You know, I was just considering posting a comment just like this. I'm a grad student at the Med Center, and nothing makes an 8 AM class a little more tolerable than the odor of fresh chocolate on the way in from the parking lot. I love Hershey:)
Unfortunately, there exist phage-resistant genes (and organisms) just like antibiotic resistance. A lot of classical genetics back in the day (early to mid 20th century) was done with different strains of E. coli and bacteriophages altered in one way or another. For some types of phages, all that is required for resistance is for the potential host to lose a single cell-surface antigen, and the viral particle can't bind.
Addressing another concern, your immune system may or may not mount a defense against the bacteriophage, depending on lots of things, including phage used, composition of viral coat, antigen presentation by dendritic cells and macrophages, etc. etc. And while it may seem like a good idea to begin with, purposely infecting a person with a competent virus (i.e., not inactivated or killed, because viral replication is what kills the bacteria) is quite risky. They are (pseudo)living things that kill other living things, and they may decide that humans are more fun to infect than bacteria.
Check out this site here and read up on Morpholinos. The news release is a little too dumbed-down to be much use (and didn't cite any references), but this is pretty much the same thing. Most morpholinos need to be injected directly into the cell, at least to be effective for what they're being used for (gene knockdowns, etc), but liposome or other delivery mechanisms could easily be developed to deliver them via inhalation, injection, pills, whatever.
These only bind to single-stranded RNAs, so there's no worry of interfering with DNA. They are fairly stable, phenotypes can be rescued, quite cheap, and easy to work with.
I used to work for a company that offers this very thing. High-speed wireless via several antennas mounted on various cell towers and buildings around the greater Harrisburg (PA, USA) area. Our market was mainly to businesses seeking to eliminate local loop charges for ISDN, T1, etc. Depending on location, the speed was quite nice, from 256k to 3M. We also did VPNs, intranets, extranets, and other assorted buzzwords. And, best of all, our servers were all Linux and FreeBSD (we try to please everybody:)
Oh yeah, they've also been in business for since 1997ish...
I know this doesn't directly address your question, but there are ways of getting around certain "JavaScript" incompatibilities, such as those that Fox TV had a while ago. Junkbuster is a great proxy that besides doing other things like blocking banner ads and unnecessary cookies, lets you change the UserAgent to any string your little heart desires. Add in a little "Mozilla/4.75 [en] (Win98; U)" or whatever your favorite is (that was just pulled randomly out of my access_log) and away you go. This is only a partial fix, however, so I would still recommend getting some sort of high-level person on the phone and reminding them that your business can very easily go elsewhere over a silly little "We only support Mac and Windows" policy.
Microsoft's Windows, in contrast, can run on hardware from multiple makers. <p>
Last time I tried to install <i>any</i> version of Windows on PPC, or SPARC, or or anything other than Intel (and formerly Alpha for NT) it wouldn't run. i386 seems to be the only supported architecture, and until not that long ago, only Intel made 'em.
How long has BSD been around?
A must-read for any Open Source fan
on
Hackers
·
· Score: 1
I discovered this book while browsing the 15-cent book sale my local library's been running forever, and have had it in my own personal "library" on the back of the toilet since then. It goes a long way towards explaining the hacker ethic and the beginnings of the open source movement back in the fifties, with tapes left in a drawer at the TX-0, to be modified by anyone with the skills. I would definitely encourage Levy to update his marvelous piece of work.
I am an unabashed Metallica fan, and have been for as long as I've been listening to music. I own every single album, Live Shit, imports, bootlegs, memorabilia, etc. I also use Napster. I went out and bought S&M because I heard a track on mp3 first (one that wasn't "radio-friendly") and decided to get the whole thing. Why try and punish me for being a lifelong fan and wanting to arrange my own playlist without a 20-disc changer?
This is a wonderful accomplishment - now we can get started on the main problem.
