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Turing's Theory of Chemical Morphogenesis Validated 60 Years After His Death

cold fjord writes "Phys.org reports, "Alan Turing's accomplishments in computer science are well known, but lesser known is his impact on biology and chemistry. In his only paper on biology (PDF), Turing proposed a theory of morphogenesis, or how identical copies of a single cell differentiate, for example, into an organism with arms and legs, a head and tail. Now, 60 years after Turing's death, researchers from Brandeis University and the University of Pittsburgh have provided the first experimental evidence that validates Turing's theory in cell-like structures. The team published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday, March 10.""

74 comments

  1. Re:Alan Turing was Gay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Rick Santorum? That you, buddy?

  2. Please stop linking paywalled papers. by xophos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Science should be readable by anyone.
    Don't advertise the profiteers.

    1. Re: Please stop linking paywalled papers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Chuck Peta!

    2. Re: Please stop linking paywalled papers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Fuck parent up, remember to mod beta.

    3. Re: Please stop linking paywalled papers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Chuck Testa!

    4. Re: Please stop linking paywalled papers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope

    5. Re:Please stop linking paywalled papers. by azav · · Score: 1

      Someone's got to pay to fund the research.

      --
      - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
    6. Re:Please stop linking paywalled papers. by cduffy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Someone's got to pay to fund the research.

      ...but that someone isn't generally the publishers running the paywalls, so how is that relevant?

    7. Re: Please stop linking paywalled papers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lack Tesla?

    8. Re:Please stop linking paywalled papers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You pay the publishers, publishers pay the people who fronted money for the study, they paid the scientists. Money moves through many hands

    9. Re:Please stop linking paywalled papers. by interkin3tic · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I agree that the papers should be open, but I disagree that not linking to the paywalled site is a good answer. Publishers of scientific journals don't get much money by individuals paying for papers. They get their money from universities and research institutions paying the toll. The paywall for individuals is just to keep forcing the universities paying. What you said is true for paywalls on general periodicals like wall street journal or new york times (if either still does that), since people actually might buy access to those articles. Not PNAS.

      Furthermore, the primary source is important obviously. Most of the time with slashdot articles, you get a link to some three paragraph blurb in science daily or Time, and the actual paper is not linked in that article. Meanwhile, there are questions here that can only be answered by details which are in the actual paper but aren't in the blurby news story. These questions could be answered by people who do have access, but without a link to the paywalled paper, such people are less likely to bother tracking it down.

      That criticism doesn't go for phys.org: they have the link to the actual paper at the bottom. Good on them.

      Again, publicly funded research should be open access, I'm not saying paywalls are good or justified.

    10. Re:Please stop linking paywalled papers. by turning+in+circles · · Score: 2

      PNAS has an option where the researcher uses $1,350 or $1,000 funds to make the research Open Access. The money to do this can be written into grants. Alternatively, the researchers can publish in another journal that is open access (again for a fee). So, blame the researcher, not the journal.

      --
      Might as well face it I'm addicted to data.
    11. Re:Please stop linking paywalled papers. by rgmoore · · Score: 1

      The publishers aren't paying for research. If anything, they're taking money away from research by charging too much for journals and, in many cases, additional fees to authors to get their work published. Most of the money paying for research comes from government grants, and thus ultimately from the public, and then the journal publishers try to lock it up and make everyone pay a second time to see the work they've already paid for.

      --

      There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.

    12. Re: Please stop linking paywalled papers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who cares about the findings, Turing's original paper is available free! That is the only important resource, so what are you bitching about? Not like you could understand the paper anyway! You are informed of the content of the paper in terms that you might understand, so nothing is lost.

    13. Re:Please stop linking paywalled papers. by cduffy · · Score: 5, Informative

      publishers pay the people who fronted money for the study

      If only they did.

      Funds paid to scientific publishers pay for editing, not for the original studies. Moreover, peer review -- the most important part of the process -- is almost universally done for free by other scientists in the field; the publishers are just mediators in that process, adding minimal value.

    14. Re:Please stop linking paywalled papers. by kevmitch · · Score: 1

      Quite the reverse. The authors typically also pay to have the paper published.

