The most interesting article in the March 24, 2000 Science issue that described the recent fly sequencing is comparative protein complexity. Once you have the genome, you can start deducing better the mix of proteins in organisms. Proteins do most of work of life and are harder to analyze than DNA. Only a few percent in humans are understood.
These three organisms: worm, fly and yeast were the first three complex organisms to be fully sequenced. (Mouse, human, dog, corn, rice, and tobacco are in the works.) It turns out that the worm is slightly more complex than the fly, and both are about twice as complex as yeast. It is expected humans will come in about twice as complex as a worm. We'll know in a few months.
Protein complexity is not necessarily the same thing as organism complexity. All organisms on earth have been evolving for four billion years, so have the same chance at complexity. Genetic mechanisms for managing complexity have been evolving too.
It may be humbling to find that from a genetic measure, humans are simpler than some other plants and animals.
In the Fly sequencing description, they split each chromosome into three different size pieces- about 2K, 10K and 100K kilobases. Then they do mutual comparisons of ends to find overlaps, sort of like a "super grep". The pairwise comparisons runs into the trillions, hence supercomputing. Matching "junk DNA" pieces is difficult, because junk DNA tends to be very repetative. They've been getting a 98% match rate. These assembly tricks are described in detail in the March 24, 2000 issue of Science. The human genome is 15 times larger than the fly genome. This ethod has been tested on several smaller organisms with surprising success.
The published genetic codes are at <A HREF=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi ?db=Genome> this government site </A>. Submission of data to this site is REQUIRED before a scientific journal will publish an article about your results. However, these may not appear on the web site until the day of publication (e.g. the fly genome in March 24, 2000 Science). So I wouldn't look for the Full Human until sometime in year 2001 here. (The shortest chromosome #22 is all there already.)
But weren't as resourceful as the private section. They were planning for take 15 years and $3 billion. Mr. Ventor figured out how to do it in three years for 1/10th the price.
Celera is using five, while the NIH/DOE project is using ten. 995 out of a 1000 base pairs will be the same between humans. The fifteen humans will provide error-cross checking, plus the locations where humans vary.
90% percent of our genes are similar, probably because we shared 90% of our evolutionary history (first 3.5 of 4 billion years). Most of these similarities are basic proteins all land animals share in their metabolism.
They've been around since the mid-80s, "old-age" in the computer industry. Someone there has deep pockets, beacuse they've only shipped a couple of machines for revenue according to their reports.
When I was job hunting in the early eighties, the corporate status symbol was to have a Cray super-computer. These were polygonal towers (good shape for minimizing slow wire lengths) with a encircling bench at the base. The job interviewers would invite you to sit on the bench as the ultimate Geek perk.
A decade later, on a trip to China, companies would show me their Galaxy supercomputers, identical in shape to the Cray-1, but a little larger. (Probably identical circuits too.)
The gravtitational force of a planet accelerates the star a few meters per second, turning its color redder or bluer than before. The earlier threshhold was about ten Jupiter masses. The current is about a half Jupiter mass, or change in accerleration of 3 m / sec^2. You got to measure these color changes with respect to a good fraction of the orbit - months or years apart. Because this technique is so young, we have only observed the faster planets now. The slower ones, i.e. as far out as Earth will come in time.
Even though half of NASA's interplanetary spacecraft seem to be blowing up lately, the ones that do make return fabulous results. The Mars Surveyer makes new discoveries every week, including swiss-cheese polar soils, and the real shape of the Mars face. Galileo is running triple its two year Jupiter mission, despite the attenna disaster that cut data rates 98%. I grieve when NASA fails and rejoice when they triumph.
Steven Hawking calculated that black holes have temperature and eventually evaporate after unimaginable periods of time. (By virtual particle pair creation on the horizon and one half escapes, leaking energy.)
The book in the heading, postulates what the universe would be like where the main source of energy is the evaporation of black holes. This would be after the era of thermonuclear light (current) and after all hadrons (protons, etc.) had distintigrated. The universe would immensely larger, older, colder, darker, and slower than it is now (where immense is defined by multiplying/dividing all current scales by @10E50.) Yet it might even be able to sustain organized patterns- life, intelligence- but immensely slow compared to current such.