The main problem, ie figuring out what the genes actually <i>do</i> in a living organism, has for the most part already been solved. <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i> is probably the most studied eukaryote (non-bacteria) organism, being used in high-school biology classes and graduate research programs. It's easy to take care of, has a short generation time, and many mutations are easily determined by their physical or biochemical effects on the organism as a whole. Most if not all of the genes, as well as their relative locations on the chromosome have already been determined empirically. That is, they knew where the gene lived and what it did, but not what its exact makeup was. With the actual sequencing complete, we can begin to alter the genome intentionally and specifically, instead of just breeding for different mutations.
So if you say that its your default internet connection, then it'll make things really, really simple
<b><i>Default</i></b> generally implies that there are other choices available. If I have IE installed and install Netscape, then start IE again, a message pops up asking me if I want to make IE my "default" browser. Even if I click yes, it doesn't delete Netscape (yet:)
If I want to make a Dial-Up Networking connection my "default" connection, it doesn't delete the others. It just means I need to manually select it when I want to use it. If I'm a dumb newbie, I'll never use it again, but that doesn't mean it should be removed.
I can't believe that some people are actually considering this to be useful. I am having even more trouble comprehending the fact that people think that these advances are actually a GOOD thing (advances probably isn't the best word).
Because it could save MY life, that's why. I have Crohn's Disease. I've had 4 surgeries in the past 2 1/2 years. I take medicine every single day for stabbing, throbbing pain in my gut. I hurt every time I have to go to the bathroom, or walk around for a while, or even just sitting in a chair. I've lost about a foot of intestines, and stand to lose more. Sooner or later, there won't be any more to take out. After one surgery, my bowel perforated, spilling the contents into my abdominal cavity, giving me septicemia (blood poisoning) and nearly killing me. I spent 4 months of hell recovering from that.
Why does any of this matter? I'm currently on Remicade treatment, which is a monoclonal antibody. This medication, given intravenously a few times a year, has enormously improved my symptoms. The pain goes away, my appetite is better, I sleep better, and I feel like a normal person. If researchers had thought to themselves Why THE HELL would we want to change our genetic makeup? then the chances are that I'd either be in the hospital or so high on painkillers that I couldn't see straight. Remicade has changed the genetic makeup of my immune system, and I love it. It has made my life better and more enjoyable. I've dedicated my life to finding a cure for Crohn's Disease, and it will probably involve changing at least a part of the genome of the patient. If it gives them less pain and a better life, it's completely worth it, luddites notwithstanding.
Re:Any chance this could lead to tougher virii? (Score:2) by tve (--- t.erven - chello.nl --- ( - -> @)) on Saturday January 15, @09:53AM The article states that it fits neatly into a groove on the surface of the virus. That sounds to me like the only selection process here is that of the form of this groove. So the only thing that could happen is that viri that have a different kind of groove will survive and that the others will not.
Being a biochemist/immunologist, I can tell you that the "groove" on the surface of this particular form of virus is more or less equivalent to two nostrils, in human terms. It's not something that we're going to change through evolution anytime soon - it's an integral part of our anatomy. This groove on the virus casing is pretty much the same. Our nostrils don't help us reproduce, but this groove is part of the replication process of the virus. If you inhibit this step, you inhibit the replication.
I've used Mandrake 6.0 and 6.1, as well as bits of 7.0 for quite a few months now. I've built all the kernels from 2.2.9 onwards with this setup, and I've only had I believe 4 kernel panics, all of them related to the file system (losing power and forgetting to fsck my HDs). I've used 2.2.13 and 2.2.14 the most, done a lot of wacky things, and pgcc hasn't let me down yet. I've also built probably 40-50 other packages with it, and haven't seen any problems yet. I am running a true Intel box and not AMD/Cyrix, so that could be a factor as well. I think pgcc is actually maturing now:)
Mandrake 7 ISOs have been available for at least a couple of weeks. rpmfind.net has 'em, sunsite has 'em, everybody has 'em. Individual RPMs are available for download as well. This is the start of Mandrake beginning to pull away from a mere "Redhat with extras" and actually put some original stuff in the distro. I quote from their website:
New perl/gtk based graphical installer Drakx, including many languages support and DiskDrake partitioner (lets one change the size of Ext2, FAT... disk partitions).