    15. Re:Please stop linking paywalled papers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong.

      Taxpayers pay the NSF/NIH/etc. NSF pays the universities. The universities pay the grad students. Grad students do the work, professors get the tenure. Publications simply serve as "referees", to make sure that the work that grad students do is good enough to get their advisors tenure. Which, of course, is a noble profession and worthy of the millions of dollars their articles cost.

    16. Re:Please stop linking paywalled papers. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      True they get tons of money from university access, but that's all profit. They employ minimal editors and reviews review for free. Then they double-dip by charging to publish and for access to the publications. The minimal service they provide is hosting a bunch of documents online and forwarding papers to review to reviewers (normally professors).

      A well implemented open source solution (a non-open solution that is less greedy would work too) backed up by an initial set of reviewers can wipe them out and pay reviews to actually review the articles using publishing funds. I'm not a people person, I don't have connections to get a group of reviewers. The software is almost trivial.

  3. Re: Alan Turing was Gay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I believed he invented the turing car :E

  4. On Turing by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

    Is there nothing he couldn't do?

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    1. Re:On Turing by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 4, Funny

      Is there nothing he couldn't do?

      Women.

      (I kid, I kid.)

    2. Re:On Turing by Noryungi · · Score: 1

      Actually, he could not do women and candied apples.

      You should have seen his latest attempt.

      (Yes, I am kidding as well - I find it very sad that he was not able to do more in his life due to the stupid laws of his time).

      --
      The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
    3. Re:On Turing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is there nothing he couldn't do?

      Turn straight?

    4. Re:On Turing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Metabolize poison.

    5. Re:On Turing by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 1

      I don't get it. What's the candied apples thing all about?

    6. Re:On Turing by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      Father a child?

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    7. Re:On Turing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Turing is widely regarded to have commited suicide by eating an arsenic-laced apple.

    8. Re:On Turing by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 1

      Is there nothing he couldn't do?

      Women.

      (I kid, I kid.)

      Actually, he probably could but wasn't interested. No that I am done being pedantic (I'd say anal retentive but that would be too obvious in this discussion), imagine what he could have done but didn't because of how society treated him? What insights and ideas did we lose?

      --
      I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    9. Re:On Turing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Determine if programs halt?

    10. Re:On Turing by Megol · · Score: 1

      Was he infertile?

    11. Re:On Turing by wisnoskij · · Score: 1

      He was gay, which is one obstacle.
      Then they castrated him for being gay.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    12. Re:On Turing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Turn straight?

      You'd make a terrible back-seat driver.

    13. Re:On Turing by TheCarp · · Score: 3, Interesting

      No not arsenic, cyanide:

      On 8 June 1954, Turing's cleaner found him dead. He had died the previous day. A post-mortem examination established that the cause of death was cyanide poisoning. When his body was discovered, an apple lay half-eaten beside his bed, and although the apple was not tested for cyanide
      (wikipedia)

      Although.... that isn't the whole story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

      There is some speculation that he may have inhaled cyanide accidentlly, (which would be proposterous unless he had say... was doing gold electroplating in his house....oh which he was. He also apparently was known to eat an apple before bed nightly.

      Now perhaps it was accidental, perhaps the whole gold plating thing was just to justify having cyanide around? Nobody is ever going to know.... but the poisioned apple makes for a nice story and adds a bit more mystery to the man than accidental inhalation of chemicals while trying to gold plate his silverware.

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    14. Re:On Turing by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      Chemically, not surgically.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    15. Re:On Turing by wisnoskij · · Score: 2

      Implying that he could still father a child? I know he was chemically castrated, but did not think the method was relevant, was I wrong?

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    16. Re:On Turing by AGMW · · Score: 1

      Apparently, only women, but I think we long ago realised that wasn't a problem!

      --
      Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
      handmadehands.co.uk
    17. Re:On Turing by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Implying that he could still father a child?

      Yes. He'd certainly find it a lot easier than if they'd cut his knackers off. Chemical castration reduces libido but does not, as far as I can ascertain, impair actual fertility. And it's reversible.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    18. Re:On Turing by AGMW · · Score: 1

      Ha ... my own fault for not refreshing the page before posting ... but if you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can ... oh forget it!