A smallish black hole (a few solar masses or less) will have the behavior you claim- ripping things apart frm the tremendous gravitational gradient (tide) over the size of a nearby object. However a very massive hole- on the order of billions solar masses would appear moe benign. The tidal force would be barely noticeable. When you crossed the horizon, your any radio (EM) messages to the outside universe would stop making it out.
People have written sci-fi stories about these closed universes.
There are several gigabytes of human and non-human CTAG sequences freely available on the Web. Most of it hasn't been interpreted yet. They can find where protein coding start/end and give similarity measures to know proteins, but most is unknown.
Some of the press reports today say as many 90% of fly genes are in humans. That is not too surprising, considering we diverged about 600-800 million years ago, thus have a 80+% shared evolutionary history.
I'd write more, but have to fly off to suck some fruit now!
In 20th America and Britain the cuckold father rate has been about 10%. This has been known since the days of blood transfusion and organ transplants. Doctors politely say "no match" and don't go into detail. The cuckold rate in other societies and times could be higher, given human nature.
Most of the announced genomes have been single cell, except for a simple worm. I guess this is largest so far. Two mammals- the lab rat and human are near completion.
Slashdot Mirror
I read somewhere last year about President Clinton ....
:-) :-)
donating DNA
:-)
A large solar storm knocking a power grid or
com-sat is a real problem in this active solar
year.
The most interesting article in the March 24, 2000 Science issue that described the recent
fly sequencing is comparative protein complexity.
Once you have the genome, you can start deducing better the mix of proteins in organisms. Proteins do most of work of life and are harder to analyze than DNA. Only a few percent in humans are understood.
These three organisms: worm, fly and yeast
were the first three complex organisms to be
fully sequenced. (Mouse, human, dog, corn, rice, and tobacco are in the works.)
It turns out that the worm is slightly more complex
than the fly, and both are about twice as complex
as yeast. It is expected humans will come in
about twice as complex as a worm. We'll know in
a few months.
Protein complexity is not necessarily the same
thing as organism complexity.
All organisms on earth have been evolving for
four billion years, so have the same chance
at complexity.
Genetic mechanisms for managing complexity have
been evolving too.
It may be humbling to find that from a genetic
measure, humans are simpler than some other
plants and animals.
In the Fly sequencing description, they split
each chromosome into three different size pieces-
about 2K, 10K and 100K kilobases.
Then they do mutual comparisons of ends to find
overlaps, sort of like a "super grep".
The pairwise comparisons runs into the trillions,
hence supercomputing.
Matching "junk DNA" pieces is difficult,
because junk DNA tends to be very repetative.
They've been getting a 98% match rate.
These assembly tricks are described in detail
in the March 24, 2000 issue of Science.
The human genome is 15 times larger than the fly genome.
This ethod has been tested on several smaller
organisms with surprising success.
The published genetic codes are ati ?db=Genome> this government site </A>.
<A HREF=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcg
Submission of data to this site is REQUIRED
before a scientific journal will publish an
article about your results.
However, these may not appear on the web site
until the day of publication (e.g. the fly genome in March 24, 2000 Science).
So I wouldn't look for the Full Human until
sometime in year 2001 here. (The shortest chromosome #22 is all there already.)
But weren't as resourceful as the private section.
They were planning for take 15 years and $3 billion.
Mr. Ventor figured out how to do it in three years
for 1/10th the price.
Human relatives differ by 0.1% or less.
Humans different by 0.5% among themelves.
Chimps differ from humans 2.0%.
Fruit flies differ by 10-15%.
Most of the human cancer gene defects have been
found in fruit flies according to March 24 Science article.
Celera is using five, while the NIH/DOE project
is using ten. 995 out of a 1000 base pairs
will be the same between humans. The fifteen
humans will provide error-cross checking,
plus the locations where humans vary.
90% percent of our genes are similar,
probably because we shared 90% of our evolutionary
history (first 3.5 of 4 billion years).