Use of supermount (integrated in kernel 2.2.14) in order to suppress the need of mount and umount for most removable medias (cdrom, floppy, zip): Mandrake easier to use than ever!
Several security levels that let you use your Linux box like a jail (extremely high security, restricted use), or like a very common proprietary OSes (very poor security, no constraint in use). Default is medium security level like in most standard Linux distributions.
Improved desktop integration with new tools like DrakConf and rpmdrake that let the user manage its Linux-Mandrake box like a charm.
New hardware configuration tools like lothar and XFdrake.
So that's about it...I can't wait until this is stable...from the packages I've installed already, this is going to be awesome.
Last, but not least, there's the argument that God (whoever/whatever God may be) gave everyone free will. To renounce that gift is clearly somethingyou can do, but since it goes against what God obviously wanted us to have, it's at best stupid and at worst a crime against nature.
And I'm not even going to start on the predestination/free will argument:)
As both a scientist (biochemistry) and an evangelical Christian (that's right, you can be both:) I have strong opinions on both sides of this argument. I firmly believe that only God can create life. I don't know how He did it, and I don't know if humankind will ever know how He did it, but He did. I don't think that what these scientists in question are thinking about doing is actually creating, it's just "cut and paste" as someone said earlier. Creating life is making something that can reproduce itself autonomously, from substances that were previously not living, such as amino acids and nucleotides. It's not taking genes, splicing them together, and then sticking them in an "empty shell", or the cell membrane/wall of another lifeform.
The point is that life needs to come from somewhere. It doesn't just appear where none was before. Complexity comes from previous complexity. They talk in the article about building up a DNA strand from scratch, synthesizing it in the lab. Where do the enzymes to do that come from? Do they expect to build macromolecules from elemental carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus?
On a different thread, just putting DNA in a bacterial shell isn't going to get you anywhere. Remember back to your biology classes - all that messenger RNA and transport RNA and ribosomes and transcription factors and all that? It doesn't come from nowhere. It needs to be syntesized from previous DNA. If it's already there, then this custom splicing of genetic code into a new form is nothing more than the genetic engineering that's been routinely performed for the past 20 or 30 years. Take some code, put it into another cell, change its function. Viruses have been doing that for millions of years.
Some others here have said that it's just a matter of understanding the structure of proteins and how the primary amino acid structure relates to the 3D tertiary and quaternary structure, and how the protein functions. IBM recently announced Blue Gene, a $100 million petaflop computer to unlock how proteins fold. I read in a news story recently that it could take Blue Gene 1 year to decode how 1 protein folds - to compute every possible conformation. There are (more or less) 18,000 genes in the human body, most of them coding for at least 1 protein and some for as many as 5 or 6. I think it's going to take a while before we figure this thing out.
Slashdot Mirror
You know, I was just considering posting a comment just like this. I'm a grad student at the Med Center, and nothing makes an 8 AM class a little more tolerable than the odor of fresh chocolate on the way in from the parking lot. I love Hershey :)
Try viewing in UTF-8 instead of ISO-8859-1. That fixed it for me (Linux/Mozilla 1.2b).
Addressing another concern, your immune system may or may not mount a defense against the bacteriophage, depending on lots of things, including phage used, composition of viral coat, antigen presentation by dendritic cells and macrophages, etc. etc. And while it may seem like a good idea to begin with, purposely infecting a person with a competent virus (i.e., not inactivated or killed, because viral replication is what kills the bacteria) is quite risky. They are (pseudo)living things that kill other living things, and they may decide that humans are more fun to infect than bacteria.
Check out this site here and read up on Morpholinos. The news release is a little too dumbed-down to be much use (and didn't cite any references), but this is pretty much the same thing. Most morpholinos need to be injected directly into the cell, at least to be effective for what they're being used for (gene knockdowns, etc), but liposome or other delivery mechanisms could easily be developed to deliver them via inhalation, injection, pills, whatever. These only bind to single-stranded RNAs, so there's no worry of interfering with DNA. They are fairly stable, phenotypes can be rescued, quite cheap, and easy to work with.