      --
      Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
      handmadehands.co.uk
    19. Re:On Turing by Megol · · Score: 1

      It's only recently homosexual avoid getting children. Not liking women sexually doesn't mean they can't get children and in the past not having children could make ones old age very poor. The same applies to heterosexuals of course, in the past it was common to be married and get children with people one didn't like or even hate for that is how it was.

    20. Re:On Turing by wisnoskij · · Score: 2

      Depends. A lot of cultures put homosexuals into Shamen/Preists roles. The entire driving evolutionary force behind homosexuality I believe is to have free, unattached, men who could help the community instead of just their own families.

      Yes, people without children were poor; Though I strongly disagree that they disliked each other, but homosexual males were meant to fill other societal roles.

      --
      Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    21. Re:On Turing by osu-neko · · Score: 1

      Is there nothing he couldn't do?

      Withhold certain information while talking to cops.

      --
      "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
    22. Re:On Turing by wasteoid · · Score: 1

      +1 Funny (oddly no more mod points after i started using beta)

    23. Re:On Turing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Though I strongly disagree that they disliked each other, but homosexual males were meant to fill other societal roles.

      I read Megol's comment "in the past it was common to be married and get children with people one didn't like or even hate" as homosexuals would parent children with an opposite-sex partner whom they didn't necessarily get along with, for the sake of having children to take care of them in their old age.

  5. On a roll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    recently his pardon, now this? he's on a roll lately...or is rolling in ones grave not a good thing?

    1. Re:On a roll by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      recently his pardon, now this? he's on a roll lately...or is rolling in ones grave not a good thing?

      That depends. Is his grave turning complete?

  6. Re: Alan Turing was Gay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck you faggot

  7. Details? by wisnoskij · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is this a huge find, will this make these scientists big names? Or was the reason it took so long to validate because no one really cared?

    Was this expected, has everyone assumed he was right for a long time, or was their a lot of controversy?

    --
    Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
    1. Re:Details? by Vitriol+Angst · · Score: 1

      In order to save time and 30 replies, the answer is Yes and No to all of your questions. And at least three posts explaining why they were silly questions.

      --
      >>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
    2. Re:Details? by clawsoon · · Score: 2

      Coincidentally, I was reading Chapter 21 of Molecular Biology of the Cell by Alberts et al last night, which discusses some of the many experiments which have been done to demonstrate the effect. Intercellular chemical gradients involving counteracting exciters and inhibitors are only one of many effects that control differentiation, however. There are also:

      • - intracellular gradients leading to asymmetric cell division (e.g. the place where the sperm enters the egg creates a protein gradient across the egg that determines the future head/ass orientation of the body)
      • - timing mechanisms (e.g. the on-off cycle that appears to be responsible for the development of vertebrae)
      • - cell-to-cell contact, either directly with neighbours or over longer distances through tubes or spikes

      So Turing figured out one of the mechanisms, and it was certainly an important accomplishment. If Google Scholar is telling the truth, his paper has over 8000 citations, including around 1,500 that mention "embryo", so his accomplishment hasn't been ignored. The claims of this new paper for novelty, though, seem a bit weaker.

  8. long ago by stenvar · · Score: 2

    Creating artificial chemical structures based on his theory, like this paper seems to do, is a neat additional gimmick, but that has been done many times before. Even if it were new, it wouldn't be little more than a simulation of his equations; what counts is whether biology behaves like he predicted.

    The real test of Turing's theory is whether it describes actual morphogenesis, and it has been shown to do that, many times over the years. That's the real "validation".

  9. Re:Alan Turing was Gay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Actually, no he wasn't. He was quite morose and depressed. You would be too if you were a homosexual in 50s Britain.

  10. I think it's time by invictusvoyd · · Score: 4, Funny

    We should give him the Turing award .

    1. Re:I think it's time by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      It's not uncommon for an eponymous award to be won by the person it's named after. In fact, they're often the first person to win it, if they're alive.