Most of these similarities are basic proteins
all land animals share in their metabolism.
AIX has been on since the late 1980s.
It didn't drive as many peripheral devices
as MVS, nor as efficiency, but was much easier
to code for.
They've been around since the mid-80s,
"old-age" in the computer industry.
Someone there has deep pockets,
beacuse they've only shipped a couple of
machines for revenue according to their reports.
When I was job hunting in the early eighties,
the corporate status symbol was to have a Cray
super-computer. These were polygonal towers
(good shape for minimizing slow wire lengths)
with a encircling bench at the base. The job
interviewers would invite you to sit on the bench
as the ultimate Geek perk.
A decade later, on a trip to China, companies
would show me their Galaxy supercomputers,
identical in shape to the Cray-1, but a little
larger. (Probably identical circuits too.)
Tera gets Cray for $15M cash (plus stock and loans)
for which SGI bought for $780M.
How the mighty have fallen!
The gravtitational force of a planet accelerates
the star a few meters per second,
turning its color redder or bluer than before.
The earlier threshhold was about ten Jupiter masses.
The current is about a half Jupiter mass,
or change in accerleration of 3 m / sec^2.
You got to measure these color changes with
respect to a good fraction of the orbit - months
or years apart. Because this technique is so
young, we have only observed the faster planets
now. The slower ones, i.e. as far out as Earth
will come in time.
Has a major section on the history of hacks at
MIT, many of the pre-computer ones.
Also an interesting exhibit of kinetic art.
Note: the MIT Museum is not on the main campus,
but a couple blocks up Mass Ave (#265 Mass Ave).
Even though half of NASA's interplanetary
spacecraft seem to be blowing up lately,
the ones that do make return fabulous results.
The Mars Surveyer makes new discoveries every
week, including swiss-cheese polar soils,
and the real shape of the Mars face.
Galileo is running triple its two year Jupiter
mission, despite the attenna disaster that cut
data rates 98%.
I grieve when NASA fails and rejoice when they
triumph.
Steven Hawking calculated that black holes
have temperature and eventually evaporate after
unimaginable periods of time. (By virtual
particle pair creation on the horizon and one half
escapes, leaking energy.)
The book in the heading, postulates what the
universe would be like where the main source
of energy is the evaporation of black holes.
This would be after the era of thermonuclear light
(current) and after all hadrons (protons, etc.)
had distintigrated. The universe would immensely
larger, older, colder, darker, and slower than it is now
(where immense is defined by multiplying/dividing
all current scales by @10E50.) Yet it might even
be able to sustain organized patterns- life, intelligence- but immensely slow compared to current such.
A smallish black hole (a few solar masses or less)
will have the behavior you claim- ripping things
apart frm the tremendous gravitational gradient
(tide) over the size of a nearby object.
However a very massive hole- on the order of billions solar masses would appear moe benign.
The tidal force would be barely noticeable.
When you crossed the horizon, your any radio (EM)
messages to the outside universe would stop making it out.
People have written sci-fi stories about these
closed universes.
There are several gigabytes of human and non-human
CTAG sequences freely available on the Web.
Most of it hasn't been interpreted yet.
They can find where protein coding start/end
and give similarity measures to know proteins,
but most is unknown.
Some of the press reports today say as many 90%
of fly genes are in humans. That is not too
surprising, considering we diverged about 600-800
million years ago, thus have a 80+% shared
evolutionary history.
I'd write more, but have to fly off to suck some
fruit now!
In 20th America and Britain the cuckold father
rate has been about 10%. This has been known
since the days of blood transfusion and organ transplants. Doctors politely say "no match"
and don't go into detail.
The cuckold rate in other societies and times
could be higher, given human nature.
Most of the announced genomes have been single
cell, except for a simple worm. I guess this
is largest so far. Two mammals- the lab rat and
human are near completion.
According to NYTimes article
That means the Celera shotgun pieces
have been ordered, except for 1200 pieces
that haven't been worked out yet.
They've been working on it for years, but completed it now.
They've been working a human for a decade,
but will complete it in a few months.