Oh yeah, they've also been in business for since 1997ish...
...is here for all to enjoy. Enjoy!
I know this doesn't directly address your question, but there are ways of getting around certain "JavaScript" incompatibilities, such as those that Fox TV had a while ago. Junkbuster is a great proxy that besides doing other things like blocking banner ads and unnecessary cookies, lets you change the UserAgent to any string your little heart desires. Add in a little "Mozilla/4.75 [en] (Win98; U)" or whatever your favorite is (that was just pulled randomly out of my access_log) and away you go. This is only a partial fix, however, so I would still recommend getting some sort of high-level person on the phone and reminding them that your business can very easily go elsewhere over a silly little "We only support Mac and Windows" policy.
Microsoft's Windows, in contrast, can run on hardware from multiple makers.
<p>
Last time I tried to install <i>any</i> version of Windows on PPC, or SPARC, or or anything other than Intel (and formerly Alpha for NT) it wouldn't run. i386 seems to be the only supported architecture, and until not that long ago, only Intel made 'em.
How long has BSD been around?
I discovered this book while browsing the 15-cent book sale my local library's been running forever, and have had it in my own personal "library" on the back of the toilet since then. It goes a long way towards explaining the hacker ethic and the beginnings of the open source movement back in the fifties, with tapes left in a drawer at the TX-0, to be modified by anyone with the skills. I would definitely encourage Levy to update his marvelous piece of work.
I am an unabashed Metallica fan, and have been for as long as I've been listening to music. I own every single album, Live Shit, imports, bootlegs, memorabilia, etc. I also use Napster. I went out and bought S&M because I heard a track on mp3 first (one that wasn't "radio-friendly") and decided to get the whole thing. Why try and punish me for being a lifelong fan and wanting to arrange my own playlist without a 20-disc changer?
This is a wonderful accomplishment - now we can get started on the main problem.
The main problem, ie figuring out what the genes actually <i>do</i> in a living organism, has for the most part already been solved. <i>Drosophila melanogaster</i> is probably the most studied eukaryote (non-bacteria) organism, being used in high-school biology classes and graduate research programs. It's easy to take care of, has a short generation time, and many mutations are easily determined by their physical or biochemical effects on the organism as a whole. Most if not all of the genes, as well as their relative locations on the chromosome have already been determined empirically. That is, they knew where the gene lived and what it did, but not what its exact makeup was. With the actual sequencing complete, we can begin to alter the genome intentionally and specifically, instead of just breeding for different mutations.
So if you say that its your default internet connection, then it'll make things really, really simple
:)
<b><i>Default</i></b> generally implies that there are other choices available. If I have IE installed and install Netscape, then start IE again, a message pops up asking me if I want to make IE my "default" browser. Even if I click yes, it doesn't delete Netscape (yet
If I want to make a Dial-Up Networking connection my "default" connection, it doesn't delete the others. It just means I need to manually select it when I want to use it. If I'm a dumb newbie, I'll never use it again, but that doesn't mean it should be removed.
Matt
I can't believe that some people are actually considering this to be useful. I am having even more trouble comprehending the fact that people think that these advances are actually a GOOD thing (advances probably isn't the best word).
Because it could save MY life, that's why. I have Crohn's Disease. I've had 4 surgeries in the past 2 1/2 years. I take medicine every single day for stabbing, throbbing pain in my gut. I hurt every time I have to go to the bathroom, or walk around for a while, or even just sitting in a chair. I've lost about a foot of intestines, and stand to lose more. Sooner or later, there won't be any more to take out. After one surgery, my bowel perforated, spilling the contents into my abdominal cavity, giving me septicemia (blood poisoning) and nearly killing me. I spent 4 months of hell recovering from that.
