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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."
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.
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.
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?
I hope you're not serious that a "shinny very fast dedicated computer" costs $10k. You can easily spend $100k on a good computer and of course science is driving these massive supercomputing clusters that probably cost $10k/day to operate. Anyways... back to your question.
where do the remaining 990 000 dollars go?
Salaries to pay the PhDs to process and analyze the data and tune the software and not go to China or Russia or someone else who'd like to know more about this stuff.
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.
I have to agree with another child post. Let me give you some non-violent and important examples of the DoD's research.
1. The Internet. You are using it now. It was originally created by ARPA, now DARPA, which is part of the DoD. You can thank the need for a interconnected, wired (and unwired) network for computer systems the military was using for the "Birth of the Internet."
2. GPS. Another advance that came from a military need.
3. Computers. Not entirely DoD based, but ENIAC was built for calculating artillery firing tables for the US Army, which falls under what is now the DoD.
Those are just three I can think of pretty readily without having to go digging for information. Do they do other research into weapons? Yes. Is it all to make things more deadly? Not necessarily. It is really to make them more effective and efficient. A lot of these researches are done in an attempt to save soldiers' lives and to prevent civilian casualties. A lot of their medical research is along the same vein. If not for some dumb laws (created by the US government), I wouldn't be surprised if the DoD was dumping tons of money into stem-cell research too. Trust me, it isn't all bad.
"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb."
But forensic analyses of blood has found cases well before 1969 (the earliest definite is 1959), and current research has the earliest cases at some time in the 1930's.
So no it doesn't sound like AIDS was manufactured.
1. Create deadly AIDS virus.
2. Release to Africa and homosexuals.
3. Profit?
Seriously, let's say the US government possessed such a useless weapon as a blood-borne disease. Let's say they decided to use it. They didn't test it on prisoners or Soviets... no, they went to dirt-poor Africa and infected a bunch of folk there. And maybe they went to San Francisco and infected some gay folks, too. Then the government manages to keep this whole operation a secret and never uses this "weapon" again. The government is terrible at keeping even important things secret - to the point where they redact documents by changing their color in a PDF! Do you really think that the US government was able to develop a virus in secret, and then deploy it in secret?
That violates Occam's razor. A much simpler explanation is that AIDS evolved to exploit weaknesses in the human immune system, just as many diseases that have come before it.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
A big problem is idiots like you who make generalizations like "science" done by fundamentalists only tries to explain the "observations" found in the Bible. Again... if the science stands up it's science... it doesn't matter if it was done by a brilliant genious or a druged-out bum who happens to think the FSM is real... if the science is good it's good, period. Just because someone is an athiest doesn't make their science good. Just because someone is a Christian doesn't make their science bad. The science stands on it's own!
Dump the stupid agendas. If the science can't stand up then it can't stand up. If the science does stand up then it does... unless you're saying "I want to believe in randomly caused macro-evolution so much that I want to ignore scientific evidence from anyone who doesn't agree with me."
Who are the remaining 1% who wouldn't want this cure?
Religious fanatics. There is a new vaccine out now for HPV that can prevent cervical cancer in women, and some religious organizations are debating whether it is "moral" for teenage girls to have the vaccine. They think the threat of getting HPV and cervical cancer may prevent girls from having premarital sex.