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Russia Plans To Build World First DNA Databank of All Living Things
An anonymous reader writes Researchers from Moscow State University plan to build a database that will house the DNA of every creature known to man. The University has secured a $194 million grant for the project dubbed "Noah's Ark." The gigantic "ark," set to be completed by 2018, will be 430 sq km in size, built at one of the university's central campuses. "It will enable us to cryogenically freeze and store various cellular materials, which can then reproduce. It will also contain information systems. Not everything needs to be kept in a petri dish," MSU rector Viktor Sadivnichy says.
We can't let Putin send out the first galactic seed ships! We need to dedicate ourselves to spreading our precious bodily fluids all across the universe before the Commies beat us to it!
So 78 sextillion rubles then?
ark builds you!
For comparison: (300 cubits) * (50 cubits) * (30 cubits) = 4.30 × 10-5 km^3 ;)
Refrigerated storage of samples? They'll probably just a build a wall around a 430 km^2-sized area in Northern Siberia and call it a day. ;-)
Ezekiel 23:20
"It will enable us to cryogenically freeze and store various cellular materials, which can then reproduce."
But they don't actually have the technology to do that, right? So isn't this the same thing as humans cryogenicaly freezing themselves now, blindly assuming that future scientists will be able to remove anti-freeze from their veins?
In other words, isn't this giant expensive project entirely predicated on the the development of future technology that can actually use these samples, without any guarantee whatsoever that that technology will materialize?
In Russia, at least 2/3rds of all money gets stolen outright on any project like this (and the rest gets similarly picked apart by subcontractors until nothing is left). This is nothing but a front to pilfer government money. Nothing to see here, move along.
A great science fiction series about humanity sending out and later retrieving a stash of unpatented genetic material from an alien planet is Wess'har Wars by Karen Travis.
That's what you get for sleeping next to a bear.
Sounds like another Skolkovo. But I am not sure if this new project would even take off given the economy trends.
And their math does not add up: "a record injection of 1 billion rubles (US$194 million)". With RUB/USD rate > 50 they are an order of magnitude wrong in one of the numbers.
Scanning the comments section under the article is interesting. An incredible collection of delusional morons, or simply a throng of fake accounts posting (poorly written) Russian propaganda. The notion that actual human beings could be behind these opinions is frightening...
Aren't there already several DNA library initiatives underway? I think one is called LifeTechnologies, and then there's the seed vault in Norway (I think it's Norway). There was also talks a long time ago about putting a DNA library on the moon, which obviously has not happened yet.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
... are belong to us
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
To say nothing of the fact that, since to collect the DNA of a single-cell lifeform will essentially kill it, they intend on wiping out all bacteria, amoebae, etc.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
I'll bet the figure was 430,000 sq m and some bright journalist decided that he could save space by replacing three zeros with a "k".
So that's what, a little more than 20Km per side; if it's a sqaure block? Not happening anywhere, especially in Russia since the currency tanked.
Also, storing something as tiny as DNA requires little space...
"First DNA Databank of All Living Things"
"database that will house the DNA of every creature known to man"
Those might be grammatically similar, but the numbers differ by several orders of magnitude.
Humans really know mostly about multi-cellular critters, plus the tiny fraction of the single-celled species that interact with us somehow. Almost all single-celled species are yet to be discovered.
One of the more interesting bits of evidence is that all of the deep-drilling projects, which have sampled only a tiny chunk of the planet's crust, have reported single-celled living things "all the way down". It'll take a while for us to do a good study of everything living deep down there. Similarly, several deep-water sampling projects have turned up large numbers of unknown microscopic species throughout their water columns.
I guess this mostly goes to show how difficult it can be to do a good journalistic job of summarizing scientific work so that non-scientists can understand the actual results. "Ordinary English" (or French or Russian or any other human language) is sufficiently imprecise that it's very difficult to avoid misleading mistakes like the two summaries of this story.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I'd think that real estate, of all things, would be the last of issues in Russia. However, I'd imagine it might do them good to make this in Siberia, instead of Muscovy - less of that $194M needs to go into just buying the real estate.
KGB is passe - FSB or SVR are the replacement organizations.
"Stay on the PCR run, boys. I'm gonna get them DNA strands replicated if it harelips everybody on Bear Creek!"
-Major Kong
You can't build anything 430 square km in size for $194 million. Certainly not in central Moscow, because that's roughly the land area of *all* of Moscow. Even if you're just counting internal floor area and you build it 100 stories tall, it'd be the largest building in the world by floor area by a factor of 400, would be about the size of lower Manhattan, and be the largest building in the world by footprint by a factor of eight.
Post-soviet Russia has a long track record of announcing glorious plans for amazing science and technology and not doing them. Going by press releases, they've got what, six Mars missions underway right now? Occasionally Russia does something cool, but I say, give 'em credit for their achievements, not their plans, because 99% of their plans are just pipe dreams. Goes double if it's announced by RT.com.
I read some science fiction once, where the people in power did something like this, then nuked the entire world so they could start over from scratch, with their frozen samples. Just how delusional is Putin anyway?
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
isn't this just more war rhetoric ?
That would be a neat trick, since we haven't discovered and cataloged all species yet, not even close.
Take beetles as an example. New species of beetles are being discovered constantly. Beetles make up a quarter of all known animal life-forms, and by some estimates there are orders of magnitude more undiscovered beetle species than there are known animal species of any kind. We will probably never even come close to discovering them all.
They've been beaten to it http://www.freshmess.com/2008/...
Where can I make a deposit?
CHA-CHING!
- Holy crap, I've got MOD points! Who thought that was a good idea.