the rest of his grant money on booze and hookers.
couldn't we just use this in some way to target cancer cells? I can see the headlines now:
"NEW VIRUS KILLS CANCER DEAD."
"Unredeemably dangerous" is just a small subset of "useless". I strongly suspect that a lot of entirely useless sequences will be found, a few novel and interesting ones that aren't particularly harmful and possibly even useful, and not much else.
DNA just wants to be free...
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
Along those lines, a short story: The Moral Virologist, Greg Egan.
Which is exactly why we need to upgrade to Occam's Laser, which probably runs "With all things being equal, lasers are the best solution". For example, see the original case of "Solo vs Greedo"
http://liquidben.com - Aspiring to an 'under construction' gif
The idea that there are genetic sequences incomapatible with life is quite plausible. Miscarriages, still-births, even embryo death, and even SIDS may have some underlying genetic cause. Maybe there is some mutated gene that when expressed either kills the embryo outright or more slowly over time. This might give us some insight into unexplainable pregnacies failures. If it is like looking for a needle in a haystack that is not there, then maybe they should look in a different haystack. Instead of comparing DNA in living organisms, maybe they should DNA of those that didn't get a chance to live.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
I work for an biotech research organization and that is going to take a long time. We only sequenced only a fair amount of the known naturally occurring protein sequences already and we have yet to map out the rest of the naturally occurring protein sequences. Even with all usable PCR machines in the working a full tilt it may take another 10 to 20 year to sequences naturally occurring proteins an another 10 to 20 years to understand those sequences. Anything "junk" protein left over from this sequencing will be the non-existent proteins.
> Discoveries such as these don't necessarily have to spell destruction to the world.
WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE TERRORISTS?
My other car is first.
I think I heard Rob Gates talking about building a clone army...
The bullets made of Uranium have a disruptive effect on DNA because Uranium is a heavy metal.
I think the actual point of this research is more interesting, and less alarming than it first appears.
We tend to think of the genetic code the same way we think of writing on a page of paper -- regardless of how much or little sense the letters are made, it has little impact on the way the "paper" works. However, in genetics, the DNA is both the medium, message, and part of the playback device all at once.
To put it in IT-geekspeak, there may be sequences that are like the "lace" punchcards of yesteryear (A punchcard with all punched-out spaces, thus making a fragile grid that would tend to jam the reader) -- a valid string of information, but which interact badly with the physical part of the apparatus. We already are well familiar with some of the genetic equivalants of punchcard lace, such as certain highly repetitive sequences which cause the "machinery" to jam and stutter (For instance, the repeat codon involved in Fragile X Syndrome), it would be interesting to know if there are more subtle sequences that "don't work".
where in
""" (Jeremiah 10:2) Thus says Yahweh, "Don't learn the way of the nations, and don't be dismayed at the signs of the sky; for the nations are dismayed at them """
prohibits Christmas Trees???
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048