Largest Genome Ever

sciencehabit writes "A rare Japanese flower named Paris japonica sports an astonishing 149 billion base pairs, making it 50 times the size of a human genome — and the largest genome ever found. The genome would be taller than Big Ben if stretched out end to end. The researchers warn however that big genomes tend to be a liability: plants with lots of DNA have more trouble tolerating pollution and extreme climatic extinctions—and they grow more slowly than plants with less DNA, because it takes so long to replicate their genome."

Comments

Re:Can atheists refute one simple fact?

[atmurray]

“I contend we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”- Stephen F. Roberts

Thanks for the warning about big genomes

[Anonymous Coward]

The researchers warn however that big genomes tend to be a liability: plants with lots of DNA have more trouble tolerating pollution and extreme climatic extinctions--and they grow more slowly than plants with less DNA, because it takes so long to replicate their genome.

Thanks for the warning; I'll remember it when designing future plant species.

- God

Re:Mohammed? Gay? I think not

[Eskarel]

I suppose there's also a matter of scale, when you're probably not going to live to see 30, waiting till 25 seems a bit of a stretch.

Re:Can atheists refute one simple fact?

[Patch86]

All we can infer from Big Bang theory is that the current state of the observable universe originated from a single point of space some 13.5 billion years ago, and has expanded out from that point ever since.

It makes no judgement on what the universe looked like immediately before, or it's cause. Possibilities such as a cyclical universe, or the observable universe as part of a greater whole (such as a multiverse), are not ruled out by BB theory (and predicted by some theories, such as M-String theory).

The possibility of "all of existence" essentially following a Steady State model is still an open one. And unfortunately due to the nature of the observability of the universe, probably impossible to prove conclusively one way or the other.

IANATheoreticalCosmologist, by the by.

Re:Can atheists refute one simple fact?

[vadim_t]

Other people spoke of the other parts of this already, but I thought I'd make a point I rarely see:

When people speak of religion being the source of morality, it becomes obvious they never actually read the bible. In it, Moses, Abraham and a few other people actually argue with God and get him to change his mind on smiting some people. If they can argue with God on smiting, then they must have a source of morality that's not God, because otherwise whatever God says is the moral thing, and there can't be an argument.

Don't feed the trolls, fuckwits!

[Anonymous Coward]

but seriously what drives you, man?

Probably the fact that you and so many other Slashdotters bother to feed such a lame troll. Thanks to your collective idiocy, this mind-numbingly offtopic thread contains the majority of posts in this story.

YOU ARE ALL FUCKING RETARDS.

indeed

[DrYak]

you joke, but that's indeed the case :
- were're hot blooded and thermally regulated
- we live in an environment with a very narrow varability
(i mean the direct environment next to our skin. When it's cold outdoor, we just put more clothes on, instead of going out naked)

thus our enzymes have only to work in a very specific range of conditions. Unlike this plant which has to sustain a wide range of variations, and thus needs lots of different genes coding for similar proteins,but each optimised for a slightly different set of conditions to cover the whole range (to be able to carry on a reaction no matter the temperature, plant just picks up the variant which works best at the current temperature. Meanwile, we just set the internal thermostat on 37C, use only the 37C-optimized enzyme, and be done with it)