      Alas, if only that had been the case for Alan Turing.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
    2. Re:I think it's time by invictusvoyd · · Score: 1

      With due respect of your views , I've spent some sarcasm towards the way in which this great genius of humanity was treated in his times . just and just for his sexual preference .. Imagine "chemically castrating" Elton john .. ( not that i'm a great fan of his music .. but ..)

    3. Re:I think it's time by ClickOnThis · · Score: 1

      Thanks for respecting my views. I certainly didn't mean any disrespect to yours -- in fact, I agree with them. Your original post was (rightly) modded funny. I was just adding some information.

      --
      If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
  11. Re: Alan Turing was Gay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LOL Looser

  12. Chemistry vs Molecular Biology by wombatmobile · · Score: 5, Informative

    Turing's theory was formulated in an era when physics and chemistry were the foundation components of biology. The problem he was trying to solve is: How is biological complexity achieved in terms of fundamental chemistry and physics? At the time, chemistry could explain how two poisonous chemicals, sodium and chlorine, could combine to produce a substance as benign as common table sale (NaCl). But nothing could explain how a single cell could develop into something as complex as a fish, or a mouse, or a human being.

    In 1953, Crick and Watson published a paper in Nature that revealed the chemical structure of DNA. The discovery was a revolution in science because it changed biology from an amalgam of physics and chemistry into an information science. In DNA and RNA, a whole vocabulary of computing was encoded. Suddenly, the complexity of biological processes such as embryogenesis, heredity, and cancer could be understood in programmatic terms through the molecular language of DNA.

    Turing's theory of chemical morphogenesis doesn't mention DNA. As such, it is too simple to explain morphogenesis per se. Rather, his concept of intercellular reaction-diffusion may be applied to cell biology inter alia, but it isn't the big picture. Crick and Watson worked that out, thanks in no small part to Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins.

    1. Re: Chemistry vs Molecular Biology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop trying to raise the level of discourse! This is the Internet!

    2. Re:Chemistry vs Molecular Biology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Then again what the DNA and RNA actually perform is to encode chemicals which can trigger the reactions that Turing was describing in his paper. I agree with you that the discovery of this process was revolutionary (even more so once large scale decoding of DNA sequences started to happen), but ultimately it still is a chemical process which happens inside of cells.

      Various chemical receptors can also trigger certain DNA sequences to be enabled or suppressed to in turn create other organic molecules as encoded in that DNA, hence the relevance.

      Of course some people suggest that Maxwell basically discovered the Theory of Relativity with his equations of electrodynamics. If not necessarily discovering that theory, then certainly supported the theoretical background that Einstein later built upon. I think in this case Turing deserves a similar accolade for providing some early theoretical work that was built upon by later researchers... just as all good science tends to do anyway. Besides, it is otherwise just another citation of Turing's paper, which is still a good thing in terms of showing Turing actually did know what he was talking about.

    3. Re:Chemistry vs Molecular Biology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maxwell can also been seen as complete alternative to relativity, but this path was never fully explored or understood.

  13. Re:Alan Turing was Gay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's not even a bad pun. It's just stupid.

    But it's understandable considering Turing was smarter than you by an order of magnitude, in every possible way.

  14. Re:not bad work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    not a bad comment ... for a dumbass

  15. Re:Alan Turing was Gay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    it's hard to believe that you were the sperm that made it through

  16. I see, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm a theoretical evolution kook, sure I believe in evolution, but as a gag, I refuse to accept it until it is formally proven to be statistically likely. In my arsenal of inconvenience I use simulations and commonly accepted theories to demonstrate that the odds for evolution is far greater than otherwise assumed. Mostly I'm ignored and that sadens me a little bit because this should be fun.... Nevertheless, this new finding; it does give me a few things to consider. I admit I never saw it and it will cause me some problems that I will have to adjust to, however those who believe will of course say they already knew it from the beginning, furthering their assurance that I'm a kook. This is not what they need though...

  17. Re: Alan Turing was Gay by Muros · · Score: 3, Informative

    ...and a pedophile, which is why he got prosecuted in the first place.

    That is untrue. The prosecution was for "gross indecency" with a 19 year old man, who was also prosecuted.

  18. Re:not bad work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "not bad work .... for a poofter"

    Written on a device extensively using said poofters paradigms.