Why does any of this matter? I'm currently on Remicade treatment, which is a monoclonal antibody. This medication, given intravenously a few times a year, has enormously improved my symptoms. The pain goes away, my appetite is better, I sleep better, and I feel like a normal person. If researchers had thought to themselves Why THE HELL would we want to change our genetic makeup? then the chances are that I'd either be in the hospital or so high on painkillers that I couldn't see straight. Remicade has changed the genetic makeup of my immune system, and I love it. It has made my life better and more enjoyable. I've dedicated my life to finding a cure for Crohn's Disease, and it will probably involve changing at least a part of the genome of the patient. If it gives them less pain and a better life, it's completely worth it, luddites notwithstanding.
Matt
Re:Any chance this could lead to tougher virii? (Score:2)
by tve (--- t.erven - chello.nl --- ( - -> @)) on Saturday January 15, @09:53AM The article states that it fits neatly into a groove on the surface of the virus. That sounds to me like the only selection process here is that of the form of this groove. So the only thing that could happen is that viri that have a different kind of groove will survive and that the others will not.
Being a biochemist/immunologist, I can tell you that the "groove" on the surface of this particular form of virus is more or less equivalent to two nostrils, in human terms. It's not something that we're going to change through evolution anytime soon - it's an integral part of our anatomy. This groove on the virus casing is pretty much the same. Our nostrils don't help us reproduce, but this groove is part of the replication process of the virus. If you inhibit this step, you inhibit the replication.
Matt
I've used Mandrake 6.0 and 6.1, as well as bits of 7.0 for quite a few months now. I've built all the kernels from 2.2.9 onwards with this setup, and I've only had I believe 4 kernel panics, all of them related to the file system (losing power and forgetting to fsck my HDs). I've used 2.2.13 and 2.2.14 the most, done a lot of wacky things, and pgcc hasn't let me down yet. I've also built probably 40-50 other packages with it, and haven't seen any problems yet. I am running a true Intel box and not AMD/Cyrix, so that could be a factor as well. I think pgcc is actually maturing now :)
Matt
So that's about it...I can't wait until this is stable...from the packages I've installed already, this is going to be awesome.
Matt
Last, but not least, there's the argument that God (whoever/whatever God may be) gave everyone free will. To renounce that gift is clearly somethingyou can do, but since it goes against what God obviously wanted us to have, it's at best stupid and at worst a crime against nature.
:)
:) I have strong opinions on both sides of this argument. I firmly believe that only God can create life. I don't know how He did it, and I don't know if humankind will ever know how He did it, but He did. I don't think that what these scientists in question are thinking about doing is actually creating, it's just "cut and paste" as someone said earlier. Creating life is making something that can reproduce itself autonomously, from substances that were previously not living, such as amino acids and nucleotides. It's not taking genes, splicing them together, and then sticking them in an "empty shell", or the cell membrane/wall of another lifeform.
And I'm not even going to start on the predestination/free will argument
As both a scientist (biochemistry) and an evangelical Christian (that's right, you can be both
The point is that life needs to come from somewhere. It doesn't just appear where none was before. Complexity comes from previous complexity. They talk in the article about building up a DNA strand from scratch, synthesizing it in the lab. Where do the enzymes to do that come from? Do they expect to build macromolecules from elemental carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and phosphorus?
On a different thread, just putting DNA in a bacterial shell isn't going to get you anywhere. Remember back to your biology classes - all that messenger RNA and transport RNA and ribosomes and transcription factors and all that? It doesn't come from nowhere. It needs to be syntesized from previous DNA. If it's already there, then this custom splicing of genetic code into a new form is nothing more than the genetic engineering that's been routinely performed for the past 20 or 30 years. Take some code, put it into another cell, change its function. Viruses have been doing that for millions of years.
Some others here have said that it's just a matter of understanding the structure of proteins and how the primary amino acid structure relates to the 3D tertiary and quaternary structure, and how the protein functions. IBM recently announced Blue Gene, a $100 million petaflop computer to unlock how proteins fold. I read in a news story recently that it could take Blue Gene 1 year to decode how 1 protein folds - to compute every possible conformation. There are (more or less) 18,000 genes in the human body, most of them coding for at least 1 protein and some for as many as 5 or 6. I think it's going to take a while before we figure this thing out.
Just a few thoughts.
Matt Morrison